The Glen High School

The rapid eastward expansion of Pretoria in the seventies led to the establishment by the Transvaal Education Department of The Glen High School in 1976. The name of the School selected by the parents had a profound influence on the identity of the School.

The use of the thistle as the School badge was a logical outcome of this name. Other Scottish connections soon followed: the use of clans instead of houses; the wearing of kilts and tartan ties.

The final coat-of-arms accepted in 1996 was a repetition of the thistle and the incorporation of the main School and clan colours. The motto, Urram, is Gaelic for A Respect with Honour.

The academic programme of five years is divided into a senior phase consisting of Grade 8 and 9, and an FET phase consisting of Grades 10, 11 and 12. The possibility exists for learners to exit from the school at the end of the senior phase to proceed to institutions that offer vocationally and skills orientated training.

In the senior phase all learners follow the same syllabus and write the same examinations. The introduction of the new Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for implementation in 2014 has reverted back to the emphasis on content-based academic studies in eight areas of learning each with a common core of academic activities. More recently the learning process has undergone a further shift towards the accumulation of knowledge and the use of knowledge to strengthen academic attitudes and skills.

While subject content remains an essential component of educational activities, the content is now being used to enable learners to feel confident in using the content to seek out relationships between different areas of learning to allow learners to present content in more interesting ways and make them independent searchers and researchers so that they develop study habits which will enable them to travel confidently on the path of life long learning.

The Further Education and Training (FET) band also follows the CAPS which commenced in 2012. A learner has to offer 7 subjects from different learning areas. Four subjects are compulsory: a home language (English), an additional official language (Afrikaans or sePedi), Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy and Life Orientation. The other three subjects are chosen from the following: Physical Science, Life Sciences, Information Technology, Computer Applications Technology (CAT), Geography, History, Accounting, Business Studies, Consumer Studies, Visual Art and Tourism.

The academic programme of five years is divided into a senior phase consisting of Grade 8 and 9, and an FET phase consisting of Grades 10, 11 and 12. The possibility exists for learners to exit from the school at the end of the senior phase to proceed to institutions that offer vocationally and skills orientated training.

In the senior phase all learners follow the same syllabus and write the same examinations. The introduction of the new Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for implementation in 2014 has reverted back to the emphasis on content-based academic studies in eight areas of learning each with a common core of academic activities. More recently the learning process has undergone a further shift towards the accumulation of knowledge and the use of knowledge to strengthen academic attitudes and skills.

While subject content remains an essential component of educational activities, the content is now being used to enable learners to feel confident in using the content to seek out relationships between different areas of learning to allow learners to present content in more interesting ways and make them independent searchers and researchers so that they develop study habits which will enable them to travel confidently on the path of life long learning.

The Further Education and Training (FET) band also follows the CAPS which commenced in 2012. A learner has to offer 7 subjects from different learning areas. Four subjects are compulsory: a home language (English), an additional official language (Afrikaans or sePedi), Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy and Life Orientation. The other three subjects are chosen from the following: Physical Science, Life Sciences, Information Technology, Computer Applications Technology (CAT), Geography, History, Accounting, Business Studies, Consumer Studies, Visual Art and Tourism.

Sport is not compulsory, as the school believes that the greatest success and enjoyment is attained by voluntary participation. Once a learner enters a sport, however, total commitment and hard work are expected. The school sets itself three ambitions: to encourage each participant to strive for excellence as an individual and as a member of a team; to give as many learners as possible the opportunity to represent the school; and to offer as wide a choice of sports as possible to cater for the individual talents of the learners.

To the school, the formative educational value of sport is paramount in the preparation of learners. Naturally the learners love to win because they are motivated to do their best and results are a measure of how successful their efforts are. While winning is enjoyable and most of our teams know the feeling, they also lose enough to know that failure is nowhere near the end of the world.