HOËR TEGNIESE SKOOL SPRINGS
Thu, 19 May 2005 09:37
School Profile
HTS Springs with its beautiful grounds is a thoroughly South African school, embracing fully the changing face of South Africa and the needs of a new country.
It was once thought that Springs would overtake Johannesburg as the main city on the Witwatersrand and it did become a huge centre of gold production.
The town took its name from a farm called The Springs, an English version of fontein and there are numerous towns in South Africa that end in fontein. After all a water source was important and the Witwatersrand, as the name suggests, was a great provider of water - presumably the farm The Springs as well.
HTS Springs was originally an Afrikaans medium school which has become parallel medium in recent times. This change caused many pupils to leave for schools such as Hugenote.
The school has some 750 pupils, over 500 of whom are boys, with boarding facilities for 65 boys. It is strong academically and past pupils have down well, especially in engineering, at universities such as Pretoria and Stellenbosch.
The school is proud that in its demographic changes its standards and discipline have stayed high.
The school's motto is Sursum - Upwards. HTS Springs was founded in 1960 with about 150 pupils.
Rugby
Till recently the school competed with the Big Schools (10 teams or more) in the Falcons province. This is the first year in which it has moved down to the Medium Schools (5-9 teams) category.
Roughly half of the players in the 1st XV are black and the school, along with General Smuts in the south of the Falcons area, is regarded as important in the development of black players, so much so that the Falcons are considering the establishment of a rugby academy at the school.
Last year two players represented the Falcons at Craven Week - Gideon Stander and Given Masinga.
Two internationals are Old Boys of the school - Lawrence Sephaka, the Springbok prop, who was head boy of the school, and Roland Reid who has played eighthman for Scotland.
