St Dominic’s has had an eventful, blessed 2016
AS this year draws to a close, we look back with many fond memories on an eventful year. At the beginning of the second term Fr Grant James CO was appointed as Head of School, and throughout the year his hard work and dedication to the school has yielded great results.
Mrs Anne Jeal was appointed at the beginning of the third term as Deputy Head of School and brought along valuable expertise as she led and supported our academic departments. Under their great leadership, and through blessings from above, St Dominic’s Priory School has had an excellent year.
This year marked the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Dominican Order. In August, the school hosted all the other Dominican schools from our metro, with the schools participating in a great music festival in the marquee on our grounds.
This year will also be remembered for the year that iPads were introduced to the classrooms. Grades 4,7, 8, 9 and 10 had their textbooks in e-book format for the first time, with teachers adding many resources and interesting extra information directly onto pupils’ iPads via the ITSI system.
This technological development in education was perhaps daunting for many parents and staff, but was enthusiastically received by the pupils! And proved to be a great success, as a result our Grades 5, 6, and 11 will, next year, also move onto iPads.
As an Independent Examinations Board school, last year our Matrics, writing the IEB Examinations, achieved a 100% pass rate, with 55 A symbols and 85 B symbols among our 41 candidates. 88% obtained bachelor degree passes and 12% obtained diploma passes. One of our pupils was placed in the top 1% in South Africa for Mathematical Literacy with 96%.
Our Grade 11 pupils wrote the external IeBT Mathematics Examination set by the IEB in November last year and obtained an average on par with the national one.
Various external benchmarking examinations are written by Grades 6 (Core Skills), 7 (Match) and 9 (subject specific tests), which provide valuable insight into their progress and in which their averages compare well to the national averages.
The start of the year also saw construction teams begin new buildings. After many years of hard work, the Parent Staff Association (PSA) were able to finance the building of new change rooms on the Priory Field, while the School also erected a new aftercare building. Both these buildings were completed in time for this year’s Priory Fair, which was in many people’s minds one of the best organised and supported in many years.
“The Priory Fair, which has enjoyed pride of place on the Port Elizabeth community calendar over the decades, is an event not to be missed. Perfect weather has come to be expected, and, as the growing number of patrons can attest to, with the fun fair for the kids and beer garden with big screen television for the adults, it grows from strength to strength as the subcommittee works tirelessly to keep it relevant in changing times,” PSA chairman Chris Kisbey-Green says.
“The PSA is proud to be a part of the wonderful community, which is St Dominic’s Priory School.”
What a fantastic array of activities we have had in our cultural department this year, showcasing how diverse and talented our pupils are! Our appreciation is extended to our dedicated and passionate teachers, who have worked tirelessly to mould the creativity of our young pupils in music, drama and art.
With involvement in Royal Schools of Music and Trinity Examinations, Knock on Wood Festival, SASMT, IEB Exams, Band Tour, Interhouse One Act Plays and Priory’s Got Talent, this year has proved to be a busy year for our creative pupils, with many of our pupils walking away with top results!
On the sporting front, our teams have participated in fixtures and tournaments locally and elsewhere throughout the year. Our first team boys’ and girls’ cricket, hockey and soccer have all had very successful seasons.
Our waterpolo teams showed much improvement this year and our U11A cricket and hockey teams remained unbeaten in their respective league fixtures.
We are very proud of many of our pupils, who gained provincial and national recognition as individuals and/or as part of a team in a variety of sports including cricket, soccer, swimming, hockey, indoor hockey, indoor cricket, golf, sailing, mountain biking and lifesaving.
While the year was populated with these wonderful celebrations, hard work and dedication was the order of the day in the classrooms and on the sports fields.
Once again our staff and pupils have maintained very high standards, with our pupils achieving numerous accolades across all areas of school life, while also serving the poor and needy in places such as the Walmer soup kitchen and at the Walmer Clinic.
This year has been an eventful and blessed one!