CAPE TOWN - Apex High School in Eerste River is celebrating its first cohort of matriculants who achieved an 84.5% pass rate in the 2021 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations.
Situated in the heart of Eerste River in Electric City, the no-fee school was opened in 2018 in partnership with Acorn Education, a non-profit school operating partner.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers and learners were able to access and attend lessons regularly via an online platform, with minimal data charges, funded and developed by Acorn Education.
Principal Renate van der Westhuizen said the reason behind establishing the school was to show that all children deserve a quality education no matter where they came from.
Out of the 155 matric pupils, 62.5% of the class achieved bachelors passes.
“For us as a no-fee school, we outperformed a lot of quintile 5 schools with regards to their bachelor passes.
“We are very determined to close the performance gap between previously advantaged and previously disadvantaged schools.”
Jordan Daniel, among the top ten matrics at the school, said he joined Apex High school in grade 11 and saw an improvement in his academics.
“The website is an important factor to me, we still got our school work and lessons from the website Acorn created, that was a big boost. The environment… created was very different… an environment of excellence, an environment of learning, an environment that motivates you to do better and to be better,” said Daniels.
Daniels said he plans to study Law and was accepted to three institutions and had not yet decided where to go.
Pamela Phakathi, also in the top ten at the school, achieved 90% for Dramatic Arts.
“We had certain apps to do extra work if we did not understand. The teachers pushed everyone, they always included everyone and did not single out anyone. They had a very good impact on the school and us learners.”
“I applied to three Universities and was accepted to all three but I will be going to University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), to study television and media production,” said Phakathi.
Acorn Education chief executive Jana du Plooy said the good results showed that their model worked.
“This year’s outstanding matric and bachelor pass rate would not have been possible without the efforts of Apex High School’s dedicated staff, resilient learners, and our partners over the past four years.”
Cape Times