Herzlia – top NSC school in SA

Ripples of pride, joy, and nachas spread from the Cape Town Jewish community around the world as news broke on 13 March 2021 on career website Gradesmatch that United Herzlia Schools (UHS) was the top performing National Senior Certificate (NSC) school in South Africa.

The site measures a school’s performance based on distinctions per learner using data gathered from the Department of Basic Education. Herzlia came out tops, with 4.281 distinctions per learner, outperforming competitive schools like Herschel Girls School and Bishops Diocesan College.

“There are many ways of ranking schools, and no one set of statistics tells a full story. By any ranking method, however, 4.28 distinctions per candidate for a co-educational, inclusive community school is astonishing, and to be ranked as the top performing school in the country by this criterion is wonderful beyond words,” Herzlia High School Principal Marc Falconer told the SA Jewish Report.

Said UHS Executive Director Andries van Renssen, “We embarked on a journey to focus on the future and modernise, improve, and become more relevant. This has brought about changes in the way we teach, assess, and engage with pupils. So, we are pleased that the way Herzlia is evolving on this journey has already created change – last year we were number six on this same list, and this year we are number one!

“We are really proud of our results, but academic results are just one parameter of success. We want to reach the pinnacle of success in other spheres like sport, innovation, and menschlichkeit as well.”

Said Falconer, “It’s with humility, gratitude, and appreciation that we acknowledge the quite incredible achievements of our 2020 matric group. We are, however, aware that for the majority of schools in the country, a full online learning programme wasn’t practicable or even possible [during lockdown].

“While this doesn’t diminish the dedication, focus, and hard work of the matriculants or the expertise and commitment of teachers and support of parents, it does humble us and make us aware of our privilege and our responsibilities. We wish our matric group mazaltov, and congratulate our teachers, support staff, and counselling department for an extraordinary performance that fills us with delight and pride.”