Gun-toting thugs, poor matric results and burglaries were just some of the issues facing John Ramsay High five years ago.
|||Cape Town - Gun-toting thugs jumping over the fence and threatening pupils, poor matric results and repeated burglaries were just some of the issues facing John Ramsay High years ago.
But the Bishop Lavis school has turned itself around, increasing its matric pass rate from 54.6 percent in 2008 to 80.4 percent last year, and seeing a recently completed R3 million infrastructure upgrade.
Quentin Newman, who became principal in 2008, said that when he arrived the school was regarded as “high-risk”.
“All the classrooms’ light fittings and the electrical wires had been stolen. Computer applications technology classes couldn’t happen. The consumer studies children couldn’t do their practicals,” Newman said.
“Guys from outside” jumped over the walls and pointed guns at some of the pupils, he said. Other outsiders jumped over the fence with knives and one among them was stabbed.
During his first month at the school, Newman said he had spoken to teachers and pupils to get a sense of the problems at the school. Along with the governing body and teachers, he addressed the issues with the parents.
He also confronted “outsiders” who were causing problems inside the school, including a man who was using pupils to sell cigarettes and who threatened to damage Newman’s car after the principal confiscated some of the cigarettes.
Newman said small changes like painting 15 classrooms and creating a school hall by knocking two woodwork rooms together, had also helped to improve morale at the school.
Other issues, like keeping the grounds neat were also continuously addressed and pupils could be seen picking up chip packets at the school on Thursday.
While showing the Cape Argus the new facilities on Thursday, a group of pupils who were not in class were spotted and instructed by Newman to get to their classroom.
Newman retired from teaching in 1997 and managed a dance and music school in Atlantis for a few years. He then started working in the adult education sector.
A few years later the Education Department asked him to serve as a mentor principal at a school in Saron.
He has since worked as a mentor principal at several “at-risk schools”.
At a recent function to celebrate the school’s R3m upgrade, Education MEC Donald Grant said: “It’s not always an easy task moving from the bottom up, but your school has demonstrated that it is possible.”
Provincial education head Penny Vinjevold approached the school last year with the idea of improving infrastructure.
“In the case of John Ramsay, Ms Vinjevold was confident that the new upgrades to this school would benefit education in this community, becoming a beacon of opportunity to all children in Bishop Lavis. This plan would never have been approved if it were not for the success this school has achieved in recent years as well as a strong school management and teaching team,” Grant said.
The upgrade included a new administration office, toilets, new offices, safety gates and security lights. A section of the school grounds, which had not been fenced in, was also reclaimed.
A flat had been built on the premises and since a tenant moved in there had been no more burglaries.
Newman said teachers had also helped to secure several sponsorships for the school which had made it possible to acquire equipment including photocopiers.
He said that while there had been much improvement, the school still had issues to overcome.
Some pupils struggled to focus on their studies, or shared their homes with tik addicts or parents who sold drugs. School fees were also a problem with more than 500 of the school’s 700 pupils’ fees outstanding. He said a lack of interest from parents in their children’s schooling also remained a problem.
But the school would continue to strive for improvement. Plans included developing unused sports fields, replacing doors, door frames and broken windows and improving computer facilities.
ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za
Cape Argus