Head Girl 2020
Mirriam Mpete
Head Boy 2020
Joshua Hein
FAREWELL MESSAGE FROM 2019 HEADGIRL SAN-MARIE STEGMANN AT PRIZEGIVING
Today is a very bitter-sweet day for us as Matrics. It is our very last day that we will be amongst our teachers and friends before we head into our final exams. We are all very excited to close off our school career and embark on the incredible next chapter of our lives. However, we will be thrown into the deep end and without water wings to help us. But God will never leave our sides. He confirms this in Joshua 1:9 when He says, “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
We might feel unprepared for what is to come in the future but Waterberg Academy has taught us so many crucial values and skills that we will carry with us into our next journey. Independence, integrity, humility, empathy and discipline; just to name a few. But most importantly, our school has taught us to be kind and loving, unconditionally. Our school is considered to be a family that is always there for each other. We do sometimes have our difference, like all families do, but at the end of the day we can still come together, laugh together and depend on each other.
Our school has offered us countless opportunities to make memories that will last us a lifetime. All the years of camping, making “stokbrood”, swimming in rivers, sleeping under the stars (which, initially not all of us were too happy about), going to the beach, building rafts (which, again, we weren’t too excited about after the tenth time but we did it anyways) and getting to know each other better in the process. We have been able to form not only bonds, but friendships with our teachers, which I don’t think many students can do in big schools. We are able to confide in our teachers and know that it will stay only with them.
I have been a student here my whole life and many teachers and students have come and gone, but something that has never faded is the love and concern we have for each other as pupils at this school.
A little message from us as the Matrics of 2019, is that you should appreciate our school and do not take it for granted. Do not wish that school can just end already because it really does come sooner than you expect it to.
I asked my classmates what is something that they appreciate or enjoy about this school and their answers describe Waterberg Academy so perfectly. Their answers were that we get personal attention from teachers, we are given the opportunity to be book-smart and bush-smart, the fact that we are so close as a class and that we are like family, our teachers always show us love and kindness, our learners are always kind to each other and the school and teachers push us to reach our full potential. According to Spieg, he is just here for the “lekkerness”. I have been here since I can remember. It’s all I have ever known and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I have made lifelong friends that I will cherish forever.
Waterberg Academy has crawled underneath our skin over the years and it will always have a very special place in our hearts.
THANK YOU WATERBERG ACADEMY!!!
Waterberg Academy is among the top 41 IEB schools listed in RSA and the only IEB Private School in Limpopo listed among the top 5% in RSA
Waterberg Academy is an English Medium independent school founded in 2003, in the heart of the UNESCO Waterberg Biosphere Reserve in the small town of Vaalwater, Limpopo, South Africa. Born out of a desire to take the best from traditional schooling, and combine this with critical elements that are sometimes overlooked, we are committed to an education informed by environmental, social and economic responsibility.
Today’s independent schools are highly competitive environments. Learners are required to perform at a high level socially, academically and on the sports field in order to find acceptance and value from both peer and school. We value above all the importance of creating a safe, structured environment in which impressionable young people can grow in self confidence and self-knowledge.
Situated on a 10 hectare property on the outskirts of Vaalwater, the Academy is surrounded by large tracts of relatively undisturbed indigenous Waterberg mountain bushveld, stretching for hundreds of kilometres to the north and north-west. This is an ideal classroom, where Nature is the teacher We recognize that educating our youth in traditional values, morals and ethics while equipping them with essential life skills and knowledge, is vital to securing their future. A pupil centered approach, modern curriculum design and committed educators ensure the fulfilment of these ideals. Our secure and peaceful environment allows us to grow learners in an a way that cannot be achieved in the city.
Located only two hours north of Pretoria, the Waterberg Academy offers the ultimate alternative to city education, complemented by the provision of upmarket, quality boarding facilities (for Grades 4 to 12) and an enviable lifestyle.
We invite you to invest in your children’s future by becoming part of something remarkable…
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