‘Kwêla’ fame for Beaconhurst teacher

BEACONHURST High School teacher Ryno Simms could not believe his ears when he got a call from Home Affairs and Song Vir Katryn actor Therese Benade to say he would be featured on kykNET’s Kwêla programme.

Simms, who is the school’s Grade 11 head and also teaches maths literacy, said he was thrilled when Kwêla content producer Benade, told him the school’s deputy headgirl had nominated him for the “inspirerende onnie” [inspiring teacher] segment of the long-running Afrikaans magazine show.

He said he had no idea matric pupil Catelyn Cumberlege had penned an essay to the show in which she credited him for inspiring her to study law next year. She also wrote that the teacher, who organises an inventive matric farewell every year and founded the school newspaper, is a fair and highly driven “good example”.

“I felt overwhelmed that a pupil feels I am an influential teacher and I felt like a movie star when the Kwêla team came to the school and interviewed me. It will be broadcast midway through this month and will be a great way to promote our school,” Simms said.

In her essay, which she wrote in Afrikaans, Cumberlege wrote with great enthusiasm about how Simms – who is always “neatly dressed in a suit” – had introduced the school to the annual moot court competition, a simulated court scenario in which participants present written and oral arguments.

Under Simms’ tutelage, Cumberlege and classmate Thando Mtombeni came first in the provincial leg of the competition before being placed second in the national leg which was played out in the Constitutional Court.

Simms will once again coach two pupils in this year’s moot court competition, which will tackle the topical subject of hair codes in schools.

Cumberlege said she and Simms’s wife, Jacoline Simms, also a teacher at the school, had hatched the plot to send the letter to Kwêla in the hope of surprising him.

“When Kwêla came to film, Therese Benade said she had chosen my essay out of thousands, so I was very chuffed about that. It was great for me and Thando to be interviewed for TV about the essay and moot court. Simms is such a creative and inspiring teacher and if I am having a bad day, he will always motivate me.” —