Looking forward to tomorrow
SOUTHBORNE Primary School continues to go from strength to strength 56 years after it first started educating young minds in the Queenstown area.
Situated at 52 Wodehouse Street in Southbourne, the school is part of the town’s historic landscape.
It started out in 1959 as a small Afrikaansmedium preparatory school which offered education to pupils from the then Sub A (Grade 1) to Standard one (Grade 3).
At the time, and for many years later, the school met the needs of the community with a low teacher-pupil ratio and large enough grounds for the few pupils. The school adapted to change in later years and became an English-medium school with Afrikaans as first additional language.
The school continues in its fine tradition of providing an excellent educational foundation to its pupils and has been a feeder school to several other schools in the Queenstown area.
Recently, Southbourne adapted once again to the changing dynamics of the surrounding community and currently offers Grades R to five.
In 2016, the school will expand to include Grade 6 and in 2017 it is anticipated that Southbourne will have reached its goal of be- coming an all-encompassing primary school with the inclusion of Grade 7.
Principal Marelise Bekker said, “We realised that we needed to change exponentially in order to meet the growing demand for quality education in our community – and that the change needed to stay true to our history as an excellent foundation school.”
The SGB, in conjunction with the principal, had drawn up a comprehensive plan on how to meet the educational needs of pupils with the limited resources available.
“The parents and teachers have formed a cohesive and formidable team whose goal is to continue to uplift the South-
bourne brand and to raise funds in order to change the school aesthetics and accommodate new classrooms. Through their efforts we have been able to build two new buildings in the first term of 2015 to use as temporary classrooms. We thank the education department for allocating the funds for a much needed new roof.”
Bekker said the school believed in giving as much assistance to parents as possible to enable them to help their child or children with homework at home.
“We hold a homework workshop for Grade R parents in order to show them how to help their child at home. It will be extended to include all grades in the future. We hold regular meetings with parents about their child’s progress and we have remedial assistance.”
The school has included the iLifa sport programme into its curriculum, with the children being coached in hockey, netball, cricket, rugby, athletics, tennis and water safety. Chess and music are set to be included from next year.
“The school has had to make changes to the school aesthetics in order to accommodate the increase in sport activity – we have started with altering the area around the rugby field to accommodate an athletics track. There is also a big possibility that we might be the first school in Queenstown with an under-cover swimming pool – watch this space!”
Bekker said the school was ‘extremely proud’ of what it had achieved to date with the support of its parents and the Friends of Southbourne. The SGB is headed by chairman Ntsika Jaha, Tsepang Sonyoni, Robert Phato, treasurer City Smile and secretary Cebisa Xisaba.
Other key personnel at Southbourne include head of department (HOD) of the foundation phase Delores Marais and intermediate phase HOD Annemarie du Preez. Contact Southbourne on (045) 839 4629 with any enquiries.
‘Chess and music are set to be included from next
year’