Brief history of the school The present school was founded on 10 May 1963. The forerunner of Nigel High was the Klip Skool, so named because it was built of stone, which started round about 1894 when Nigel was a Mining Camp. When Nigel became a Village Council, the first Principal, Mr Diamone, was appointed. The Klip School eventually became a Junior High School - Gr 1 to Standard 8. In 1948 the Principal was Mr Kloppers and the Vice-Principal was Mr Malherbe. The Head Prefects were Poppie Pretorius and Peter Raccine. The School moved to the new buildings, where H/S John Vorster is today, in 1949. The Senior class was Standard 9 and the Principal was Mr Kloppers and the Vice-Principal was Mr Malherbe. The Head Prefects were, once again, Poppie Pretorius and Peter Raccine. In 1950 Nigel High had its first Matric Class and, you guessed it, Poppie and Peter were, yet again, Head Prefects. The School was dual medium - English and Afrikaans. At that time the school never had a hall. Every morning started with assembly in the Quad and the teachers stood on the balcony, which was between the Principal's Office and the Staff Room. Assemblies alternated between English and Afrikaans and every Wednesday a Minister from one of the local churches would take a service - again, alternating one week English and one week Afrikaans. The school uniform was bottle green, as is H/S John Vorster today. In the summer, the girls wore green tunics, with white short sleeve blouses. In the winter they wore the same tunics with whilte shirts and the green school tie. They wore grey long socks with the green, orange, black and white stripes. The boys wore grey trousers and white shirts. The blasers were plain bottle green with the school badge on the pocket. In 1951 Mr Kloppers retired and Mr L. Spruyt became the Principal. In 1952 a competition was held to design a blazer with colours. Mr Rossouw, an Afrikaans teacher, won the competition. The blzer had a bottle green background with a broadish orange stripe and a narow black and white stripe on either side. It was very striking. The badge on the H/S John Vorster blazer is still the same as the one on the 1952 blazer. In 1963 the English and Afrikaans speaking pupils parted company. The English High School moved to the present premises of Nigel High School and Hoërskool John Vorster remained as the Afrikaans H/S. Nigel High was built with a Hostel that can accomodate 130 boarders (80 girls and 50 boys). Mr L. Spruyt was the first Principal of Nigel High School and was in office until 1966. He was Principal for 15 years. Mr C. Combrinck was Principal from 1967 to 1981 when he passed away suddenly. He was Principal for 14 years. Ms J. Cameron, the Vice-Principal was the acting Principal until 1982 when Mr G. Jordaan became the Principal. Mr Jordaan retired at the end of the second term 1994 after 12 years as Principal. Ms BD MacDonald was appointed Principal from the third term 1994 and is currently still in that position. In 1998 the school badge was altered from a geometric swallow to a life-like shape which is readily identified as a swallow. The shape of the shield was also altered. This was done with the help of the Deputy Headgirl and Std 10 Art pupil, Sheena McGeoch. The changes were made keeping the traditions and ethos of the school in mind. Sheena also assisted us in the design of the new letterhead which has a watermark depicting a whole flock of swallows flying onwards and upwards to the highest. 1998 also saw the opening of our first computer centre under the leadership of Deputy Principal, Mr D Thomas. This centre moved to the top story of the Economic and Management Sciences stairwell in 2001. In 2005 the centre became the venue for CAT and in 2007 we had to open a second CAT centre in order to cater for the demand for this learning area. 2002 saw the introduction of Hotel Keeping and Catering. The Domestic Science classrooms were renovated into a restaurant and in 2008 the kitchen was upgraded. This is an exciting learning area with learners gaining 'hands-on' experience in the Hospitality industry. In 2008 Bruno da Silva Gomes won the International Hotel School 'Ticket to Life' Bursary competition. We are very proud of him and of our Hotel School Manager, Mrs V Olivier. (to be continued)