Norman Henshilwood High School will officially open its new R1 million media centre tomorrow, Friday March 4.
School spokesman Paul Dirkson says the centre has been four years in the making, but online teaching during Covid-19 drove home the need to teach pupils how to use technology to search for information and evaluate it.
There was no further need for encyclopaedias and reference books, and it was time to rethink the library and how to use the space differently while still keeping some of the books, he said.
At the entrance to the media centre, hangs a large picture featuring a collage of many of the pictures Mr Dirksen, as a teacher with the school’s photography and video club, has kept over the years. The idea was to use these pictures to show the school’s innovation while also incorporating its ethos, he said.
At the top of a spiral staircase is a boardroom where teachers can mark exam papers or hold meetings.
Below the boardroom is the large open space where principal Jawaad Holland was teaching a Grade 10 geography lesson when the Bulletin visited. To one side are desks with laptops, to the other are large windows looking out on green fields and the peninsula mountain range.
Mr Dirksen said other schools in the area would be welcome to book the centre for robotics, coding or other lessons as well as teacher-training workshops.
