The Old Diocesan Issue 10 - Magazine - Page 8
Peak performance
With the school’s 175 celebrations ahead, Principal Tony Reeler
reflects on another year of overall excellence
T
he past year has been a
good one for the Bishops
community, full of
activities and events that
highlight the all-round offering
at the school, as well as several
projects that had a positive impact
on the school. The new entrance
to the College was unveiled and
has been a wonderful addition
to our main campus, providing a
suitable and aesthetically pleasing
welcome to visitors and members
of the community. As a result
of this, and the beginning of a
five-year project to replace the
perimeter fence, security has also
been tightened, with better access
control to the grounds.
Of greatest impact on
the campus in 2023 has been
the start of construction of
the new Learning Commons, a
multipurpose academic building
in the heart of the school, linked
to the Molteno Library. This
facility will provide much-needed
spaces for collaborative learning
and conferencing, and we are
eagerly awaiting its opening
in July 2024 as part of the 175
celebrations. The funding for
the building came largely from
donations to the 175 fundraising
campaign, with bridging finance
from the school’s building fund.
It is hoped that the building will be
fully funded by the 175 campaign.
The scourge of loadshedding
hit Bishops after many years of
escaping its effects, and emergency
plans were put in place to ensure
our academic offering was not
affected. Included in this project
was the provision of services to
boarders throughout loadshedding.
6 | THE OLD DIOCESAN
The resulting impact of
loadshedding has been the
acceleration of the school’s
plans around sustainable
and environmentally friendly
alternative-energy sources; we
have provided a hybrid model
of generator power, solar panels
and batteries as part of our longterm solution. (See p9.)
Classroom and boarding house
upgrades have continued, and we
are confident that the facilities
are in line with expectations
of a world-class school.
Our academic programme
remains extremely strong. The
class of ’23 excelled in the recent
matriculation examinations,
coming first in the Western
Cape, as announced at the
recent WCED awards ceremony.
Bishops also won the title of
top-performing school in the
Western Cape in mathematics
(shared with Herschel) and
physical sciences. These were
the only subjects at the awards
ceremony that were recognised
as school performance.
Further analysis of the results
placed Bishops first in the country
in mathematics in terms of the
number of distinctions and the
percentage of distinctions per
subject, with 53% of the class
Principal Tony Reeler with Head Boy Ben Anderson (M, standing) and
Deputy Heads Immanuel Magongwa (S) and James Grieve (M).