Message from the Executive Headmaster - Mike Thiel

December has a particular feel about it – and the anticipation of the Advent season and the excitement of Christmas never gets old. It is also a time of reflection and gratitude for those many blessings we have received through the year.

The opening of the Alexandra satellite campus was indeed a highlight of 2023 and a significant milestone in the history of our school. While this new educational model of multi-fee and bespoke educational offerings on multiple campuses will continue to evolve until the anticipated enrolment of 250/300 boys is reached in 2027/2028, it has brought Marist education to Alexandra and built bridges between the Sandton and Alex campuses of our school. Next year we will welcome over 50 boys to the campus. There is much work to be done, but with the first steps taken we have been heartened by the response of the wider community, the donors and all our boys, teachers and parents. This will be a model for collaborative education in South Africa.

Our extension of the school into Alexandra has been a marker for our moral credibility, but we are equally pleased to be able to report that we will open 2024 on record enrolment numbers on both campuses, which makes financial sustainability that much easier too. Thank you to all those who by word of mouth have shared their positive Marist journey and encouraged so many families to try the St David’s Marist Inanda difference. It is working!

We continue to grow our facilities, our programmes and our staffing to ensure that every boy enjoys opportunities in his areas of passion. This year the Maristonian was officially opened after substantial renovations and extensions, and we have completed a number of additional smaller development jobs around the school. In 2024 the focus will be on the building of a further 42-bed Boarding House, bringing our boarding numbers to over 100, and an even fuller experience for our boys. This will be done even as we plan and execute refurbishment of some of our teaching spaces to provide additional learning and teaching venues. Exciting times indeed!

With new connections made with our Marist Old Boys in gatherings in South Africa and around the world, we are reminded of the strength of our community and the power of this Marist network for our boys into the future.

As the year ends, we are grateful for the contributions to our Foundation Christmas Giving campaign, especially those donors helping us to reach the donation level that will allow our Chapel Memorial Pipe Organ to be installed early in 2024. We look forward to launching our Centenary Vision Campaign in early 2024 which will outline what St David’s needs to look like in 2041 when we celebrate 100 years of Marist excellence in this space.

This term, and in fact the year, has been both positive and busy for our College boys. The power of a school campus should never be underestimated. The passion and energy of our boys brings a strength that allows for real learning in an authentic and relational environment.

Our Catholic boys were confirmed after full preparation, and there has been much work done in service spaces, teaching all of us that it is in giving to others that we ultimately grow ourselves.

We said farewell to a strong group of Grade 12 men (our newest Marist Old Boys!) and are hopeful that their matric results, which come out in mid-January, will reflect both their hard work and the passion that Head of School, Paolantonio Mariano and the class of 2023 can be commended for in the way they led the school. We are proud to have many St David’s staff chosen for Matric marking again this year.

For the first time since Covid we had a full year of sporting and cultural activities, perhaps even more than ever before (certainly with more teams on offer). There has been strong achievement in all codes, and many of our sports rank in top 20 positions across the country. The over 230 boys taking musical instrumental instruction across the school is but one example of the balance between sport and cultural achievement, which is the mark of a quality school. The diversity of musical, dramatic, visual art and public speaking and debating opportunities is another sign that our boys are finding their passions and thriving in them.

Many boys have travelled - College boys attended the World Youth Day in Portugal presided over by Pope Francis; we started up our many exchanges around the world again and are about to add a new destination in South America. We currently have boys in Costa Rica on an adventure and service tour. The various sporting tours and grade camps took our boys all over the country, with the Grade 9 Journey recently completing the camp cycle for the year.

St David’s continues to celebrate academic excellence and achievement, and this manifests itself in many forms. We achieved excellent results in the International Benchmark Tests, which put us firmly in the top percentiles both locally and internationally. Our boys have achieved excellent results in National Competitions and the various Olympiads (with top 50 placements in the popular Maths Olympiad) and we are proud of the number of boys achieving above average results in their tests and exams, with a record number of seniors achieving academic colours. We anticipate another year of good results from the Matric Class of 2023, and our College Speech Night and Awards Ceremony celebrated the journey and the achievements of the senior boys and also heralded in a new leadership group for 2024 with Fhatuwani Mudau elected as the new Head of School.

While we are blessed with wonderful facilities at St David’s, they would be nothing if we did not have the quality staff to work with our boys in them. As we head into a future of augmented reality and virtual reality experiences, of automation in processes, of robots and artificial contacts, of a connected, but disconnected world, a world where neighbours increasingly cannot live together, we are reminded that no matter how technology changes – and we were most grateful for the connections that technology gave us in Covid times - the critical thing for us all to remember and to learn is that people count. Learning how to interact with each other, how to support each other and how to find our humanity in each other, will never come from an artificial learning process.

….. I remind you – it is our people, you, me and our wider community, that makes our school what it is, and it is you and me that need to make these connections even more important in the years ahead. How privileged we are to have a strong Wellness structure caring for us, and how remarkable that in a world where so few care, in our space so many do.

Our teachers remain amongst the most professional I have ever worked with and fully embrace both the academic programme and the mission of our Marist school. The input from the many teams that support the core work that we do as an educational institution cannot be underestimated. Our Support and Estate Teams ensure that we provide and maintain a world class campus and service offering. Our Business, Admin and Advancement Teams work hard to ensure the sustainability and growth of our school, and of Marist education, with a focus on excellence and access.

I will introduce new College staff when they join us in January 2024, when we will also welcome a very strong enrolment of 160 Grade 8 boys on the Inanda Campus and almost 40 Grade 8 boys on the Alexandra Campus, and another 20 boys into higher grades too. At the end of the year we will be saying farewell to a number of boys and staff.

We say farewell to Mrs Louisa Nortje, who joined us for a month’s locum in the Afrikaans department, and stayed for two years! She is now retiring again. Mr JD Toerien spent seven years in the sporting space, teaching physical education and working in the Rugby club. He will move to Marais Viljoen High School. Mr William Shabangu leaves us as a Mathematics teacher after three years and will further his career at Beaulieu College, while Mr Craig Gouws leaves after three and a half years as an EGD teacher, House Director and sports coach, to teach in China. We wish them well and thank them for the years of service and the unique input each has given.

And so it is that the campus gets quieter, and we all turn our minds to the rest that the December holiday brings. In our final assembly Fhatuwani spoke to the College boys of the three F’s – Faith, Family and Fun – as being the cornerstone of the December holiday period, and I can’t put it any better as I wish all in our St David’s Marist Inanda community a blessed Christmas. May we all return safely to our special school for another year of excellence in 2024.

Mike Thiel