Beatrice Fredericks, deputy principal at Northpine Primary School was overcome with emotions when she left the school grounds for the very last time.
After an illustrious 40-year-long teaching career and having been with the school she loves since it opened in 1985, Fredericks retired at the end of June.
“It was an emotional and touching farewell and hard to say goodbye but I felt very satisfied that I had given my life’s work to this school. As I sat in my last assembly, I cried and I realised what I meant to the staff and children over the years. I left the school in good faith and in good spirits,” Fredericks said to TygerBurger last week.
She started her career as a teacher in 1981 in Kimberley, but took up the challenge in 1985 to join the then brand new primary school in Kraaifontein.
“I was one of only 12 teachers and the school in its first year only had 180 children.
“Never could I have known that only 10 years later the school would expand into a bustling school community with 53 teachers and 1800 learners,” she says.
It was at this time that Brooklands Primary was built and half of the learners and teaching staff was transferred there, but Frederiks stayed on where she continued to teach foundation phase and later English as a main subject. She was also a hockey coach, a sport the school excelled in over the years.
“We really built the school from scratch to become one of the model schools in the area. During the years so many happy memories were made as the school organised countless concerts, sport tours and many other functions, while growing with the Northpine community.
In 2018 she would take up the role of deputy principal after having worked under seven principals.
“It was an experience of a lifetime to see so many different management styles, something I might write about someday.”
As it goes there were many highlights over the decades, Fredericks says, but the children always remained her first priority.
“My learners were my everything. To come to the end of each year and to see how much they have learned and developed in that year, was my favourite highlight of the year, each year.”
Many of them, she says has gone on to achieve in life from becoming top scientists to lawyers and even a pilot.
“When you see a child first learn to read and write and then go on to bigger things in life, it makes you feel good to know you were part of their journey.
“I don’t always remember a learner’s name but I always recognise their faces when they walk up to you in later in life as accomplished adults.”
Legacy
Frederiks says she has also seen sad times at the school.
“One of the saddest was when a little girl in my class during the 90s passed away of leukaemia. We had planned a class trip to the V&A Waterfront and althought she was so weak at the time she had really wanted to go, and so she did. We carried her when she couldn’t walk anymore, but she enjoyed the day with her classmates. Three weeks later she passed away.”
One of the many legacies she leaves behind is the first place the school won at last year’s Growsmart competition for Maths as well as Science.
Fredericks initiated the competition at the school ten years ago when it was launched by Growth Point Properties in conjunction with the provincial education department and the school has taken part in it ever since. Now at age 63, she says she looks forward to her retirement that she plans to fill with voluntary work at local children’s homes.
“But first I want to rest a bit,” she says.
“I wish the staff and the children at the school all the best and encourage them to continue to work the way they are doing now.”
