Rockland Primary School at Blyvooruitzicht greets one of its longest-serving teachers this week.

The school’s vice-principal, Diane Ralph (65), is retiring on April 30 after more than 40 years of teaching at the school. Ralph started teaching at Rockland in 1983 and has been respected and loved by learners and colleagues since then.

Born in East London she moved with her family to Carletonville in 1965 after her father got a job at one of the mines. She matriculated from Carleton Jones High School before continuing to complete her four-year teaching diploma at the then Johannesburg College of Education and moving on to complete an Honours Degree at the University of Johannesburg.

According to the long-term star teacher, teaching was actually not her first career option.

“I actually wanted to become a marine biologist, but when my friend said she wanted to study teaching, I thought it would be interesting to me as well,” says Ralph.

Although she planned to teach the subjects Afrikaans, geography, and Southern Sotho, she had to retrain herself when the then principal, Mr Esterhuizen, informed her she was going to teach physical sciences instead.

Since this time, she has lived through positive and negative events at the school.

She was part of the school staff when Rockland became the first school in the area to open to black learners in 1992 and still praises the principal, Mr Bezuidenhout, for his vision in making this happen.
“This was the best thing for the school and the children, as it exposed them to diversity,” Ralph says.

The most negative incident during her time at the school was when 10 learners died in a horrific taxi accident on their way to school on July 10, 2024. Ralph was one of three teachers who attended the accident scene. Meanwhile, Ralph believes that Rockland still has a bright future ahead.

“Rockland is built on the legacy left by educators who did their best throughout the years,” she says.

Despite being situated in the abandoned mining town Blyvooruitzicht, the school’s approximately 1 300 learners are bused in daily from as far away as Kagiso. Most of the learners come from Kokosi and Wedela. Ralph plans to relax at her home in Carletonville after her retirement before moving closer to her son in Roodepoort.