Southern suburbs schools had reason to celebrate the release of the National Senior Certificate matric results, with several maintaining 100% pass rates and others scoring more than 90%.
It was a good year for Rondebosch Boys’ High School with two of their matriculants named among the top achievers in the country.
Gary Allen placed second in the country, while Timothy Murphy was the top maths candidate.
For the 12th year, the matric class scored a 100% pass rate and a 98.7% university-entrance rate.
Star College Sybrand Park’s second matric class improved its Bachelor’s pass rate from 92.2% to 96%. The high school opened in 2014 and had its first matric class last year with 14 pupils who achieved a 100% pass rate. This year, the school had 25 pupils. Top pupil Asmaa Elmowafi scored a 92% aggregate and eight distinctions.
Rustenburg Girls’ High School had a 100% Bachelor’s pass.
The school’s top pupil, Justine Verwey, scored seven subject distinctions and a 96% aggregate.
Canons Creek had a 100% Bachelor’s pass rate while Bishops and SACS maintained 100% overall pass rates.
Claremont High School’s pass rate increased from 96.8% to 98% with a 77% Bachelor’s pass rate.
Groote Schuur High School had a 95.5% pass with Bachelor passes rising by 12.5% to 75%.
Pinelands High School achieved a Bachelor’s pass rate of 82.3% and an overall pass rate of 98.4%.
Star College’s top pupil Asmaa, from Surrey Estate, Athlone, said she was surprised by her results as she had done better than she had expected in some subjects. She plans to study mechanical engineering or medicine at UCT.
“Our class was really hard working. We would have study sessions before and after class, and you could be free to just be yourself,” she said.
Star College principal Ahmet Kayya said he was happy with the pupils achievements and looked forward to improving the 2020 matric results.
“Our pupils worked really hard,” he said.
Tim, the Rondebosch Boys’ High pupil who is the country’s top maths boff, said he was happy with his eight distinctions.
“My aggregate stayed roughly the same as mocks, which is all I could have hoped for,” he said.
Tim will be studying actuarial science at UCT this year.
Canons Creek principal Mike van Haght said he was thrilled with his matrics’ results and wished them well for the future.
“The Class of 2019 has once again done the school proud by achieving a 100% pass, a record that has been maintained since the first matric class of 2003. The class of 2019 once again achieved a 100% bachelor pass.”
The school’s top pupil, Nabeela Parkar, had an aggregate of 88.71% and seven distinctions. She said the results were better than she had hoped for.
“Some days were tough, others were better. But at the end of the day, I knew I’d worked hard and done my best, and I was hopeful that my marks would reflect that,” she said. Nabeela will be studying industrial engineering at Stellenbosch University.
Bishops’ principal Guy Pearson said 150 pupils had written the exams. The school’s top achiever was Jakob Holm with an aggregate of 95.7%, followed by Euan Musselwhite with 94.4% and Joshua Elliott with 94.3%
“We are extremely proud of these results and congratulate every pupil on their achievement and thank all the Bishops teachers whose guidance and motivation made these results possible,” said Mr Pearson.