Newsletter


2018-03-02
Yearly Report from the Principal 2017


  1. Introduction
  • It is and remain a very big privilege for  me to be the headmaster of General Smuts High School and for that reason I will always be passionate, proud and loyal to this Institution
  • I want to offer my sincere gratitude to every educator, learner and parent who helped in 2017 to build, honour and shape this school to be a school of excellence .Thank you for everybody’s support and positive contribution
  • The school reached several goals on various areas. We excelled by winning the English Interhouse trophy, Spirit Trophy at both Afrikaans Interhoër and English Interhigh.Several of our athletes did extremely well by going to Gauteng Championships and Bokang Monisi ran in the U/19 final 400 metres and he is only u/17 this year. We therefore expect excellent results from him next year. The rugby teams had a good season especially the u/17 team (next year’s First team) who entered in a competition where schools from Johannesburg played in four divisions. Our team lost controversially in the semi-finals but the upside is that this young team will for the next two years do well. Our first cricket team started slowly but won their last five games in a row and 6 of our players were chosen to represent our school at Provincial level. First netball team won their league and lost narrowly in the semi-finals. The Hockey teams were always competitive and Smuts Soccer teams are the teams to beat if you want to win the leagues. Thank you to all Coaches, team managers and administrators in all the sporting codes. On the cultural side the Tenors and Soul Sisters managed to make many friends wherever they performed. Our debating and chess teams made names for themselves even though the competition was strong.
  • General Smuts as a school has grown in many aspects and as Principal I am very excited about the future of our school and the talented learners we have in our school.
  • Thank you to every learner who valued their place at this school at all times by remembering that they are at all times ambassadors for our school in the way they behave and honour their school uniform
  • Our school is 65 years old next year and I as principal realize what a massive responsibility we and our successors have to take this school to the magic 100 years .It is all about the legacy we leave behind, so let us all work hard at that
  • We wish every parent /guardian and learner a Blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year. May all educators, parents and learners have a Christmas season in which they again experience God’s mercy, love and peace.
  • We have great expectation for 2018.A new year brings new opportunities and challenges!

 

  1. School Governing Body
  • Thank you to the SGB for the year. We appreciated the many hours that you have offered up for all the meetings and training sessions. This was all for a single purpose-to Govern the school so that the learners will always be well prepared and cared for.
  • Thank you to every member which were willing to make themselves available for this daunting task
  • Mrs Brown left us at the end of 2016 because her child was in Matric and we co-opted Honourable Sylvia Daniso to take her place
  • Mr Daniel Masilo’s son also matriculated now and his term of office will come to an end now. We thank him for his services over the last two and a half years
  • The new SGB will be elected towards the end of Term 1 when the current SGB’s term comes to an end
  • A special thank you to Mrs Brown who was Chairperson during her time of office and Mr Moloko who took over from her and completed the term of office. Your knowledge of education matters always came in very handy Mr Moloko and we are greatful for that.
  • Thank you to Mr Maseko, who had the position as Treasurer and did an outstanding job. Also to Mrs Rametlalane who in her position as Vice-chair played an excellent support role to the Chairman
  • The Financial committee of the SGB met every month to peruse the finances of the school and the Full SGB met once a term. All minutes of these meetings are available at the school. The SGB has audited financial statements available for parent’s perusal at school. A copy of these documents was handed in to our District early in 2017
  • An Annual General Meeting of Parents was held on 30 November at which the budget for 2018 was approved as well as an increase of 11% .School fees will therefore be R10, 000.00 for the year or R1.000.00 per month for 10 months. Please remember that there was no increase in 2016 but it was impossible to balance the books for 2018 without an increase.

 

  1. School Management team(SMT)
  • The SMT have met in most cases once a week and minutes of these meetings are available. At these meetings problematic situations are discussed and solutions seek
  • Unfortunately we are losing two members of the SMT at the end of 2017.Mrs Schaller will go into retirement and Mr Loubser has accepted a deputy principal’s position at a school in Cape Town. We wish them good wishes in their future endeavours.Mrs Labuschagne will be acting as Deputy Principal for term 1 and Mr Steyn will be standing in for Mr Loubser.
  • Staff meetings are held every morning at 07h15 to confirm organizational matters for the day with the staff
  • Formal staff meetings were held every first day of term after school.
  • Departmental heads(HOD) managed their departments very effectively and the following activities were completed successfully:

 

a) Academic control

b) Subject meetings

  • School readiness documents for 2018 was handed into the District office on 5 December 2017
  1.  Staff matters
  • All staff was evaluated according to the IQMS system, the necessary documents completed and handed to District office. A special thank you to Mrs Elmarie Labuschagne for managing the system
  • Staff provisioning-Principal,2 Deputy principals ,9 Departmental heads and 39 post level 1 staff(as per latest post establishment document-November 2017).The SGB also employs 18 additional educators in order to keep class sizes manageable. Support staff consists of 4 Administrative staff and 5 general workers. The SGB employs the grounds man ,3 general workers and 8 administrative workers

5) Parents

  • Thank you to all parents with positive feelings towards the school and who creates a trustworthy relationship between school and parents
  • Thank you for all the care, love , support and motivation which you are giving towards your children
  • This motivation encourages the educators to stay positive in the education of your child
  • We are very grateful towards these positive parents
  • We are pleading with parents to support and help us with the following:
  • To motivate learners to always do their homework
  • Study for tests, exams and complete their SBAs
  • Stay actively involved in your child’s academics by attending parent’s evenings or schedule meetings with educators if you see a problem developing. You know your child better than anyone
  • Please realize your responsibilities towards paying schoolfees.We can only continuing pursuing excellence if our finances are sound.
  • Please monitor your child’s school uniform everyday. All learners are ambassadors for our school at all time and not wearing the full uniform at all times indicates a serious lack of pride to be in this school. This includes the hairstyles of some of the learners too. Parents should please accept this responsibility to install in your children a sense of pride to be a Smutsie

6) Curricular

  • Our school still offers the widest range of subjects to your children to pick. This enable your child to pick the relative subjects which will support them in selecting a career when leaving school
  • We are specifically excited about next year’s Gr 12 Technical students. On Matriculating they will already have obtained a N3 qualification which will make their journey to becoming Engineers, Technicians or artisans a shorter one. They would also have learned a skill e.g. Automotive learners would be able to do a basic service on a vehicle.
  • We also offer Religious studies as an eight subject after school hours
  • Our Peermont centre provides ample support in Languages and Mathematics to Gr 8, 9 after school hours. Learners are motivated to visit the Centre for support
  • We issue four Academic reports every year. One at the beginning of each term and lastly at the end of the year and Academic progress parents evenings are held about a week after the reports was issued, except at the end of term 4

 

 

7) In closing

  • We want to thank our Heavenly Father for His blessings throughout the year. That He carried, lead and nurtured us
  • We wish  a blessed Christmas season to all our families and pray that you will experience  the love, mercy and peace of the Lord, during these times
  • May every educator and learner come back refreshed next year motivated to do the best of their abilities at all times
  • We trust that our Matriculants have excelled beyond their wildest dreams.

8) Theme of the year for 2018

 

“Impossible is just an opinion”   

Paulo Coelho    

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

JL Maré

Principal 


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