The Chronicle 2022

ADDRESS BY THE RECTOR, MR ANTONY CLARK

16 FEBRUARY, 2022

The academic cake has to be baked in the right circumstances with just the right mix of ingredients: firstly there needs to be academic ambition which is the drive and determination and vision which each individual must have; secondly intellectual curiosity which spurs students to look beyond what is presented to them and to reach into unexplored areas; thirdly the capacity to learn independently, to form judgements which may not be in all subjects the obvious ones; fourthly the wrestle that takes place in the brain between protagonists of different views and, fifthly, the scholarly resilience that determines that a student will return to the material which has not been so successfully assimilated and internalised. If we pop all of that into the Michaelhouse oven at 180⁰ and keep a careful watch on things, we are likely to have a successful outcome. The people watching the cake through the glass of the oven door are, naturally, the staff and I thank them for their commitment and for the extra mile to which they go to educate and inspire all of the boys both in class and after hours. They are involved in an ongoing development programme and learning themselves through workshops, conferences and similar activities. Many of our staff mark the IEB papers and so have an inside track to the thinking of learner development. And they participate, too, in a wide range of other activities. I think few parents are aware of the enormous benefit that lies in having staff who live on the campus as our full-time staff do here at Michaelhouse. Their way of life, like that of the boys, is campus-orientated and what happens here really matters. I wish to thank them warmly on this important occasion and, in particular, acknowledge the great work of our Deputy Rector: Academic, Mrs Win de Wet, and the Senior Academic, Mr Gerry Noel, along with the Heads of Department. The Sir Henry Strakosch Scholarship is held for one year and it is awarded to the top boy in each Block with the best combined mark for academic performance in Mathematics and Science in the previous year. In the E Block the Scholarship is won by Reily Elliot, in the D Block by Dylan Hewlett, in the C Block David du Toit, and in the B Block by Tristan Hoyle. Well done to all of those boys. The John W Hamilton Internal Scholarship is awarded for one year to a boy with the top aggregate in his Block who is not a recipient of another academic scholarship. The winners are the following: in E Block Reily Elliot, in D Block Carlyle Hawkins, in C Block Theo Apteker, and in B Block Peter Woodland. Well done to all of those I have just mentioned. I hope that tonight provides an inspiration to you boys to be what I called at the beginning of this year “realistically ambitious” in your academic and other goals for this year. The all-important message going out to you is to aim to “be the best that you can be”. Nobody can ask more of you, but you would not expect us to ask for anything less than that. Good luck to you all. I now come to the announcement of the Sir Henry Strakosch and the John W Hamilton internal scholarships.

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ood afternoon to you all, parents, boys and staff and, on this occasion, may I extend a special welcome to Mrs Paula Davis, the mother of our Senior Prefect, who has kindly agreed as our Guest of Honour, to award the prizes today to the boys. Mrs Davis, thank you for giving of your time to come down to grace Michaelhouse today. We hope that you will be here often this year, especially during the rugby season. As everyone knows, our chief purpose today is to encourage and reward those who excelled in the academic realm in 2021 in the current A to D Blocks, and, quite naturally, in doing so we restate our intention which is to develop each boy to the maximum of his potential. This comment is applicable in an overall sense as we believe in holistic education, above all, but today we focus on and celebrate success in an important sphere, that of academia. The commitment to the academic well-being of our boys is the golden thread that runs through Michaelhouse and success does not happen without a certain magic that occurs when staff and boys, boys and staff work together in confluence to maximise that potential of which I spoke earlier. The feeling shared by the boys, along with their teachers that they have done as well as they could have hoped for is the reward that comes from focused and cohesive work together. Looking back on 2021, our matriculation class and their teachers deserve to feel really pleased with their results and there are a number of metrics which can be used to identify excellence. One hundred percent of our boys passed and 100% of the boys achieved a Bachelor’s Degree entry pass. On average, across all subjects, there were 3.1 A symbols per boy and the average mark across all subjects was 75%. Forty one boys achieved an A aggregate, and 38 boys achieved a B Aggregate. Our dux was Alexander Brits who appeared on the IEB Outstanding Achievements List by achieving within the top 5% in six or more subjects as well as a distinction in Life Orientation. His particular strength lay in Mathematics for which he received 97% in both Mathematics and the Advanced Programme Mathematics course. The promixe accessit was our Senior Prefect of 2021, Kwande Dhlomo, who achieved an aggregate of 89.14% including six distinctions with 95% in Economics and Jaden Jordaan was third with an aggregate of 89% and eight distinctions. In eight subjects, boys achieved results in the top 1% in South Africa and so there were many areas in which our boys reached for the stars. In certain subjects the boys achieved at a remarkable level and I cannot go into all of these, but 52.9% of the boys writing Core Mathematics achieved a distinction against the IEB figure of 23.9%. In English there were 29 distinctions; in Drama 80% of those taking the subject achieved an A; in Economics 62.3% of those taking the subject achieved an A against the IEB figure of 26.2%. One could carry on with detail, but the key point is that, in most cases, the boys and staff felt that they had done themselves justice, having improved on their results from the June exams and the September trials.

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