Johannesburg’s oldest school, St Mary’s School, Waverley, has had a very good start to 2022. The class of 2021 matriculation results, released on Wednesday 19 January, were superb with 95% of the girls achieving an average of 60% or more. Three hundred and ninety (390) distinctions were achieved across the 25 subjects offered by the school, with 90% of this being A+ symbols.

Complimenting this academic high, St Mary’s has had a wonderful few weeks of sporting highs, culminating in wins this past weekend in diving, rowing, swimming and tennis. St Mary’s teams travelled to KwaZulu-Natal to compete in the National Aquatics Festival, to East London to compete in the Selborne Sprints and Buffalo Rowing Regatta and the school hosted the St Mary’s Invitational Tennis Festival. The National Aquatics Festival is an annual festival which invites girls’ schools from across South Africa to compete in three aquatics codes: swimming, water polo and diving. The St Mary’s teams took top honours in the swimming and diving and placed fourth in the water polo.

Quix

The Selborne Sprints and Buffalo Regatta, both rowing competitions, take place on the Buffalo River. The Buffalo Regatta is the oldest sporting event in the country, celebrating its 134^th year this year. Once again, schools from across South Africa compete. St Mary’s only enters its Open age rowing group into both competitions. In the Selborne Sprints, the St Mary’s rowing team won medals in all the girls’ Open events and in the Buffalo Regatta, the girls took top honours in the pair, double, four and quad events.

St Mary’s School diving captains with their coach

St Mary’s School, Waverley, 1st tennis team

The St Mary’s 1^st tennis team won the St Mary’s Invitational Tennis Festival. This festival, started 21 years ago, has become one of the top girls’ festivals in the country with many highly ranked players participating in the event. The St Mary’s team, secured the title on Sunday morning after beating the team from Somerset College.

St Mary’s School, Waverley Open quad

And to top this all, Quix, director of sport at St Mary’s, swam the Midmar Mile for a staggering 45^th time.  The Midmar Mile, the world’s largest open-water swimming event, commemorated its 48^th anniversary this year. Only one woman, Gail Bristow, has completed more Midmar Miles than Quix.

St Mary’s School, Waverley, swimming captains holding the winning trophy at the swimming gala at the 2022 National Aquatics Festival

St Mary’s water polo captain