Introducing Riverwood: An exciting new chapter

Since August, when the Department of Basic Education approved the merger of Voortrekker High School with its campus cousins Gert Maritz Primary and Siembamba Pre-Primary, a key preoccupation for principal Anton Immelman has been how best to honour the school’s legacy.

“Voortrekker has a proud and unique past. Although we are moving into a new era, under a new name, we do not want to negate the school’s heritage or erase its history. On the contrary, we want to acknowledge it,” said Immelman.

As part of what has been called The Vories Legacy Project, a Legacy Centre and Museum has been established in an expansive wing in the original school building. The centre is already home to a collection of prized memorabilia, including two large bas relief portraits of Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius that adorned walls of the original school hall, and a large school crest bearing the motto: Aanhou wen (Keep winning).

“It’s a place for school reunions and other gatherings, where people formerly associated with the school can come and feel welcome,” Immelman said. Plans for a reunion to commemorate what would have been the school’s 100^th anniversary in 2027 are already underway.

A carefully-planned Voortrekker closing ceremony took place on 20 October: nine cannon shots (simulated) rang out to mark nine decades of the school’s existence; the school flag was lowered for the last time and walked across the school’s iconic sky bridge – now renamed The Vorie Bridge – into the museum; and an ode to the institution was crafted and recited by long-serving staff member Elmarie Schreuder.

Schreuder characterised the school as a dignified 96-year-old great grandmother who had raised whole generations of Vories according to Christian values and high academic standards. “Her commitment never wavered and her job was her true calling and passion,” said Schreuder.

Half celebration, half memorial, the closing ceremony which was live-streamed for members of the Vorie community who couldn’t be there in person, was a moving tribute to a still-proud school that now enters a new era under a new name, Riverwood College – one of three names chosen by a large margin through a vote by the pupils, staff and current parents of all three schools.

A new identity

But the amalgamation goes well beyond a “politically-correct” name-change. “Riverwood College is a new school with an identity that more accurately reflects the values and aspirations of a diverse and modern South Africa,” said Immelman.

Although they shared a campus and operated in close proximity, the three schools were, up until the merger, separate educational entities with their own administrative systems, budgets, rules and entrance requirements. More significantly, perhaps, each had a different history, ethos and identity – all of which have been fiercely guarded, making the job of unification far more than a simple technical matter.

Sporadic merger talks among the three schools pre-date the current terms of both Immelman who was appointed in mid-2018, and Gert Maritz principal Jan Hendrik van Tonder who followed in 2020. Both of them, including current Sprouts head Irmarie Van der Westhuizen, saw the financial and practical merits of a more streamlined system. An official application for the amalgamation, lodged with the department in September 2020, was delayed by red tape and Covid-19, but was finally approved in August.

According to Van Tonder, one of the big benefits of the new institution is that it will serve as a “one-stop shop” for learners who can start in Grade RRR and go all the way to matric in the same school.

The school has another rather large ace up its sleeve in that it will be the only combined school in Pietermaritzburg and the KZN Midlands to offer Afrikaans as a first additional language – a unique feature that makes the school an attractive choice not only for local Afrikaans families keen for their children to learn in their mother tongue, but also for Afrikaans-speaking families, from all backgrounds, relocating from provinces beyond KZN.

“This needs to be a new South African school and it needs to stand for the demographics. But it is also still a place where the Afrikaner child can come and is able to speak their language in a classroom. If we lose that, we may as well be any other school. Now, we have something very unique,” said Van Tonder.

A school which made a statement

Founded in 1927 as a school for Afrikaans-speaking children, Voortrekker flourished as a regional Afrikaans hub, as a school to which relatively well-to-do Afrikaners from all over the province sent their children – to learn and to board.

No expense was spared in the construction of the imposing buildings that make up the current Voortrekker High School to which the high school moved in 1949, leaving its primary school behind in the CBD.

“If you look at photos of the school when it opened, you can see it was making a statement,” said Immelman. The core of the school was a three-storey edifice on a prime piece of land that stood on the edge of the city.

As the school expanded, an administration wing was built in 1977. “It was state of the art, with underfloor heating and towering columns – and linked to the original building through the expansive sky bridge which makes it architecturally unique,” he said.

As the Afrikaans population in the city grew, a second combined Afrikaans school, Gert Maritz, was established in the mid-1960s in the centre of town. Drawing as the new school did on a different socio-economic demographic, in the tradition of most South African schools, each institution saw the other as a competitor.

By 1992, however, the city’s Afrikaner population had started to decline, and the government ordered Gert Maritz to consolidate its high school with Voortrekker.

In 1997, the government instructed Gert Maritz Primary School to relocate to the Voortrekker campus so it could use the school’s land to extend the Natal Technicon. The primary school opened in the repurposed Voortrekker girls’ hostel, where it still is.

Three years later the Voortrekker campus became home to another school: Siembamba, then an independent pre-primary school. This meant that by the turn of the millennium, all the so-called Afrikaans schools in city were consolidated onto one property.

Introducing English

Despite the consolidation, Afrikaner learner numbers at Voortrekker continued to decline, as those Afrikaans-speaking parents who could afford to, opted to send their children to English-medium schools, often private schools.

In 2009, as a “survival mechanism” to save the school and attract more non-Afrikaans children, a decision was made to turn Voortrekker into a parallel-medium school. The same decision was taken by Gert Maritz in 2014 where the opportunity was also used to change the school song, transform the library, and generally take steps towards the forging of a new identity.

In his third year at the helm, in the interests of continued growth, Immelman pushed for even more change: the addition of isiZulu as a first additional language.

A well-hidden gem

Today, of the 740 children in the high school, there are still approximately 120 first-language Afrikaans children and the school has a demographic profile very different to that envisaged by its original founders.

“If you go out now at break time you will see the real South Africa … I’m proud of that. We are one of the most diverse schools in the city,” said Immelman.

That diversity is also one of the strengths of Gert Maritz.

Van Tonder describes the primary school as a “well-hidden gem” that the merger will allow to shine more brightly.

As current principal of Gert Maritz, the son of one of its former principals, and an old boy of both Gert Maritz Primary and Voortrekker High School, Van Tonder has been something of a lightning rod for public opinion on the issue of the merger – and the name change.

“When I encounter resistance among members of the public, I invite them to come and look at our demographics and see how the support from parents and old boys has changed. I understand some of the concerns, but I believe the benefits, particularly for the learners, will far outweigh the disadvantages,” he said.

“I am excited about what is coming. I tell the parents who come and interview me: ‘If you want your child in an Afrikaans class, here is where you come; there’s nowhere else. Dit is die plek’.”

Read the Riverwood College supplement here.