Willowridge High School (Pretoria) - History of The School

History of The School

Willowridge High is an excellent school with excelling ideas and many talented young people who have excelled in an environment which has nurtured enthusiasm, friendship and a pioneering spirit.

It has built this ethos on the lives of four prominent South Africans who were associated with Pretoria East and the early development of the Transvaal. Its four school houses are named after them and its house badges are extracts of their original family crests.

The first of these, in historical sequence, Harry Struben, is remembered as a pioneer on the gold fields. In 1860, he started a transport business between the old ZAR capital and Natal. With the profits from this business, he bought a farm, The Willows, at that time far to the east of Pretoria.

Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, another prominent person, was also a pioneer on the Gold Reef in the early days. He published Jock of the Bushveld in 1907. He became Member of Parliament for Pretoria East in 1910. During his political career, both in the ZAR and under the Union, he strove to unite English speakers. Education was one of his many interests, and he was among those who raised funds for the founding of the University of the Witwatersrand in 1921.

Sir Thomas Cullinan, the third prominent person, was a pioneer of diamond-mining in the Transvaal. He came to South Africa in 1903 at the request of Sir Alfred Milner. Milner had written to the London Board of Education asking for several capable young men who would help to re-organise education in the Transvaal.

It was Sir John Adamson’s task to try to reconcile the conflicting interests of Boer and Briton through education. This Englishman, who became a Transvaaler by adoption and learnt to speak Dutch, played no small part in laying foundations for education in our Province. He was as much a pioneer as any of those successful prospectors who found gold or diamonds in the old days. The school has taken encouragement from this example as it reaches out the hand of education to children of all races in its community.

As early as the start of 1985 a Vigilance Committee was elected at a meeting of prospective parents. Having been named the watchdogs, they monitored the progress of the new school, while the buildings started taking shape on the site that once had been a farm. It was due to their efforts that the school cottage and the trees, which give the school its restful country atmosphere, were saved from the bulldozer.

The Committee's activities were, however, also directed at creating an ethos for their new school and establishing a fundamental philosophy. The school opened its doors on Wednesday 7 January 1987 to welcome the first 187 pupils in Forms One and Two. During the first term the name Willowridge High School became official and a badge needed to be designed.

The Coat of Arms was approved by the Bureau of Heraldry in 1988 and depicts the name of the school and its inherent philosophy. The shape is that of a spade symbolising the pioneering spirit with which the school was started. The two willow trees standing on the ridge, nurturing and protecting the Tudor Rose as it blossoms represent the name of the school.

The willow trees represent growth from the firm foundations of the ridge and symbolise the parent and teacher, while the Tudor rose identifies our English heritage and symbolises the child at its blossoming stage of development.

The centre of the rose depicts the child’s potential being developed, while the five barbed seeds represent the five facets of the child’s development, namely the spiritual, the academic, the cultural, the physical and social development.

The triad formed by the two willow trees and the Tudor Rose further depicts the protective, nurturing role of the home and school in the education of the child.

The school motto, "Strive with integrity", and the school song cemented into words the ethos of the school and the symbolic nature of its coat of arms. The words of our school song came from the pupils, while Mrs Grobler, the grandmother of the Smith family, composed the final melody.

The first Headmaster Eddie Penzhorn who came to Willowridge High from The Glen High School, had to face more than is expected of other headmasters: He first had to create a school before he could run it. Out of a wilderness of needs he found textbooks, equipment, desks, chairs, sports-fields, staff and pupils and moulded them into the modern school it has become.

In 1991, the second Headmaster Jack Birkenbach was appointed. After a year in office he confidently reflected upon the host of individual achievements pupils at Willowridge High had attained in such a short time. It was acknowledged that national and provincial honours are necessarily second to the academic results: Apart from the number of pupils who have passed with four or more distinctions in Matric, the Headmaster was proudest of a 100% matric pass-rate achieved.

In 2005, the third Headmaster Mr Andre du Plessis was appointed.