CLAREMONT | RONDEBOSCH
TUESDAY 14 January 2020 | Tel: 021 910 6500 | Email: post@peoplespost.co.za | Website: www.peoplespost.co.za
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People’s Post
RONDEBOSCH
Local school stands out NETTALIE VILJOEN
T
SHAKING THINGS UP: One of Africa’s biggest annual cultural events, the Cape Town Street Parade again did not disappoint this year. Altogether 42 troupes, compromising approximately 10 000 performers, participated in this year’s event on Saturday 4 January. The groups marched from Hanover Street in District Six, along Darling Street past City Hall and the Grand Parade before taking on a route that came to an end in the Bo-Kaap. See story on page 2.
he release of the 2019 matric results generated a buzz in the media this past week with a lot of the attention falling on one school in particular: Rondebosch Boys’ High School. While the outstanding achievements of two of the school’s learners – Gary Allen and Tim Murphy – were mostly responsible for the hype, it also served to highlight the school’s excellent matric pass rate. For the twelfth year, the schools’ matric learners achieved a 100% pass rate and a 98.7% university entrance rate. Together, the school’s 162 candidates achieved a record 468 A symbols. Nine of these A’s belongs to Gary who came second nationally among the Quintile 5 schools. Other top candidates were Madelein Dippenaar from Paarl Gimnasium High School, who was number one in the country, and Anuoluwa Makinde from Milnerton High School, who came in third. Gary says he first heard he was among the top achievers on 2 January. He had just eaten out with friends at a sushi restaurant in Noordhoek and was in the car on his way home when his cellphone rang. He wasn’t told yet that he was second in the country, just that he was one of the top achievers who were being invited (with two of his parents or guardians) to attend a prizegiving ceremony at the Vodacom World Conference Venue in Gauteng on Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 January. Gary says he was overwhelmed when he received the news. He got home, rang the doorbell and immediately shared the news with his dad and mom, Spencer and Charleen Allen. “I couldn’t conceptualise it. I walked around for a good 15 minutes, just letting it sink it. You work so hard throughout the year but you don’t expect something like this.” He and his parents were flown up to Midrand and accommodated at the Premier Ho-
tel for two nights where they and the other top achievers got to rub shoulders with industry leaders and ministers. “It was all a bit crazy, you feel like a celebrity, interacting with all the top guys. At a breakfast on 7 January, I sat at the same table as the minister of basic education, Angie Motshekga. It was so cool meeting all these people.” What is also “cool” in People’s Post’s opinion is Gary’s final matric results: English home language: 94%; Afrikaans first additional language: 94%; mathematics: 100%; life orientation: 92%; physical sciences: 99%; information technology: 100%; engineering graphics and design: 95%; accounting: 95% and advanced programme mathematics: 95%. Gary’s secret to his academic success is simple. He says he paid attention in class throughout the year to ensure he understood all the work when he got to the finals. “Anything I didn’t understand, I would watch videos on. And I did as many past papers as I could, compared my answers to the marking memos, and learnt from my mistakes. I did that for almost all my subjects,” he says. Although the government’s website has past papers for matriculants to use, Gary says his go-to website for past papers was Parent24. “It is just much easier to navigate.” His next port of call is Stellenbosch University where he will be studying electrical engineering. “I hope to do my masters after I have completed the course but I’m not 100 percent sure at the moment. I would love to combine my studies with electronic music production, another passion of mine,” Gary says. Tim, the top mathematics candidate in the country, will be studying closer to home. He will begin his studies in actuarial science at the University of Cape Town this year. V Continued on page 4.
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