Westbury Secondary School obtains 28 distinctions
Keeping their eyes on the prize.
Over the past few years, Westbury Secondary School has taken the spotlight when it came to being the top school with its high matric pass rate.
The class of 2017 did their bit to pass, however, they could not maintain the high matric pass rates from previous years.
“Last year we had the worst attendance with the Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP) classes, the worse attendance when it came to the preparation classes for the exams.
“We had our worst June results and our worst prelim results, I’m just repeating myself, you broke all the records for the wrong reasons and even with the final results. What you put in is what you get out,” said principal Been Robinson during his talk with the matriculants.
He also advised the matriculants that they needed to change their attitudes towards life or else they would not make it in the world. The school had about 190 Grade 12 learners but it was not all bad with the class.
For the first time, the school obtained 28 distinctions altogether. The breakdown of the subjects in distinctions were 13 distinctions for Life orientation, two distinctions in Afrikaans, three distinctions in Geography, three distinctions in Life Sciences, four in Physical Sciences and three distinctions in Mathematics.
According to Robinson, fourteen of the distinctions come from a group of 16 learners. The top achiever at the school for the class of 2017 is Elrico Demakwa who obtained six distinctions.
“I feel excited because I didn’t expect six distinctions. I only expected five to be my maximum. It was quite ecstatic. I got distinctions for Afrikaans, Mathematics, Physical Science, Life Science, Life Orientation and Geography, I just missed English by 3 percent,” said Demakwa.
The top achiever lives in Waterval and when asked if he stayed at the hostel, Demakwa said that lived at home because the environment there was conducive which made it easier for him to study.
“What I would say is that they must just do the basics, commit, sacrifice and find your passion and excel in it. I’d like to say thank you to all the people who believed in me, my mum, I’d like to thank God for the opportunity, I’d like to thank the school, and my peers,” said Demakwa.
Demakwa will be studying chemical engineering at the University of Witwatersrand. He will be doing a four-year degree and that will be his only focus for this year.
