Parktown High School for Girls recently sent 45 girls and 11 staff members off to Pretoria for the National Girls Festival, which was hosted by Afrikaanse Hoër Meisieskool (Affies).
The following groups attended the festival: drama, debating, visual art, master chef, hockey, netball and tennis.
The festival was filled with intense competition, lots of learning and most of all, lots of fun. The girls stayed in the Pretoria High School for Girls hostel which is only 2km’s away from Affies.
The activities took place at four different venues – Affies, Pretoria Girls, Tuks main campus and Tuks HPC campus.
“The support the girls gave each other in all the different activities was fantastic; there was such high spirit throughout the entire weekend. One of the highlights must be that Freshly Ground performed at the opening ceremony,” said Parktown High School for Girls head of sports Catherine van Eyk.
The Parktown fest debating team, comprising Itumeleng Bojosi, Melissa Smith, Mikayla Boorany, Robyn Helling and Neha Prag, conquered all preliminary rounds and the subsequent final rounds to eventually seize first place amongst 18 participating schools.
Winning the finals against Queenstown Girls’ High wasn’t entirely where the Parktown shine ended. Robyn Helling, their current vice-captain, progressed marvellously to rank second in average speaker scores and Neha Prag, their current captain, secured first place as overall best speaker at the tournament for the second consecutive year.
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The drama girls were given an outline to work with a few months before the festival. They had to create a short film with the word ‘#secrets’. In addition, the girls enjoyed workshops over the first two days on different acting and filming techniques. There was a showcase in the theatre at Tuks’ main campus where all the short films were shown. Parktown’s shorts film received a standing ovation and was placed first as the best short film.
Final results
- Drama: first place
- Debating: first place
- Master Chef: third place
- Hockey: 15th place
- Netball: 16th place
- Tennis: 13th place
