18 January 2024
(Feature photo: Liam Jansen van Rensburg, Ntatho Sifumba and Fritz Rheeder show off the number of distinctions they achieved in the 2023 IEB exams)
Kearsney College has earned itself a deserved reputation as a school that consistently delivers academic excellence and the results of the 2023 Independent Examinations Board (IEB) reveal that the class of 2023 has maintained that outstanding standard.
Mathematics has been a source of weakness in South African schools for many years now, yet it has been a source of strength for Kearsney. The 2023 class averaged 73 percent for the subject.
In Engineering Graphics and Design (EGD), Kearsney boys averaged 80 percent. Those who wrote music matched that mark, and half of the boys who wrote Information Technology (IT) bettered 80 percent.
Those results were in keeping with the standards the school achieved in the 2022 IEB exams.
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Four of the boys who wrote EGD – Jordan Boyd, Zhouhao Zhang, Nicholas Butler and Jacques Nel – finished in the top one percent of the subject in South Africa.
Others to finish within the top one percent of subjects were Liam Jansen van Rensburg, in Business Studies; Lwandile Khoza, in Life Orientation; and Anesu Chimusoro, in Physical Sciences.
For an 11th year in succession, Kearsney achieved a 100 percent pass rate, and 99.2 percent of the boys received university exemption passes.
Ntatho Sifumba, the runner-up Dux at the school’s annual prize-giving in September last year, recorded eight distinctions, with four of those marks being 90 percent or above.
He plans to study Actuarial Science at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Discussing his success, Nthato said: “It took a lot of hard work and dedication, just staying focussed and trying my best, and persevering.
He was also a member of the renowned Kearsney College Choir, which also made big demands on his time, and he participated in basketball, hockey and football. How did he manage that workload?
“It took time management skills. You’ve got to allocate your time wisely, and you have to focus on what is important,” he said. “There were a lot of times when things clashed and that I had two things going on at the same time. I had to choose what was more important, and what was going to benefit me, and I chose academics, and it worked out well for me.”
Ntatho praised Kearsney’s staff for their outstanding teaching and for inspiring him. “For maths and science, I can say that Kearsney has two of the best teachers for those subjects. They really did help me a lot. It really benefitted me to have them.
“My physical sciences teacher, Mr Ancillotti, was very good at his job, very passionate. His passion for teaching and for maths rubs onto you, as a student, and it makes you want to do well. He really does care for us, and I really appreciated that from him, and it really did help me.
“For science, Mrs Murray was also very passionate about it, and she cares about it, too, and it rubs onto you.
“For my other subjects, I was very fortunate to have good teachers all around. I had a good environment in which to do well.”
Actuarial science is known to attract the best and the brightest. Ntatho candidly explained how he arrived at his decision to pursue it: “I am being very honest with you. When I was applying for university, I went onto Google and I searched for the highest paying jobs, and I saw actuaries were right up there. But, when I researched more into it, I saw that it involves a lot of mathematics, and since mathematics is my strongest subject and I do enjoy doing it, I realised that it was probably the best choice, and I would enjoy that the most.”
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Three boys – Anesu Chimusoro, Liam Jansen van Rensburg and Fritz Rheeder – achieved seven distinctions.
Chimusoro, the Dux, apart from his exceptional result in Physical Sciences, also scored 95 percent in Accounting and 91 percent in Mathematics. He also played 1st team hockey. Chimusoro will also head to UCT, where he plans to study medicine.
Jansen van Rensburg, who received his Academic Honours Cum Laude, included Mandarin among his list of distinctions. His busy matric year included playing basketball, football, rugby and running cross-country. He will head to the Western Cape, too, and will pursue Business Studies at Stellenbosch.
Fritz Rheeder, another recipient of Academic Honours Cum Laude, demonstrated remarkable all-round abilities. Not only did he achieve sevens As, but he also played 1st team cricket, football, hockey and indoor hockey. Like Liam Jansen van Rensburg, he will attend Stellenbosch University, where he will tackle a BSc in Health.
Headmaster Patrick Lees declared himself delighted with Kearsney’s results, which, he said, were testament to the incredible work put in by the boys and their teachers, with support from the boys’ parents.
Lees said the school’s academic support programme had paid dividends, with most pupils achieving excellent results, and many of them recording results beyond their wildest dreams.
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