Term 3 Headmaster's Address - 2022

Dear Staff, Parents and Students

2022 has been quite an extraordinary year in so many respects but, I feel especially honoured to lead our community and to play my role in ensuring that we continue to celebrate our illustrious history whilst working together to further develop and enhance this liberal and progressive Anglican school. 

We are privileged to have several staff join St Peter’s College and I want to take this opportunity to inform you of recent developments around staff promotions, resignations, new posts and appointments for 2023:

• HOD Business Studies – The current HOD Mrs Vuyelwa Kekana has accepted a post at Steyn City and is replaced by Mrs Halisha Ramlall, the HOD at the UCT online school.
• HOD of Creative Arts – With Mrs Crystal Miles stepping down as HOD, we have appointed Ms Staci Howard to replace Crystal from January 2023. This is an internal appointment.
• Social Science – Mrs Patricia Bossinger, who is the HOD at St Alban’s College will join St Peter’s College in January 2023 to replace the late Mr Francois du Toit.
• Physical Science – Mrs Gwyn Zimmerman has accepted a post at St Stithians Girls, both Mr Dylan Hayes and Ms Kgaogelo Mangena will be teaching some of Gwyn’s senior science classes in 2023. We have appointed Mr Dylan Cooper from Penryn College to teach the junior Technology classes in place of Dylan Hayes.
• Afrikaans – Mrs Rose Koffman has resigned as a member of the Afrikaans Department. We have appointed Mrs Nicolene Lehman, a very experienced senior Afrikaans teacher in a locum position to allow the college time to appoint a replacement for Rose. Ms Leska Mwakusa, currently an Afrikaans teacher at Curro Waterfall will be joining St Peter’s College in a full-time capacity in May 2023 once she has served her notice period.
• Sports Department – We welcome Mr Ona Manyisa (Strength and Conditioning) and Mr Kenneth Motaung (Head Basketball Coach) to our Sports Department and are looking forward to them adding their expertise to this ever growing facet of College life.
• Business Studies – Mrs Marsha Webber is emigrating to Chile and is replaced by Fr Tshepo Mokoka who joins us from St Katherine’s. Fr Tshepo is not only a Business Studies teacher but also happens to be an Anglican priest.

Please join me in welcoming the new staff to the College and wishing both Gwyn, Marsha and Vuyelwa much success at their new schools and thanking them for their service to St Peter’s College.

This year we take leave of two members of the St Peter’s College Council. Thank you to Mr Les Whittal (Campus Development) and Professor Zeblon Vilakazi (Academics) for your wonderful contribution over several years to St Peter’s College, you will be sorely missed.

The 2022 Academic programme has been another busy year with many changes. It is an exciting time, as change is the new norm. We have a great leadership team which thrives on change, diversity and progress. The team is focussed on accelerating learning and using current theory and evidence to improve professional practise. The Teaching and Learning which we are seeing at St Peter’s College in 2022 and beyond, is brilliant; the opportunities being afforded to our students is of the highest quality and meets the diverse range of learning needs.

Academic innovation has always been encouraged at St Peter’s College. Our Academic faculty, under the leadership of our Deputy Headmistress of Education, Mrs Shelly Matthews and her HOD (Head of Department) team have been instrumental in ensuring that the college continuously implements the best academic practice.

In 2023, the Module subjects will be run over a Term where the Grade 8 and 9 students will study three modules per Term. This will give the Elective Subjects more contact time, while still accommodating the new Elective Subjects introduced in 2022. Project-Based Learning will become a module alongside the Elective Subjects. The HODs have spent much time this Term planning on how to introduce rigorous projects into the Elective Modules. It is a privilege to see the passion and commitment of the teachers to promote the love of learning via the One Problem One Day cross-curricular days which will continue in 2023. We continue to promote blended learning.

During August of 2022, eleven teachers completed a 30-hour online course, the Active Connected Teaching Course (ACT) run by Professor Craig Blewett. He has a PhD in education technology. The ACT model is the first of its kind when it comes to cohesive taxonomy of digital age pedagogies.  

 

The Microsoft Innovation Expert (MIE) list was released at the beginning of September 2022. We are proud to announce that thirty-seven of our teachers were accepted into the program, eleven were renewal applications, and twenty-six were accepted for the first time. We are proud to announce that St Peter’s College was awarded Microsoft Showcase status. We are one of six schools in South Africa who met the exhaustive criteria to achieve this status. Microsoft Showcase Schools form part of an exclusive global community, recognised and celebrated for educational transformation that includes vision and innovation in teaching, learning and preparing students for the future. The Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert program recognises educator visionaries who are using technology to achieve better learning and student outcomes. Congratulations to our 37 members of staff who were recognised as MIE Experts for the 2022-2023 year.

What defines us as a college, is the courage, creativity and resilience with which successive generations of Old Petrian’s have responded to challenge, rather than the intrinsic nature of these challenges themselves. I am proud, and honoured, to be able to reiterate that I am fortunate to be working with some of the best educators that I have had the privilege to work alongside. The drive, passion and determination; underpinned by skill, knowledge and empathy, has seen Teaching and Learning continue to raise progress and achievement despite the ever changing social, learning and emotional needs with which we are confronted. The Academic team is aware of areas to develop and, through reflective practise, address these areas as individuals and as a whole staff approach.

A requirement for continued membership of ISASA for member schools, is that they undertake a Core Model evaluation that must be conducted once in every six-year cycle. St Peter’s College underwent the IQAA (Independent Quality Assurance Agency) evaluation process 4 years ago, hence we are due to conduct another survey in 2024. However, a new independent quality assurance agency, OISESA (Office of Independent Schools Evaluations) was established at the beginning of 2022 to oversee and implement this process.

St Peter’s College has been selected for a Quality Assurance Visit by OISESA during 2023. OISESA has confirmed that they will be onsite on 13-14 March, although the evaluation process will commence in January 2023.

In the interim, we decided to undergo an “Academic Climate Survey” with our parent and student body. School self-evaluation is primarily about school improvement and development. This self-evaluation process will enable us to take initiatives that will improve the quality of education that we provide for our students, to affirm and build on what is working well at St Peter’s College, to identify areas in need of development and to decide on actions that should be taken to bring about improvements in those areas. The results from this survey will assist the College in putting a strategy together for implementation in 2023 which will ensure continuous academic improvement.

The world after COVID-19 is unlikely to return to the world that was. Many trends already underway in the global economy are being accelerated by the impact of the pandemic. Edward David Asihene Obeng (born 1959) a British organisational theorist, educator, and author, serves as a professor at Henley Business School and his concept of the New World proposes that we have moved (as a world) from an age when we could learn faster than our local environment (the 'Old World'), to a new age where the local environment of individuals, organisations, and governments changes faster than we can learn (the 'New World'). He argues that, because of this shift, most of the concepts, best practices, and assumptions that we commonly used to plan, manage, lead, organise, and govern are obsolete and damaging to the lives of individuals, society, and organisations. Obeng describes this as smart failure for a fast changing world and is perhaps best summarised by Eric Hoffer's reflection that "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists".

In my Headmaster’s report to Council in 2020 on the topic of Transformation and Diversity, I had reported that as a College that embraces diversity, we needed to create a system and environment that welcomes and stimulates Employment Equity leading to valuing differences and similarities. We needed to be proactive in creating and sustaining an organizational climate in which the potential for diversity-related dynamics to hinder performance is minimized and the potential for diversity to enhance performance is maximized. Hence, the St Peter’s College Executive has been focused and deliberate in driving Transformation and the Skills & Equity Committee have recently undergone extensive training to ensure that all members understand their roles and responsibilities within the committee.

The entire College leadership team comprising of the College Executive team, Heads of Department and Grade Heads also underwent the intensive Dare to Lead™ training course which is a courage-building programme, which develops the skills of individuals, teams, leaders, schools and organisations to create the capability needed to become braver and develop more courageous cultures. 

The world needs to reset, problem solve, connect, create empathy, and stand up for what is right. Skill sets of courage-building will be practiced getting the learning “in your bones”.  

Our Campus Development has quite literally sprung into life over the past few months. A few days of warming temperatures with a little sunshine have banished memories of winter, encouraging us all to be increasingly optimistic about the future. When planning for the 2023 academic year, with the launch of our move towards a sense of “normality”, I am delighted to be able to report that the news is mostly extremely positive.

Due to popular demand, we can report that we have had continued growth in student numbers. With this healthy interest at all points of entry, including Grade 9-11, there is every expectation that the College will receive its biggest contingent of new students in its history when we open for the 2023 Academic year in January.

On the back of these confident predictions, the St Peter’s College Council granted authorisation to move to the next stage of planning and preparation for an exciting new capital development, the first significant investment in our academic infrastructure since the onset of COVID-19 in 2020. The building of our new state of the art Maths Centre has been completed and the state-of-the-art Indoor Basketball Centre and outdoor arena is also nearing completion.

We have a few CAPEX projects planned for 2023 which are part of our wider green energy plans and a move to significantly reduce our environmental impact and dependence on power and water supplied by utility companies.

• Water Harvesting - We have begun inserting water storage facilities at various key points in the college to capture rainwater.
• We are also going to be investing in solar energy, that will produce enough energy to cover a great portion of our power needs.
• We are currently in talks with Eskom to lease/purchase the land adjacent to St Peter’s College which will enable us to expand our parking capacity exponentially and will go a long way to ease the pressure on the traffic flow, especially during peak times.

We will be introducing a new food serving area on the “College Flats” for our students, staff and parents. The area has already been paved and we have been in negotiations with our current service provider who will be introducing a portable caravan/vehicle which has been refurbished for this purpose. It will have a different and exciting menu. We will be placing a number of tables/chairs and umbrellas on this site for the use of our College community.

Our Heritage Day celebrations began with a memorable Eucharist Service led by the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Johannesburg, the Rev Dr Steve Moreo as only St Peter’s College can. What a special and powerful message by Bishop Steve to our staff and students in his sermon – definitely "Food for the Soul". “There’s something special about this school, there's a vibe, an Africanness about the space, the learners and the teachers.” Bishop Steve Moreo. It was wonderful to see the myriad of cultural attire worn by both, our staff and students. Together, the St Peter’s College community celebrated the pride in being who we are, One Nation, All South Africans!” A special word of thanks to all our staff and students who joined in sharing with us the beauty and the glory of this, South Africa’s National Day. South Africans all over the world, gather to celebrate Heritage Day in style, in line with the theme: “United in our diversity, we share one unique, national culture! 

The Sports & Cultural Festival took place from Thursday, 22 – Sunday, 25 September 2022 and was a resounding success. It has undoubtedly been the most successful event in the 20-year history of this event, in what was the 17th edition of the Festival. In all, large numbers of College staff, parents and students worked tirelessly on registration, food, refereeing, clean-up and judging at the Festival. Over 3 000 participants, 1 000s of parents and community members and 42 schools came through the College gates and participated and supported the many activities on offer.

In conclusion, to all our students, remember to take the values that have been instilled in you at St Peter’s College, our Core Values or 4Rs of, Relationships, Respect, Responsibility and Resilience with you as you carry on through life. Show the world you care. Be a thinker. Always work hard. Communicate effectively through any means possible and continue to make those meaningful connections to develop as a unique individual. Try to remember that, as you face big changes, you are not alone. We will be thinking of you. There are good things waiting for you just around the corner. So, step out with confidence and take new opportunities in your stride.

For my part, I am enormously grateful to the St Peter’s College family for your continued support and encouragement. I am looking forward to the new academic year and wish everyone the very best for a little rest over the December holidays.

 

Rui Morais

Headmaster