adminSamuel Kadungure Senior Reporter
“We have set ourselves a target to score 100 percent at both A and O-Level exams in 2016. ST DAVID’S Bonda Girls’ High has reincarnated itself as an academic bastion whose glitter is inescapable. The institution is intolerant to poor pedagogy and lack of student’s seriousness. Teaching quality can be been defined as “instruction that enables a wide range of students to learn”, and it is the strongest school-related factor that can improve student learning and achievement and Bonda is just doing that.
Bonda attained 96,35 percent in the November 2015 O-Level exams as six out of 192 students failed to garner the required five passes.
“The quality of the results is very good, but we are not happy because six of our candidates did not make it. We are really concerned about that because the quality is good, but not the best,” said the school head, Mr Caston Chitsidzo Samanga.
“We have set ourselves a target to score 100 percent at both A and O-Level exams in 2016. We have made a commitment to the parents and between our staff and the students that no candidate will be left behind, meaning everyone should pass,” he declared.
Bonda had four students – namely Dawn Gora, Rumbidzo Nyamuchengwe, Michelle Katsidzira and Tinotenda Tongogara with 12 straight As.
Three students, Kudzai Mabande, Sithabile Nyathi and Ropafadzo Nyemba scored 11As.
The school had 16 students with 10As, 11 with nine As, 13 with eight As, 18 with seven As, 16 with six As and nine with five As.
All-in-all, 90 students scored five As or better and 185 with five or better O-Levels.
The school’s highest passes were in History (127As), Accounts (112As), Geography (98As), Shona (91As), Mathematics (70As), Integrated Science (64As), Religious Studies (40As), English Literature (19As), Physics (23As), Biology (55As), Agriculture (39As), Fashion and Fabrics (6As), Statistics (13As), Chemistry (30As), Business Studies (13As), Computers (27As) and Food and Nutrition (4As).
In 2014, the school’s highest passes were in Geography (128As), History (113As), Shona (86As), Mathematics (64As), Integrated Science (91As), Religious Studies (64As), English Literature (68As), Physics (50As), Accounts (103As), Biology (55As) and Agriculture (42As).
Last year Bonda was among the schools that attained 100 percent pass rates, ranked 11th nationally and the third best A-Level school in Manicaland.
At O-Level, the Anglican-run school was fifth nationally and third at provincial level with 96, 84 percent pass-rate.
The school had 189 candidates and 108 had at least five As, which is the best, qualitatively.
Mr Samanga said he commanded troops whose vision extends beyond their own classrooms even beyond their own teams or departments.
Mr Samanga said today, the teacher must not only be a conveyer of information and knowledge to students, but must be an organiser, planner, coordinator and strategist of the teaching process, and must understand that the centre of the teaching process should be the student.
Such teachers recognise that students’ school experiences depend not only on interaction with individual teachers, but also on the complex systems in place throughout the school and district.
This awareness prompts teachers to influence change. They experience professional restlessness – what some have called the “leadership itch.”
Sometimes on their own initiative and sometimes within a more formal structure, these professionals find a variety of ways to exercise teacher leadership.
“Ensuring that students have full access to school opportunities involves a collective effort. It requires discussion and consideration of alternatives. This is the work of leadership. And although administrators play an important facilitative role, teachers who are closer to the action frequently put forward important ideas and can assume a leadership role,” said Mr Samanga in praise of his staff.
He said teachers at Bonda take their responsibility toward students seriously they simply want the best for the impressionable learners in their classroom.
He said the teachers were driven to amplify their good work by sharing what they would learned with other teachers often taking what little spare time they have to make a bigger difference.
“We have lost some good teachers, especially at A-Level, but we are grooming and infusing those who replaced them into the system. We have a unique culture. We don’t close the classroom door and create a self-contained world at a good school like Bonda. The autonomous classroom simply doesn’t exist because the girls need more than just one person to guide their education. They need the added power of several brains working together for their good,” said Mr Samanga, adding that his school had an unmatched strength in sciences.
“Most of the girls are doing the STEM combination,” he said.
Stability
Bonda is now anchored on a strong foundation, whose solidification started in 2012 after a protracted period during which the evils of student indiscipline and parental as well as religious politics had suffocated the institution.
The 2008-2012 was the period of instability where the school fell from grace, failing the students, parents and the nation at large.
In 2013, the school started enjoying some level of stability and like an arrow that can only be shot by pulling it backward, its academic achievement was launched into something great and powerful.
Today, the SDC, Board of Governors and Responsible Authority (the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland) are singing from the same hymn.
It is incredibly inspirational to see the threesome working for the good of the girl child and give the parents who are paying through the nose value for their money.
Bonda has an enrolment of 900 girls.
Bonda’s extra girl
Bonda leads on many fronts, and recently became the latest school to add an extra ‘girl’ within its rank after taking delivery of the latest Yutong luxury bus on the market that will give its female students the privilege to travel in luxury and on time.
The 67-seater luxury bus was imported from China at a cost of $110 000.
The brand new bus is set to enhance its shrewd academic successes and status among other top schools.
The arrival of the bus has become a symbol status for the school and will turn heads wherever it goes.
Bonda is a school that is involved in many educational and sporting trips and it had become very costly for the school to hire transport each time we want to go out as well as maintain its old bus.
Projects
Last year, Bonda experienced a positive metamorphosis in terms of infrastructure development, assets acquisition and projects aimed at ensuring self-sufficiency in terms of consumables.
The notable successes include the completion of a Lower Sixth dormitory with a carrying capacity of 40.
Last week the dormitory was having electrical being fitted. Carpenters and painters were also busy at work.
The corridors and ablution have been tilled. The school has re-thatched seven staff houses, extended two others and constructed one. The school has installed 8x5000l water tanks, which draw water from the school borehole. This source, with is powered by both electricity and generator is supplying the whole school with portable water.
In 2014, Bonda revived its piggery project, starting off with three, and now the project boasts of 73 units. The pigs are slaughtered twice per month to feed the students. Related to this are poultry and cattle rearing projects, in which the school now has 27 Brahmans and take delivery of 100 chicks fortnightly for rearing.
The pig, poultry and cattle waste is channeled into a bio-digester to produce gas that is used for cooking and lighting at the school.
It makes use of a relatively simple, well-known, and mature technology. The main part of a biogas system is a large tank, or digester.
Inside this tank, bacteria convert organic waste into methane gas through the process of anaerobic digestion.
Each day, the operator of a biogas system feeds the digester with household by-products such as market waste, kitchen waste, and manure from livestock.
The methane gas produced inside biogas system may be used for cooking, lighting, and other energy needs. Waste that has been fully digested exits the biogas system in the form of organic fertiliser.
The school also has a horticulture section where it grows various greens for consumption by the students as well as an orchard with about 700 different plants.
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