London Reunion (11 Jul 2003)

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“And with her honour trusted, her children will go forth,
To meet life’s grand adventure,
East, West, and South and North.”


Standing before you here is a real challenge, a challenge to my nerves and a challenge to my gender. I remember standing in front of some of you nearly seventeen years ago, brand new and just as nervous. I remember my first day at Eunice and my first time speaking to Old Girls at the Bryanston Club in Johannesburg to about 250 Old Girls who had come out of a mixture of curiosity and disdain at having to greet a male head for Eunice.

Mandy Streak

20 years ago many Eunice stalwarts expressed concern that the school would lose its special character once it was removed from its founding site alongside the Presidency at the head of the capital’s most historic street. The ivy-coloured brick buildings, the familiar quadrangle and the notorious kopje are all etched in your memories.

Relocated to the outskirts of town during 1982, the new Eunice has established its own unique character, and any of you present for our celebrations last year will have noticed how the complex has come of age with carefully crafted gardens, distinctive quadrangles and halls and passages which record the school’s illustrious past. In recent years Bloemfontein’s commercial district has increasingly shifted westwards, and Eunice finds itself, once again, in the heart of a thriving suburban business sector. The Western side of the city is hardly recognizable these days and our girls now have malls, cinemas, supermarkets, banks and even a waterfront within walking distance.

Wandering through the old Eunice one cannot but be impressed at how tastefully the Free State Technikon has restored the entire location at a cost of literally millions of rands. And the new tenants of our site, the Hotel School, certainly showed their expertise and their style in catering for 600 old girls at our 125 banquet in 2000.

I thought I would share a few thoughts with you today on Eunice, its traditional and modern strengths.

In looking back at traditional strengths, I would like to focus on the monastic character of Eunice as a single-sex school because it is a topical issue in education today. No new school founded in 2001, private of otherwise, would be a single –sex school. It’s yesterday’s approach. But it has its strengths, especially in a city blessed with 5 first-rate single-sex schools which promote synergy and creativity both formally and I’m sure informally. I say with great circumspection that, in our media-driven and often valueless world I appreciate the opportunity of keeping our girls that little bit younger for that little bit longer. There’s no hint of sheltering or blinkering ourselves from the realities of modern life. On the contrary the intention is simply to facilitate the development of the whole person, of confidence, of responsibility and of femininity. Besides, you may be interested to know that of the top 20 schools in Britain’s Annual League Table of Schools the last time I looked, two thirds were all girls’ schools. For what it’s worth, I mention that it’s been much easier developing a successful multi-racial school in a single-sex environment.

The second area of focus in looking back is tradition. Now all schools have tradition, but in a Bloemfontein sense with three or four other tradition filled schools on our doorstep it becomes an almost tangible and effective concept. Our green heritage, so to speak, our school song, our community service, our bilingualism, our choirs and musicals, our sporting rivalry with Oranje, the Grey gala, Inter-High, the Grey Lady, the principal’s birthday are all real fixtures in our programme. We use old girls regularly as guest speakers and our girls are made aware that they are the present custodians of a standard and a spirit which it is their duty to maintain. This gives our school a special strength which is meaningful in the modern educational environment. Obviously, tradition is not static and we live in the most dynamic society in the world, but it’s a real source of strength which our girls relish.

Along with tradition goes continuity. I am now the third longest serving head in the school’s history with the two longest serving being my two predecessors, Miss Vos and Mrs de Jager. That means Eunice has had three heads since 1942. That sort of continuity breeds a school character which translates into stability in a certainly fluid educational environment. Incidentally, Mrs de Jager’s Son, Jimmy, served on our Governing Body for 15 years and moved to Cape Town about 4 years ago. His wife Les died in 1999 after a long illness. Miss Vos still lives opposite the new Eunice in Jock Meiring Street. She is well after recovering from a nasty hip break after a mugging last year. She has three grandchildren and visits them often in Pretoria.

We certainly have character but also characters. At our 125th birthday in 2000, Mrs Olive Grinter, our oldest old girl at the banquet spoke about Miss King, a key character in giving Eunice style and direction; she also mentioned Miss Steedman’s cheetahs on the kopje. Besides principals the names Carlyle, Paver, Juffrou are legendary among older old girls. Two years ago we named our streets Meiring Avenue, King Crescent, Sandall Walk and Posthumus Drive. You all have special memories of influential or demanding or eccentric teachers who gave our school character. We still have them today. In November 1999 we lost one of the school’s modern characters when my deputy Ansie du Plooy, head of Eunice’s Maths department for more that 20 years, was murdered at a teller machine. The response to her death was astounding. Her old girls, the younger, more mobile, professional South Africans set in motion a worldwide network of tributes which said much about Ansie, about our school and about its girls.

At our school birthday assembly last year, Mrs Trudie van Wyk was the guest speaker. Trudie was headgirl in 1955, taught my wife, Moira in Std 1, and retires from Eunice Primary School later this year. At our Bloemfontein Re-Unie brunch last year the speakers were Mrs May Lurie (Gritzman), headgirl (1952) and Mrs René Plant (Uys), day headgril (1982). This year we had Angela Bull, head girl 1993. Her speech was attached to your latest email.

I’m sure the appointment of a first male head for Eunice was received with mixed feelings by old girls in particular. So, at least, I’ve survived. I’m proud to say that when working with women, one works in a working environment. I’ve learned so much about 24hr days, about planning, about doing things now, about style, about keeping my mouth shut. I’ve become an expert listener and a skilled peacemaker. I’ve also learned that as a white, middle-aged male in a female, multi-racial environment, I’m totally dispensable.

All of you are connected to schools in some way or another and you all know that it’s not easy being a principal in today’s world of social, political and economic transformation. The principal’s office is one of modern living’s engine rooms. It has all the usual management pressures. But it’s dealing with 700 teenagers, their troubles and challenges, their demanding parents and our overworked teachers that gives my day its temperature.

These days a principal’s greatest challenges are all about staying enthusiastic and keeping those around him and her enthusiastic despite invasive bureaucracy, national negativity and an increasingly complex school climate in terms of behavioural standards.

The story is told of the school principal who died and went to hell. The pupils expected it; the teachers weren’t surprised; the parents probably arranged it; but it was two weeks before he realized he wasn’t at school.

One of our greatest challenges is to provide a modern, meaningful, market-related, world-class education for the girls in our care despite the usual constraints of unfavorable learner-teacher ratios and limited media and technological reserves. It’s a major challenge, a critical one, and one which is entirely possible because it’s more about attitude than about what we have or don’t have.

We meet this challenge head on with superior staff commitment, with a special focus on important areas such as quality in Maths and Science, practical computer skills for all our girls, an emphasis on cultural opportunities, a competitive sporting edge and a tradition of service.

But it’s our girls who make it all worthwhile, who keep us eager and young despite the clearly visible graying of the principal’s hair. I find the large majority of our girls wonderfully enthusiastic, frighteningly energetic, generally appreciative and full of camaraderie and spirit. In 15 years I’ve seen modern society change, parental attitudes change, the transformational climate change, but, by and large, our girls are just as special as they were on my first day. It’s easy to stay young as an educator because youth is our business. The young have a natural directness about them and an innocence and spontaneity which makes them so special. BIG EARS

In your day Eunice was a government school. It still is, but technically, we voted for Model B status in 1991 to open our doors to all races. We were forced into Model C status by the previous government and the present government refers to us as a Section 21 school. That’s Section 21 of the SA Schools Act 1996.

In effect some Section 21 schools have become semi-private in that the parents fund many extra teachers.

In Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban there’s a competitive environment with many private schools, old established ones and new schools like Crawford College which have attracted many pupils and, more importantly, quality teachers, and caused the government schools to transform very quickly, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so.

In Bloemfontein we haven’t yet experienced the same developments. Our local economy simply cannot sustain a Crawford College. Bloemfontein is a successful educational centre, one with other schools such as Grey, Oranje, St Andrew’s and St Michael’s whose combined standard really makes it very difficult for the private schools to move in. We are fortunate that, although we are not immune to the pressure of modern SA living, Bloemfontein still offers a very suitable environment for raising and educating children.

In terms of standard the present Eunice is riding the crest of a wave of excellence and achievements built largely on the remarkable commitment of our teachers, governors and financial staff. We attained not only a 100% pass for the 17th year in succession, but in 1999, 2001 and 2202 the Murray and Roberts Award for the best Mathematics and Physical Science performance in the Free State and in 2000, 2001 and 2002 the Province’s Top School Award for the best matric results.

Two other Eunice High Schools

On the sport front we are probably the country’s top swimming school having won the national top schools’ gala in Pretoria for 5 years in a row and our first hockey team is won the national all-girls’ school hockey festival in 1999, 2000 and 20002. Even without squash courts our squash team has regularly featured in the top three in the annual top schools’ squash tournament held at Epworth.

Our brand new squash courts are roof high and will be completed at the end of next month.

Our tennis girls play second fiddle to Oranje but hold their own against the best.

Another interesting sports development pioneered by Eunice is the annual derby days we have with Pretoria Girls’ High and Clarendon Girls’ High in East London. Each year we hire a whole train and 300 of us travel overnight on the Friday, play a range of sports on the Saturday and travel back overnight arriving early Sunday morning. Over the last four years we’ve got to know the staffs of those two schools very well. We cooperate in other areas, too. Our derby days have become highlights on the school calendar.

Another modern venture is a 25% stake we have in the Grey/Eunice hockey astroturf which was opened in August last year. We have 8 girls in the Free State hockey side this year and Free State won the U18 Inter-provincial tournament last year.

The present day Eunice is changing demographically in necessary and in unavoidable ways. Necessary, as it meets the challenges of multi-racial schooling. Old girls and prospective parents always ask me rather indirectly about our racial mix and even the authorities ask us on an annual basis. Well 23% of our girls are Black, Coloured or Indian both in the school and at Eunice House and it has been an easy and successful transition although it has its moments.

I mentioned unavoidable in that Eunice today has a growing number of Afrikaans-speaking girls. This impacts considerably on our school. On the one hand our Afrikaans girls constitute a real academic injection as top students increasingly realise that they are actually disadvantaged and immobile without fluency in English. You all know that English is a foreign language in the Free State. They also enrich our school culturally, and particularly musically. They also learn to think more critically than in the Afrikaans schools and to express an independent opinion, while they bring with them a home-bred discipline which now and then rubs off on to their sometimes very informal English peers.

The point is that our school has got bigger and our city and our province’s English population has dwindled dramatically in recent years. What do you think is the size of the English population of the Free State? Believe it or not it’s a staggering 1 %. That sort of statistic impacts on our school. It’s change, it’s reality, it’s unavoidable and we must make it work and at the same time work harder to ensure that whatever the percentages a Eunice spirit and standards must be fostered and maintained.

But transition has given us much more independence than we had under the previous government. We’ve been able to appoint a full-time financial specialist, Mr Pat Uys, who has revolutionized school management on a business footing. His job is also to keep the hostel full during the holiday period with conferences, church gatherings and sports groups – a project which raises about half a million rands a year. He and his staff ensure fee collection which runs at about 90 % and which enables us to appoint about 12 extra teachers in the high school alone. Eunice House, as we call it, runs a big laundry. It does all the boarders’ washing for Eunice High and Primary, the three Grey College Hostels, St Andrews and St Michaels.

Another feature of the present Eunice is our approach to musical productions. In recent years we have staged massive community productions in the Sand du Plessis Theatre in an exciting, innovative and inclusive manner. Our production of The Wiz in 1997 included nearly every single one of our girls. The Sound of Music in 1998 featured 200 nuns and played to over 14 000 people. EVITA in 1999 was our most ambitious production with a cast of 380, professional leads, a 60 piece youth orchestra, an audience again of 14 000 and a budget of
R400 000. In March 2000 we staged GREASE on the same scale. In October last year a cast of over 250 performed FIDDLER ON THE ROOF in conjunction with the University of the Free State. These shows are the brainchild of Mrs Mag Marais, our Afrikaans departmental head. They demonstrate more than anything else that Eunice has embraced the new opportunities for creativity, focus and innovation which are so part and parcel of those willing to make the new SA work.

I hope I have given you an idea of the Eunice of 2002. Any of you present at our celebrations in 2000 will have been struck by the timelessness of it all. So much collective effort has contributed to Eunice’s spirit and its standard these last 127 years. It has been a unique privilege to be part of it these last 16 years. Today I am a proud Eunice husband, parent and principal. Your presence means you are proud old girls.

When I came to Eunice in 1987 there were 356 pupils and school fees were R55 per quarter and R90 in hostel. Today there are nearly 730 girls and fees are R1340 and R2000. I suppose I’m to blame. So I’ll end with this little poem which passes the buck down the system. I used it to welcome Prof. Kadar Asmal, National Minister of Education to a joint Eunice/Grey assembly last year.


SAID THE EDUCATION MINISTER;

“My nine departments don’t know the laws; they’re bureaucrats, and the unions, they’re the cause.

SAID THE UNION BOSS;

“The universities are hopeless, they’ve lost their way, our untrained teachers just want more pay.”

SAID THE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR:

“It’s just rugby and girls, these Grey boys are a shame, lack of preparation in the school is to blame.”

SAID THE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER;

“It’s just clothes and boys, these Eunice girls are fools, the fault, of course, in the Primary school.”

SAID THE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER;

“From Pokemon and Billabong may I be spared, they send them up to me so unprepared.”

SAID THE NURSERY SCHOOL TEACHER;

“Such lack of training never did I see, what kind of women must his mother be?”

SAID THE MOTHER;

“Poor helpless child; he’s not to blame, his father’s people were the same.”

SAID THE FATHER, KEEPING IN LINE,

“I doubt the rascal’s even mine!”

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