PATHWAYS principal, Jenny Head, who has been part of the school for the past 26 years, has bid a bittersweet farewell to a place close to her heart.
“I started as a volunteer before I became a facilitator and a teacher before being permanently hired as the principal,” said Head.
The school, for children with special needs opened its doors in 1996 with just three children. It has now grown to 90 children and young adults with 37 full time staff and a host of carers and facilitators.
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Head said the learners at the school have different disabilities; cerebral palsy, autism, down syndrome and general development delay.
With Pathways being a special needs school, Head said the children need intervention, therapy and love. “They also respond with lots of love and for the past years I have learnt so much from them,” she said.
“My passion has always been teaching and I leave the school with mixed emotions, I will definitely miss it, the greetings in the mornings and preparing for the lessons. We have always had the open door policy, so I will miss interacting with the parents as well. I will visit though,” she said.
Head said she will now have the chance to visit her grandchildren overseas, which is on her bucket list.
Pathways grows from strength to strength
Sue Blanckenberg, a school committee member who was also one of the first parents at the school, thanked Head for her selfless dedication to Pathways. “We want to thank Jenny for helping the school become the shining light that it is today,” she said.
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Reflecting back, Blanckenberg said the school had started at the Kloof Methodist Church. “Within a couple of years, Jenny, myself and another staff member, Ntombi Khumalo, moved from the veranda of the church hall to the Kloof Scout Hall – with 11 children.
“Each day we would have to pack up and clear away for the other activities that would take place at the hall in the afternoon,” she recalled. But then in 2002, the Victor Daitz Foundation donated the first house at their current premises in Baden Road, Westville.
“There were challenges along the way but Jenny would always just say ‘pray’. Pathways grew, we put in a therapy pool, we were donated another house next door and Jenny and I were sent to a special-needs school in Newcastle in the United Kingdom, and from that our dream of Pathways in its current form was born,” said Blanckenberg.
She added that the school does not receive any funding from the government but that the private and business sectors continue to enable them to function.
“The dedicated board of governors, made up of volunteers, ensures sound governance,” said Blanckenberg.
Jeanette Silver will take over as the new academic principal and Charles van Heerden will be the managing principal.
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