Ocean View High School re-opens their school library

Ocean View High School chose April month to re-open their library, the significant month when we celebrate our freedom and look forward to all the possibilities to get all South Africans to soar.

The Ocean View High School community after the unveiling of the plaque in the newly re-opened library.

Last night, while the rain beat down and the wind ran through trees and roads, Ocean View High school re-opened their school library. Why you ask, did the school choose to have the opening and unveiling of the library/resource centre at 19h00. Well, this school is working hard at involving and embracing the community in their work. If you want the community present, if you want the parents and the School Governing Body to be celebrating with you, you host the events at a time that suits them.  Powerful messages of walking the talk.

Trumpeting our National Anthem

A trumpet recital of our National anthem, Nkosi Sikelel’ IAfrika, was played by one of Ocean View High students. Yes, God bless Africa and all blessings to Ocean View High School as well, I pray. I watch this proud, confident young woman  with her school trousers filled with a continuous band of dark grey extending to where the school jacket stops my gaze. She must have walked in the rain to come and render her music item. And so we enjoy this display of talent, while our young artist, oblivious of the cold, damp material clinging to her body, continues to send perfect notes of our National anthem into the room. 

The library goals                                                       

Mr Zaranyika was the perfect master of ceremonies, skillfully weaving all the items on the programme together as strands of the broad theme: A book sharpens the mind and is the key to the future.  Keith Klein, the Head of Ocean View High School spoke about the passionate plea by the language department of the school to establish a school library again. Keith explained that we have to instill a love of reading in our children. We have to help the students appreciate the written word, allow them to express their creativity and encourage them to do research. This is the overarching objective of starting the school library again.  Simultaneously, part of the school’s vision is that the school library becomes a community hub, an extension of the public library – the only one to service the entire burgeoning Ocean View community – so that the entire community can become a reading community. 



Vibrant educator, Mr Zaranyika, as M.C

Circle of speakers

We hear from Virginia Truter how the friends of Ocean View High School have rallied to help give birth to the library and a choir or Grade 11 learners sing the school anthem. We are also taken on a poetic journey by alumnus Clint Schoeman who reads two of his own poems and we listen to the value of reading and the commitment to partner with Ocean view from the senior librarian at Ocean View Library, Mrs Fowkes.  Then after these proceedings, Juan Benjamin, a past teacher  and now Circuit Team manager of the school, cut the ribbon and unveiled the plaque and declared the library ‘open’.

Sheer enjoyment

Mr Zaranyika and his wife pose with an alumnus and her partner

  

Virginia Truter , a few engrossed learners and one of the librarians at the Ocean View Public library

 Ocean View High School adopts the hedgehog approach

Ocean View High is marching to the beat of excellence. Quietly and often against great odds, this school has been moving inch by inch to lift the quality of education.  We are seeing the changes. We are proud that the school had doubled the numbers of learners that will be writing their Grade 12 national examinations this year.

Ocean View High School is increasing their push-back strategies. They are finding ways to shift their gaze from the often depressing situation to a place where hope, success, fulfillment and excellence are bedfellows. Well done to Keith and his staff for creating possibilities.



The SGB of Ocean View High School