Waverley Girls’ High School deputy principal Angela Wanckel has blamed absenteeism and late coming as the major contributor to their poor performance in the 2018 matric final exams.
Wanckel said she was disappointed with the Class of 2018 saying they had failed to improve on the previous year’s results.
The school attained an 86 per cent pass rate compared to the 91 per cent they achieved in 2017.
She said they were disappointed with the high failure rate. “We really did not expect this,” she said.
“But our biggest challenge which we believe contributed to this is the high number of absenteeism and late coming at the school resulting in learners missing some subjects. What we have also seen is that it is the same learners who had failed [were the ones] who were ill-disciplined.”
Wanckel praised the school’s top achiever, Jessica Mhlanga who achieved four distinctions. She excelled in Afrikaans, mathematics, life orientation and geography.
She said this year they would implement new systems to ensure that they curbed ill-discipline. “We will implement better monitoring systems and we will have a team of teachers who will implement those systems including punishment for absenteeism and late coming, working with their parents of course.
“We will also try to work on an attitude change of our learners and engage them in extramural activities this year.”
Deborah Okereke, one of the successful matric candidates, encouraged the incoming matrics to work hard.
She said being in matric was not a joke and required full focus and dedication adding that learners needed to have a healthy mind. “This is because a healthy mind is a healthy future,” she said.
Details: www.waverlygirls.co.za
