The measure of a “top high school” is more than the matric results it achieves. Education experts agree that extracurricular activities round out a high school education by building character, developing social maturity and strengthening a sense of community involvement — qualities that cannot be learnt from a textbook or an online course.
The cherry on top is to know that pupils who participate in extracurricular activities are also more likely to succeed academically.
Milnerton High School in the Western Cape has taken this to heart and has created a campus that is focused on excellence in sport and cultural activities as well as in academic excellence.
That focus began in 2005, when Paul Besener was appointed principal of the school. He took over a school that “was teetering”, he says today. “It was financially not [where it should have been]. And there were social problems involving drugs and misbehaviour.”
Besener, a psychologist, had taught at Milnerton High for eight years in the 1980s, when it was a well-run Model C school. But when he returned 20 years later, finding it at a low point, his brief from the governing body was simply: “Make this the very best school you can.”
He says: “The nice thing is, even though governing bodies change every three years, that brief has stood throughout.” That support set in motion a concerted effort by staff, parents and alumni, under Besener’s leadership, to put the school on a winning path.
This year it received more than 2,300 applications for grade 8. It is rated 16th in the country on the SchoolParrot Best Schools in South Africa list. The platform ranks schools based on reviews and poll data from pupils, parents and staff members.
Milnerton High has maintained an almost 100% pass rate since 2005 (one pupil failed during the pandemic). “A few years ago one of our learners was ranked third in the country, out of 794,000 matriculants,” says Besener.
Milnerton High is now drawing top pupils from Cape Town’s more prestigious areas. The school is what Besener calls “the most eclectic community in the country”. It has about 1,300 pupils who speak a total of 37 home languages. They come from poorer neighbourhoods in Joe Slovo, Phoenix and Ysterplaat as well as from very wealthy communities with homes that cost up to R16m.
Besener and his team decided to rebrand Milnerton High. They wanted to turn it into one of the top facilities in the country, offering sport and cultural development as well as excellent teaching and learning. The aim, Besener says, was “to draw in well-paying pupils to subsidise the ones that did not have [the same financial resources] ... It’s that simple. And we treat them all the same when they’re here.”
So the school has created top sports facilities that serve not only pupils but also sports clubs, which pay to use them. “The facilities we’ve built are driven to work into that model, to satisfy that need, to create that income,” Besener says.
Such facilities required a huge financial investment — by a high school that 20 years ago had almost no extra funds. “We were ... not in the red, but barely coping,” Besener recalls. “We tried to raise funds, we raffled cars ... we did all sorts of things. But if you raise R300,000 or R400,000 in today’s money, it would not even make a dent in what you need to do.”
When he returned 20 years later, finding it at a low point, his brief from the governing body was simply: ‘Make this the very best school you can’
So in 2008, with approval from the governing body, Besener launched a new plan. “I went to the staff and said to them: ‘For the next three years, your budget will stay the same. You make it work,’” he says. The money that came from school fee increases of 4%-5% for those three years was put into an interest-bearing fund, except for cases of dire need.
“The increases [in income] are now exponential,” Besener says. “Now [the fund for the project brings in] R2.6m a year. So every four years, I have R10m to spend.”
The school’s project fund has made it possible to build a R30m hall, an indoor cricket centre, ablution facilities, new classrooms, an R8m AstroTurf hockey field and a R6.5m aquatic area — and that’s just the start.
Two biokineticists on the staff serve the pupils. The heated pool is used year-round by a club that trains top swimmers. In return, Milnerton’s pupils are coached by Olympic and national coaches. Olympic and world champion Chad le Clos trains at Milnerton High when he’s in Cape Town.
“We attract many of the good swimmers from [wealthier parts of the area] as pupils,” Besener says. That tuition income “allows me to take a number of the poorer kids” as subsidised pupils.
The rugby fields are equipped with floodlights for night games, installed for free by one of the parents. That is where rugby player Damian de Allende began developing the skills that led to him becoming a Springbok in the team that won two Rugby World Cup titles. He often pops in at the school to see Besener and the school’s rugby coach, Heinrich Martin, when he’s in town.
The school’s rugby team continues to perform so well that the Rugby365 website declared in April this year that “Milnerton’s success puts ‘bigger’ schools on notice.” The team is captained by Frank Hitimana, the South African-born son of two asylum seekers from Burundi. In August this year, Rapport reported that Hitimana could not accompany the regional team on its tour to Namibia because he did not possess an ID book. Still, Hitimana told Rapport: “My dream is to play Test rugby for the Springboks.”
Besener says: “Part of our holistic programme is to take the children on tour. We have overseas tours, cultural tours, sports tours, and ... tours to other provinces ... It’s part of their development.”
The floodlights also make day-night cricket possible, while parents braai on the sidelines. Besener adds that netball has “become an economy on its own, with many provincial players in both sports”.
Golf has become another drawcard for the school. Milnerton Golf Club lies across the R27 highway, which passes the school, and across the Diep River, making it one of the few links courses in the country.
The school has a special relationship with the golf club: pupils have access to its superb facilities and coaching, Besener says. As a result, Milnerton High boasts one of the top school golf teams in the country. “We have two golfers on the collegiate circuit in the US,” he says.
Milnerton High offers athletics, hockey, swimming, soccer, squash, softball and tennis, among other sports. They are options on the contract all pupils sign committing them to participate in one extracurricular activity every term. In the school’s inclusive environment, the weaker players can take away just as much as the A-team players, Besener says.
“It’s the young girl who plays in the under-14 C team that learns the real lessons,” he points out. “Does she have the best coaches? Does she have the best set-up? Definitely not. On Saturdays when she arrives [for a match], some of her teammates might be missing. She has to deal with that. She’s built up that strength of character,” he says. “You can’t teach it any other way than through experience.”
Besener describes another pupil who was teased at his primary school for being “big”. “Then he came here and discovered the shot put,” Besener says. “And he was great at it, because he is big. He had room to explore, to go to our gym, to grow, not just on the field but in all the other ways. He had a future. And he was having fun; he was making friends. Learning should be fun.”
Milnerton High’s pupils are also excelling in drama, instrumental music, singing, dance and art, and being taken on tours for those activities.
In addition to all of this, the school emphasises discipline — another factor that was lacking when Besener became principal. He says: “I think the staff wanted change ... the turnover rate was high, people weren’t happy.”
Pupils who misbehave during class are brought into a time-out room where a staff member supervises them as they complete their class work. Repeat offenders are assigned community service on the school grounds. The school has a code of conduct committee, which may phone the parents if a pupil continues to disrupt.
Parents are actively involved in school events and academic initiatives. “I can send out an e-mail now, and I will have an overwhelming number of parents coming to school at very short notice,” says Besener. “On Saturdays we play against some of our top rugby opposition and we have up to 6,000 people [on the Milnerton grounds].”
One of the governing body members maintains the school’s landscaping for free.
Besener credits Milnerton High’s teachers for going the extra mile. “They understand what we’re trying to do. They’ve experienced the strength of it and have seen the excellence across the board. That’s the challenge: to attain that standard you have to work really hard.”
And for the pupils, when their schooldays are past, the opportunities they are offered to develop further by receiving scholarships and bursaries from universities are potentially life changing.
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