79 ACADEMIC Review The existing members of a determined history depar tment were fired up with the arrival of Jono Waldburger (a Kearsney old boy) to teach grade 8s and 11. Michael von Bardeleben and Tracey van den Aardweg continued to ignite the passion for history amongst the youngsters within their charges and Neil Peacock continued to engender confidence and a love for the subject in the senior phase. 2014 was another busy year with various expos and excursions but the highlights of the year were undoubtedly the 2013 NSC History results as well as the tour to Russia in April. MATRIC RESULTS The talented 2013 historians brought credit to the History depar tment.The boys exceeded all expectations with distinctions. In addition, the Kearsney boys exceeded the IEB distinction rate by more than 10%.The Kearsney average of 74% was equally impressive. Four boys were placed in the top 1% of IEB history candidates: Samuel Hansen; Greg Royston;Thomas Hudson and Adam Bradshaw. GRADE 11 AND 12 2014 could be viewed as a year of consolidation.The main focus was preparing the matrics for the first CAPs aligned NSC examinations. A new format for both papers 1 and 2 has been adopted.This new format has seen the weighting of the sourcebased paper over the extended writing paper.This change should be in the interests of boys as extended writing is an area in which boys traditionally battle. However, the depar tment continued to work on improving the boys’ discursive writing and source-based essay writing throughout the year. GRADE 10 The grade 10 boys accompanied Neil Peacock and Lyall McCabe on another eventful trip to Shakaland.The boys thoroughly enjoyed the Zulu cultural program that was laid on: the sampling of traditional Zulu beer ; learning about the traditional Zulu homestead and the ar t of warfare as practised by Shaka in the 19th century; visiting a traditional sangoma and par taking in stick fighting and spear throwing.The evening’s highlight was the traditional Zulu dancing in the great hut of the Chief. GRADE 9 The grade 9 history boys – as par t of their continuous assessment – were required to choose a topic on the SecondWorldWar and to present their research in a visually pleasing manner.Their displays were exhibited at the 11th Historyonix Expo in the Henderson hall. Awards were presented to the following: 1st Prize For his electronically wired working U-Boat and periscope: Grant Manderson 2nd Prize For their neatly built, detailed to-scale Anderson shelter : Juandre de Beer, Connor Steedman and Ayron Kayser 3rd Prize For their WorldWar II Propaganda Street – showing detail in the cobbled street and authentic looking street lamp: Lewis Traill, Scott Stewar t and Kuhle Nkosi History “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.” (Mahatma Gandhi) With grateful thanks to Blake Litster (2015)
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