3 This page is sponsored by: Jesse Daniel, Shane, Kim and Kelsey All these bodies have contributed to making this year a special one in our history. I also wish to thank the companies and individuals who suppor t our scholarship and bursary fund and pay tribute to them for their on-going generosity to the College. In addition, we are grateful to the parents of all our grade 12 boys for their faith in us and their interest and involvement over the years. I would also like to personally acknowledge the support my wife Tracey gives me in my position as Headmaster. It is always a sad duty to say farewell to departing staff. Our Chaplain, Rev Teboho Erasmus leaves Kearsney after two wonderful years at the College. Soon after he arrived at Kearsney, the staff were to meet socially at a local restaurant. The invitation went to all staff by e-mail from Mr Kirsten. Trying to encourage attendance, Mr Kirsten mentioned who else would be present. He mentioned Jack Daniels, Douglas Green, Charles Glass and a few others. Rev Erasmus’ cryptic response to Mr Kirsten was simple, “Dear Peter, I’m praying for you boet”. Rev Erasmus will be setting up a law practice in Johannesburg and we wish him well. Mr Simon Moore, head of Life Sciences, for two years at Kearsney has been promoted to the deputy headship at St John’s school in Pietermaritzburg. He has made a major contribution in a shor t time and was the one person who put up his hand to administer and manage the IQAA quality assurance survey last year and how well he tackled that task. Mrs Sally Cain, school secretary for close on ten years has chosen to leave Kearsney a year shor t of retirement in order to establish a work-fromhome business. Kearsney people will recognise the name Sally from their weekly e-mails received over many years. Sally, we will miss your dry humour and the affection you have for any living animal – including me. We are indeed blessed with an exceptional compliment of staff, be they academic or administrative. I wish to acknowledge their contribution individually and through the various levels of management. The management team and the executive have faced some tough decisions and have acquitted themselves well by always being prepared to indulge in robust debate and to courageously tackle difficult challenges. 2011 began well with the announcement of another outstanding set of national senior cer tificate results. Once again individual and group achievement in a number of national academic Olympiads has been excellent as well as selections to provincial and national sporting teams. This was the year that we celebrated 90 years of Kearsney’s glorious history since the Hulett house outside Stanger opened its doors to between 8 and 14 boys. The celebrations this year took on various forms, ranging from the formal Chapel service to which past and present staff,Trustees, Board and Old Boy representatives were invited. It was appropriate that this first event should be held in the Chapel where we could give thanks to God for His blessings upon Kearsney. Other celebrations were a little more jovial with a 90th anniversary founders dinner, a parents’ spring ball and, on the 4th of August, the actual day of our founding, an all-day celebration for the boys. This year we also witnessed seemingly unbelievable global events: the unexpected Arab spring; the devastating natural disasters in New Zealand and Japan; the sudden closure of News of the World as the result of a phone hacking scandal and the shocking chaos of the London riots. When one studies these events, there was in every case an eventual release of pressure of one kind or another that had been building – sometimes over millions of years. Dr Jacky Jones, a former regional manager with the Irish health service executive, reflected upon the lessons learned from the London riots and suggested that social capital goes a long way in explaining the youthful revolt. Social capital is defined as the patterns and quality of networks between individuals and society. She writes, “Imagine it as a dense mesh of connections that invade every crevice and cranny of human life”. Jones makes the point that levels of trust and mistrust in society are the most important factors that build and erode social capital. High trust increases creativity and critical thinking. Mistrust leads to a vicious cycle of suspicion, cynicism and disillusionment, leading to the disintegration of communities. In view of everything that has occurred during 2011 it is valuable and constructive to ask to what extent our school is encouraging and fostering social capital. Is Kearsney nur turing the dense mesh of inter connectedness between people? It should. On the 4th of August, after a day of celebrating, we were gathered in the Henderson hall to view a DVD illustrating the College’s history. As we experienced a collective pride in our College, news filtered through that one of our prefects, Luke Norris who had been battling Leukaemia for almost a year, was losing that battle in Westville hospital’s intensive care unit. The grade 12 group unobtrusively made their way silently to the Chapel This was the year that we celebrated 90 years of Kearsney’s glorious history I wish to thank and acknowledge the support and assistance of the Parents society under chairman Hayden Kelly, Old Boys executive under chairman Nick Keary, the Kearsney Board under chairman Mr Andile Mazwai and the Trustees under chairman Rob Becker. HEADMASTER’S Report
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