Rose-Act Saturday School, which is co-ordinated by the charity, Rays of Hope, held its annual awards day, concluding yet another excellent academic year for the Alexandra school which is now in its 25th year.
“We believe that excellence should be rewarded. It provides a goal for our children and they love being recognised and receiving certificates and trophies. It’s a great motivational tool,” said Louise Cameron, the school project’s co-ordinator.
More than 430 people, including students, parents, tutors, committee members and volunteers, attended the ceremony held at the Central Johannesburg College, Alexandra Campus.
Numerous awards were handed out, but not every pupil received one. “We believe that only excellence should be rewarded, otherwise, awards are then cheapened and may lose their value,” said Cameron.
The basic categories of awards were for attendance, improvement, performance, participation and effort. Cameron was particularly pleased with the attendance record this year.
“We started off with 285 children registered, of which 230 remained at the end of the year. Of these, an amazing 78 students had a 90+ percent attendance record, up from 54 in 2014.”
There were three other categories of awards for optional activities outside the classroom which included general knowledge tests, spelling proficiency and chess. Over and above these categories, each tutor was given the chance to select a particular pupil from their class for excellence in an area such as creativity, writing skill and consistency of performance.
“We added a loyalty programme this year, whereby children accumulated points across a variety of parameters. This was partly to encourage them to be eligible to attend our annual camp, but it was also used to assess who our most outstanding students were across the whole school,” Cameron said.
As always, the children expressed their creative skills on the day through dance and poetry. “They love performing,” Cameron enthused.
“And, largely, they are pretty talented as well.”
The teachers too had their moment on stage. They sang the popular, Believe in God the Father, to rapturous applause from the audience.
Details: Andrea Dienst 086 100 0000; andrea@raysofhope.co.za
