- Seven Steps Academy for the Deaf in District Six managed to retain its 100% pass rate in the National Senior Certificate results released last week.
- For more than 17 years the school has maintained this achievement.
- The school had seven matriculants in 2023, five of them bachelor’s passes and two diploma.
Seven Steps Academy for the Deaf in District Six managed to retain its 100% pass rate in the National Senior Certificate results released last week.
For more than 17 years the school has maintained this achievement.
Lee-Ann Kannemeyer, outgoing principal, said the school had seven matriculants in 2023, five of them bachelor’s passes and two diploma.
“I am exceedingly proud. Our learners are deaf and walk a long, hard road to get to matric. I have been at the school for 17 years and we always had a 100% pass rate. I am proud of the class of 2023, many children with their fair share of challenges.”
The school is an English-medium, auditory-verbal (oral) school that caters for deaf learners from Grade R to Grade 12.
Kannemeyer said the top learner, NAME(?), scored three distinctions and achieved a 76% aggregate.
Top learner pending comment
“He came to us in Grade 4 without speaking one word of English. He lost his hearing and received a cochlear implant. Now he is off to Stellenbosch University.”
She said teaching and learning can often be challenging.
“When these learners matriculate we celebrate from pre-Grade R up, because often the children have been at the school since then. They arrive with little-to-no language because of their hearing loss and they learn to speak slowly in the bottom grade.
“By the time they get to high school they are doing the normal CAS curriculum. We adapt the curriculum up to Grade 6 to give them as much vocabulary as possible. But from Grade 7 it’s the normal CAS curriculum. And they write the normal CAS exam as every other child at school does.”
According to Kannemeyer the school’s success is due to “hard work” from both learners and teachers.
“The teachers put in a lot of extra time and effort. Being hearing-impaired our learners have to put in the extra effort because they can’t take any language or critical thinking for granted.
“Everything has to be taught to them. We learn stuff through residual hearing which our children don’t have. So it’s a lot of hard work for them.”
After a seven-year stint at the school Kannemeyer will retire at the end of March.
She said they have six learners in matric this year and wished the class of 2024 well for their final year.
“Sadly, I will not be the principal by the time the results are released, but I have every confidence that the teaching will remain strong and the ethos remain the same and the school will go from strength to strength.”
Kannemeyer said as a school their aim is to prepare learners for the world.
“Our motto at the school is language for life. So, as much meaning and language to the lived experience we can equip these children with the better they will do,” she concluded.
