AFTER 40 years as a teacher, 28 of them as principal of Athlone Park Primary School, Geoff Grenfell retired on 31 July.
He entered the teaching profession in 1975 with the goal of becoming a principal as soon as possible.
“I wanted to create a school where children would be recognised for their different strengths rather than having their weaknesses focussed upon. I believe in a well-balanced, holistic education,” he said. Every child is expected to participate in at least one sport and one cultural activity.
This attracted many families from outside the small Athlone Park community and within four years, the pupil numbers had grown from 176 to 287.
A positive spin-off of this approach was that the small school was able to compete against much larger schools where often, fewer children participated in sport.
“We went on to develop regional, provincial and national sportsmen and women out of proportion to our numbers,” said Geoff.
Within four years the school won the South Coast chess championships and a few years later all but one member of the South Coast U13 boys hockey team came from Athlone Park Primary School.
He attributes the school’s many successes over the years to the strength of the team, which includes pupils, parents and all staff, whether teacher, cleaner or secretary.
“My contribution was to get the right mix of the right people together and then let them get on with their work, with as little interference as possible.”
He is proud of the school’s many achievements such as the building of eight classrooms and a care centre, and the fact that 95.7% of the parents (then whites only) voted to open the school to all races prior to the dawning of the new South Africa.
On a personal level he was humbled to be elected chairman of the first multi-racial Umbumbulu Principals’ Association and treasurer of the local branch of the United School Sports Association of South Africa, in the same year.
Today Athlone Park Primary is a school of nearly 500 pupils with an academic record that places it in the top 5% of KZN primary schools.
Geoff’s decision to retire early was taken so that he and his wife Felicity can travel and spend as much time as possible with their children and three grandchildren, while they are still fit and healthy. They plan to move to Fish Hoek, which has been their second home for more than 40 years.
