A NOTE FROM Shelley Frayne

An amalgamation, a compendium, a collection – call it what you will – we’ve curated, compiled, and present a combination of 2021 and 2022’s news and highlights for you to enjoy!

While 2021 should have been a year of celebration and a high point in the life of St Cyprian’s School, given that it marked our 150th birthday, such activity was diminished by the worldwide pandemic and the restrictions placed on individuals and institutions to prevent the spread of the destructive coronavirus. Essentially, any planning around celebrations, came to a grinding halt and the world focused on survival, a vaccination, and a cure.

And yet, despite the pandemic, in 2021 we managed a St Cyprian’s Day for Matrics and invited guests only, which was hosted across the Haggie Hall and Chapel, and we were delighted to honour Sue Redelinghuys with the Lily Award, celebrating her remarkable service to the school over 11 years as principal.

In 2008, when Sue took over the reins from Tessa Fairbairn, St Cyprian’s had grown from a struggling small school into one that many in the independent sector were observing with interest, especially in its pursuit as the first Round Square member school (1997) in Africa. Sue pushed the school even further onto the global stage with her educational vision to develop a new ‘Renaissance Woman’; growing students who would embrace change, challenge ideas, and become the creative leaders and critical thinkers of our century.

The building projects under Sue’s tenure supported her vision of producing critical and creative thinkers and leaders, all rooted in her vision and understanding that academics and all types of learning activities should drive infrastructure development. This led to our first Astro and a magnificent Multi-purpose Hall and Aquatic Centre, catering for a range of sports including swimming, water polo, netball, indoor hockey, tennis, and basketball. The library hubs in the Media Centre, the paved quads designed for group collaborative learning, the Life Centre, the Music Centre, the Creative Centre, the Science Centre, the upgraded Haggie Hall and the extended Prep classrooms, and the theatre-in-a-box, are all testimony to Sue’s vision.

In Sue’s time, St Cyprian’s was selected as a Microsoft Global Showcase School and robotics, programming and coding were introduced as subjects, along with a more integrated approach to teaching and learning. In a joint project with Oxford University, St Cyprian’s School established the first telescope at a girls’ school in Africa. The successful transition of our girls writing the IEB exams in Grade 12 is further testimony to her drive to provide St Cyprian’s students with the best academic platform into tertiary education possible. I congratulate Sue on receiving the Lily Award.

In 2021, we also squeezed in a Matric Dance, hosted in a glass marquee under the backdrop of Table Mountain. While the COVID curfew meant an early start and end, the dance was a resounding success and set the stage for future such dances and other events such as what has become an annual dinner, ‘Table under the Mountain’, for parents.

While the pandemic essentially robbed our young people of two years of normality; severely restricting sport, music, social events, Round Square integrated programmes and conferences, and other opportunities, it also wreaked havoc on our economy and sense of wellbeing to the extent that many members of our community lost jobs, businesses, or regular income, and a significant number within the St Cyprian’s family lost loved ones. As a community, St Cyprian’s rallied, standing strong, and can be proud of how it managed this time and the way it has prospered and grown.

I wish to pay tribute to the teaching staff especially. They boldly transitioned overnight to teaching online, then teaching a hybrid version of online and in-person, before moving back to full-time, in-person teaching. This, our teaching faculty achieved while supporting their own families and loved ones; St Cyprian’s was one of the first schools in the country to bring their students back and many staff children attending other schools remained at home for a further four months. I salute Sarah Mitchell and her IT team for their forward thinking which saw most of the technological infrastructure in place before the pandemic landed. Our Matric results at the end of 2021, as well as National Benchmarking Tests administered to other grades, bear testimony to our success during and post COVID. Our school is on the map as one of the top academic schools in the country.

2022 began with most restrictions still in place but as they were slowly lifted, so we moved to roll out previously shelved events in celebration of our 150th birthday and to normalize activities and events that had been scaled down or put on hold during the pandemic. And so, it was only in my third year of tenure as principal of St Cyprian’s School that I, along with many students and staff, experienced the full might of St Cyprian’s Day fittingly hosted in St George’s Cathedral. What a magnificent celebration St Cyprian’s Day is! It carries with it a long-held tradition that reminds us of our heritage and faith, of those that have come before us, and of who we are. It is a celebration of thanksgiving and love for our beautiful school and community.

It is fitting that at St Cyprian’s Day in 2022, the recipients of the Lily Award were the three epidemiologists that gifted us their great wisdom, knowledge, and expertise during the coronavirus era: Drs Nandi Siegfried, Jim te Water and David Pienaar. These individuals are experts in the field of disease, and parents at heart, who combined science with common sense, who understood the ramifications beyond disease and illness and considered social and emotional wellness in their approach as advisors to us. Drs Siegfried, te Water Naude and Pienaar were at the core of our successful navigation of two years of Covid-19 and we as a community owe them an enormous thank you for their selfless commitment to ensure our collective health and wellness and purpose that is education.

2022 was jam-packed with 150th celebrations and attempts to make up for the lost two years. Our Music department’s, ‘Night of the Stars’ marked a new celebration of individual and ensemble music in the City Hall; the Drama department produced 150 Minutes of Fabulous, and Art and Design showcased an exhibition called, ‘Through our Eyes’. Each of these was testament to our remarkable ability as a school to bounce back and together they were exceptional in the depth of talent, wonderment, resilience, and teamwork evident.

What a pleasure it is to host matches and galas at home!

At the start of 2022, we introduced the Cambridge curriculum as an additional academic stream, alongside the IEB Matric. Our Grade 10s were offered the option of continuing through to Matric in the IEB stream or opting to change to the Cambridge curriculum and completing their AS and A Levels at the end of Grades 11 and 12 respectively. Our first cohort of St Cyprian’s students writing Cambridge exams achieved remarkable success in their AS Levels. In the national awards, Maya Roy attained a High Achievement Award for AS Level French and Eden Loots was named top in the country for AS Level Art and Design. Our 17 Cambridge students are on track towards very good results in their A Levels at the end of 2023.

Those who wrote the IEB Matric exams at the end of 2022 attained the best results for St Cyprian’s in these exams in its history. 35 of the 67 candidates attained an A aggregate and the grade average of four distinctions per candidate put us in second place nationally, closely behind Roedean. We were exceptionally excited and proud to note that four St Cyprian’s School students were placed on the IEB Merit list for Outstanding Achievement for placing in the top 5% nationally across 6 subjects: Gia Antoni, Kate Vineall, EmmaBeth Peters and Janneke van der Walt. As a school, we are committed to continuing to offer both curricula at the highest standard for the foreseeable future thereby responding to the varying needs of individual students in the South African educational context.

At the end of 2022, St Cyprian’s School is riding the crest of the wave. We are a school of choice with applications exceeding spaces; we are participating and excelling across all spheres, inclusive of academics, sport and cultural activities; and we are embracing change and innovation while remaining true to our heritage and ethos. It is important that we never forget our purpose and that we stay true to our values. In so doing, we will fulfil the aspiration of, ‘Changing the World One Girl at a Time.’

Sport began in earnest with a record number of teams in the various leagues and some outstanding results. It was only in 2022 that we were able to appreciate fully our wonderful new sporting facilities inclusive of the astro turf and multipurpose hall and aquatic centre.

I close with some anecdotal evidence to make a point. I am often requested by prospective students and parents or other visitors to meet them at school over a weekend. This I don’t mind doing and if it is the only available time for them, I happily accommodate the request. However, not without pointing out that they are unlikely to experience and witness the heart and soul of the school. Our location, buildings and grounds are magnificent, and we are exceptionally proud of them but it’s the people that make up the St Cyprian’s community that are its lifeblood – the students, parents, staff and council. All contribute and add value to our wonderful institution, and I thank them all.

MORE THAN JUST A 150-YEAR-OLD CYPRESS TREE

By Miki King

What makes St Cyprian’s, St Cyprian’s? It is the students, staff, the arts, music, the love of the school that the students and teachers express, and it is also the garden. Gardens have history. Gardens never die. Gardens remind us of where we began.

Our garden’s heart at St Cyprian’s is the cypress tree. The tall tree that looks over the front of the school. The tree that every student, parent, teacher, staff member and visitor immediately sees when they enter the gate. So, what is this impactful tree’s history?

There was a farm at the foot of Table Mountain called Nooitgedacht, a wonderful term meaning ‘never imagined’. This is a fitting name because in the same year that St Cyprian’s purchased this property, WWI broke out in Europe and all hope of building on these new premises was lost. In 1914, Frank Kendall and James Morris started designing the school around the remnants of the decaying farmhouse and most importantly the cypress tree. Kendall and Morris’s design started coming to life in 1919. The no-longer decaying farmhouse, is now known as the Vooorkamer and our thriving cypress tree outside is the trademark entrance to our beautiful school.

Cypress trees are evergreens and are therefore known as ‘trees of life’. In Greek mythology, they symbolise everlasting life and are used in rituals of death but represent the eternity of life after death. Our cypress tree represents the history and eternity of our school and the many students that have danced around it. We sometimes look past the cypress tree and forget how important it is, so we are not only celebrating our school’s anniversary of 150 years but also our historical garden and cypress tree that is part of the heart and soul of our school.