ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW HEADMASTER
The Ridge School is pleased to announce that following a thoughtful and robust search process, Frank Rumboll has been appointed as Headmaster of The Ridge School, with effect from I January 2023.
Frank comes from a family of leading educators in South Africa. During his 29 year career, he has been widely recognised as an innovative teacher and Head at various schools who is devoted to serving children’s best interests. He has gained valuable experience at Kingsmead College, St Stithians Boys’ College, Crawford College (as a founding Staff member), Cedar House School and Curro Rivonia occupying several leadership roles, including Head of English, Academic Director, Principal and Executive Headmaster.
Frank is passionate about education, service and growing children who are global citizens. He is married to Deborah, and they are parents to Jaidan and Sarah, who are both pursuing postgraduate study at university and work as journalists, and Kim, a preparatory school teacher.
We are very excited to welcome Frank and his family to The Ridge Family, and look forward to introducing him to our community.
HERITAGE DAY CELEBRATIONS
We celebrated Heritage day by remembering the cultural heritage of the many cultures we have at The Ridge. The boys dressed up in anything representing their heritage or proudly South African. We started the day with SALT, where the boys discussed what they think Heritage day is and why it is important to acknowledge our heritage. This was followed by an entertaining assembly, with all the grades singing or performed something proudly South African. Then we ended off with a boerewors roll and koek-sister.
JP ART AUCTION
On World Rhino Day the Junior Prep Art Auction took place, the first of its kind! Thanks to a small group of dedicated moms and with the support of the teaching staff, we put together 4 beautiful and unique Grade artworks that each boy in the JP had contributed towards. We auctioned these off, and raised R67000 for Wild Trust, thanks to the incredible generosity of our JP parents. Roelie Kloppers, the CEO of Wild Trust was there on the night and they are so appreciative of our support and putting this towards the important work they do and the rhinos the school supports. A special and meaningful evening!
THE JOHANNESBURG MUSIC FESTIVAL
Every year our boys showcase their musical skills at a prestigious festival. 2022 was no different with boys showcasing their talents on the violin, piano and in singing.
The Johannesburg Music Festival has been in existence for decades and provides a wonderful opportunity for young musicians to perform and receive feedback on their musicianship and performance skills. The festival remained online this year, and the children watched their recorded performances over Zoom in July with live adjudication. Many of our boys received excellent feedback and two of our boys were invited to perform at the live Gala Concert on Sunday 18 September.
Luke Goldstein and Bradley Legg were presented with incredible accolades at the Gala event.
Bradley Legg who is taught by our very own Mrs Irene Morrick performed with aplomb and won the Eugenie Chopin Trophy for the Most Promising Male singer of the Festival.
In the string section, Luke Goldstein was awarded the South African Suzuki Association Trophy 10 years and under (shared with Hiroyuki Numasawa) AND the Diana Neille Trophy for the Best Performance of a Violin Recital, which he also won in 2021.
Well done to all our budding musicians, we are very proud of you!
READING BREAKFAST
We celebrated Roald Dahl’s birthday with a wonderful Reading Breakfast.
Families joined us on the Hersov field for a picnic and reconnected over coffee, snacks and loads of books. Boys, staff and parents dressed up as their favourite Roald Dahl character. We celebrated literacy in a way that would have made Roald Dahl proud!
HOCKEY
On Saturday morning, our Grade 3s played their first hockey game of the season. It was a great morning filled with fun and friendly competition
TENNIS TOUR: SUN CITY
FIRST DAY BACK TERM 3
GRADE 4 CAMP: CAMP KONKA
GRADE 6 CAMP: GOLDEN GATE
GRADE 7 CAMP: LEPALALA WILDNESS SCHOOL
THE GRADE 6 BOYS VISITED HOPE SCHOOL
The Grade 6 boys spent some time at the Hope School reading to their Grade 1 – 3s. It was a lively morning and their laughter could be heard down the corridors. They spent priceless time together, forming friendships and nurturing their love for reading.
GRADE 6 BOYS SHOWING THE RIGHT STUFF
The Grade 6 boys did a collection for Princess Alice’s Adoption Home. In an effort to give back to their community, they collected items that Princess Alice had on their wish list. It was a wonderful opportunity for our boys to continue to make a difference in the lives of others.
ROBOTICS AT THE RIDGE
The Grade 4s were tasked with developing solutions to one of society’s current problems during their robotics lesson. The boys chose pollution as their problem and agreed that recycling was the solution. The robots were then programmed to collect recyclable trash or food.
SENIOR PREP AFRIKAANS BOEK BUDDIES
The SP boys were treated to an exciting Afrikaans Boek Buddies show in an effort to expose our boys to Afrikaans outside of the classroom and in an interactive manner. Redhead Productions put on the show, which featured popular Afrikaans songs. Not only were the boys encouraged to sing along to the songs, but they were also encouraged to learn Afrikaans words that appeared on the screen with English translations
SPRING WEEK IN GRADE 0
The Grade 0 boys have been learning all about Spring, Arbor week and the importance of trees. They got to explore our beautiful gardens and learned all about our gorgeous African flowers. They are looking after some Silkworms in their classrooms and feeding them delicious Mulberry leaves.
The Grade 0s have been busy with all sorts of beautiful art projects: Tree rubbing and leaf rubbing, making Spring blossoms out of tissue paper, decorating gorgeous vases, painting flowers using tennis balls as well as some fun bubble art.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE INTER-SCHOOL QUIZ
The Ridge Quiz teams participated in a General Knowledge Inter-School Quiz, hosted by Kyalami Prep. It was Grade 5’s first time competing but they were not officially part of the competition. The boys did really well and did us proud, achieving 2nd place (Grade 6 team), 6th place (Grade 7 team) and an unofficial 8th place (Grade 5 team).
The teams were:
| Grade 7 | Grade 6 | Grade 5 |
| Kachi Amaonwu | Ryder Brooks | Lizo Makiwane |
| Neo Selibe | Daniel du Toit | Thomas Faber |
| Sakhile Zondo | Luke Hartmann | Jamie Stein |
| Jonathan Schwegman | Spencer Gilchrist | Nkazi Mabota |
DEBATING CLUB
Our debating team participated in the annual Gauteng Provincial Debating Competition at Cornwall Hill College. There were 48 schools in the competition which took place over 2 days and The Ridge, being the only prep school, broke 9th. Our team performed exceptionally well winning 4 out of 6 debates. The team consists of Finn Berman (Captain), Felix Jackson, Katleho Ramatsoso, Imran Budlender, Muhammad Casoojee and Oscar Berman who will all compete again this Sunday when the competition continues.
CONGRATULATIONS TO KHANYISILE
We are so excited to share this news. Congratulations, Khanyisile Mthetwa on your outstanding awards at the 2022 SAMAs held at Sun City. In addition to winning Best Classical/ Instrumental album Khanyi also won the award for Best Newcomer of the Year! Simply amazing.
The Ridge Music Department has been busy this month. The incredible South African Jazz Musician, Marcus Wyatt, who is part of our team, was invited to conduct the Metropole Orkest in the Royal Albert Hall. Closer to home, the 2nd World Sound Concert held at the Joburg Theatre featured Irene Morrick’s compositions with Khanyi Mthetwa as well as a performance by our vocal coach Ziza Muftic.
We could not be more proud of our Music Department.
SAVE THE DATE
Click here to book tickets – ridge.allxs.co.za
THE RIDGE SCHOOL GOLF DAY
OLD BOYS CAPE TOWN REUNION
To RSVP please click: https://forms.gle/CbwEo2cJzCgadCa78
