Several teams from Soneike High School in Kuils River recently came out tops in provincial competitions.

Heritage

On 15 August the four-learner team of Likhona Makhwetu, Azylia Arison, Myolisi Mazoko and Roberto Julius cemented Soneike High’s status as a multi-year provincial champion of the Heritage Education School Outreach Project (Hesop).

The school’s team was provincial champions in 2023 and 2024 also. Hesop is a national schools project of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the National Heritage Council (NHC) for Grade 8–11 learners. It is aimed at encouraging the youth to know their heritage better and to explore the traditions of other cultures.

Winning teams from each province earn an invitation to a week-long national educational exchange camp hosted at a prominent South African heritage site during the October school holidays.

Road safety

On 22 August a five-member team from Soneike won gold at the Western Cape Mobility Department’s Participatory Educational Techniques (PET) Road Safety Competition, held at Gene Louw Traffic College.

Grade 10 and 11 learners from across the province took part in the competition, which aims to create awareness and motivate young people to become active citizens carrying the message that road safety is everyone’s responsibility.

Through research, community engagement and practical solutions, the Soneike team showed that young people can be powerful voices for safer roads and safer communities.

Coding

On Friday 4 September a team from Soneike High School’s Coding Club received the Amazon Coding Cup for winning the Amazon Flagship Coding 4 Africa Competition, a regional event hosted at Amazon’s Cape Town headquarters earlier this year.

The tournament utilised the Tangible coding platform, an ‘unplugged’ coding initiative developed by Tangible Africa. Learners arrange physical jigsaw puzzle tokens to build code sequences, which are then scanned using a mobile application.

Team member Albert Matthys said he enjoyed the opportunity to meet other teams and to share thoughts. He explained that each team member had a role but also needed to work together. “If we take a photo of the puzzle pieces, it will run a code to the character in the game. And that character will basically do the code.” Matthys said coding really helped him with problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

The provincial education department’s Deputy Chief Education Specialist for Coding and Robotics, Ashric Don, said Soneike High School is one of the pilot schools for coding and robotics programmes in the province. “They have been running the Tangible programme now for the last two or three years.” He said the value of coding clubs is that it gives learners space to think, build, lead and solve problems together.

Soneike’s team will now progress to the national competition.

Youth Programme

On Saturday 5 September the school’s team was crowned Youth Citizens Action Programme (YCAP) provincial champions in the senior category (Grade 9–12). YCAP is a youth development and competition initiative that empowers learners to drive positive social, environmental and academic change in their schools and communities. It is run by the Empowervate Trust in collaboration with the DBE and the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

The focus is project-based learning, active citizenship, social entrepreneurship and leadership skills. Teams follow a 10-step toolkit, from forming a team and researching local challenges to executing a project and compiling a portfolio of evidence.

Under the topic ”Health management and hygiene” and tagline “From Neglect to Ownership”, the team tackled a critical infrastructure and mindset challenge: restoring and maintaining the school toilets. Rather than treating it as a simple cleanup campaign, the learners focused on changing mindsets and building long-term accountability among fellow learners.

The team systematically investigated the issue, took direct action, measured their impact and fostered ‘toilet pride’ across the school. They will represent the Western Cape at the YCAP National Championships in October.

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