Skye College welcomes learners home with ceremonial opening of new campus
Colour, sound, and dance aplenty as staff and learners celebrate top-notch facilities.
Fractured parts have been reunited to create an effective whole.
After months of feverish anticipation, Skye College finally welcomed their learners home. The new extended campus opened the doors of learning and growth for the first time to jubilant celebrations for all under the ThriveED umbrella on April 12. To mark the occasion, learners and staff assembled on the new multipurpose sports field to capture the moments that may be looked back on for generations.
The finer details are what distinguish Skye College and while apart, the three schools hand-crafted small mementos that will decorate the new campus. Among those are three birdbaths that will dot the campus and be the first pieces of the learners cemented in Skye College lore.
“The birdbaths signify our coming together as one. Every time you see one of these you will remember the first things we did as one school,” said Skye College Executive Head, Claudia Pienaar.
Skye College has now merged all its premises, housing 450 learners across eight grades as well as the preschool which begins in three months. The preparatory and high school learners sat in front of Mrs Pienaar as she told a story about an apple tree that wanted to be a redwood. Despite the apple tree’s best efforts and no matter how much it wished to reach the stars, the apple tree would remain an apple tree.
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In the quintessential sensory and tactile Skye College fashion, Mrs Pienaar showed the learners an apple from that very tree, and inside that apple revealed the star it always wished to be.
“We already have all the magic we need inside of us. You are our sky full of stars and each one of you has that magic in you. We will help you find that magic,” said Mrs Pienaar to the learners.
The staff let off powdered smoke canons before rushing Mrs Pienaar to cover her in colour. The celebration was punctuated with an aerial photograph that bunched all staff and learners in the symbolic shape of the numerical ‘one’.
Aiming to turn inner magic into extraordinary results, Mrs Pienaar said, “A happy child is a child that is learning. Here we encourage children to be true to themselves”.
