A grade 11 pupil from an East London school scored top marks – 100% – and won a cash prize at this year’s South African Council for English Education (Sacee) national language challenge.
The competition was introduced in the early 90s as means to provide an English Language benchmarking service to schools, but over the past 24 years has expanded into a national initiative serving schools in all nine provinces.
This year, 29269 pupils from Grade 1 to 11 participated in the competition.
In the challenge, pupils from volunteering schools write a multiple-choice English test based on general knowledge, grammar and literature. The test is slightly different every year.
The Border branch of Sacee is entirely responsible for the setting of the region’s papers, all the administrative work and the marking and the distribution of the results of each year’s competition.
Clarendon Grade 11 pupil Caitlin Laing was the top scorer hitting 100% for her test. Laing is a prize winner for the sixth successive year.
She was awarded a cash prize of R300. The 2018 Clarendon headgirl said she has been in the top three in the challenge since Grade 6 and enjoyed the challenge.
“Although I have been writing the test for years, I still find it challenging every year. There are always those few questions that are really difficult but overall, I really enjoy it.
“Scoring a 100% for the test, validates my passion for the English language and although I want to study law after I finish my matric, English will definitely also feature along the lines,” she said.
Other top scoring participants from East London were; Grade 6 pupils Simone Mguli and Kira-Jade Smith from Hudson Park Primary and Nathan Sparg from Merrifield Preparatory who all scored 91%.
Ashley Eichstädt, Gabriel Tereblanche and Peter Mc Causland from Stirling High achieved 94% and 93% and Adon Parker from Lilyfontein school achieved 94%.
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