North West Cricket visited Potchefstroom High School for Boys to hand over cricket equipment and machinery as part of the CSA Focus School Initiative.
The school went through an application process during the latter parts of the 2017/18 school cricket season and were awarded a status of being a Focus School by CSA, through the use of the Schools Quality Index ‘SQI tool’ which measures the standard of a school’s cricket service program from facilities, coaches, league participations, player/coach ratio and representivity in teams.
The school received amount of R50 000 towards improving their cricket services program, and decided with the assistance of North West Cricket (NWC) to purchase a pitch cutter machine, purchased two coaching bags for their coaching staff, 24 bowling machine balls, two Katchet boards and 48 cricket balls for the upcoming school cricket season, two of the school’s coaches will be attending a CSA level two Coaching Course that will be held at Senwes Park in the month of July 2018 as part of the Coaches Education program. Potchefstroom High School for Boys has a total 460 learners enrolled at the school, and have five teams participating in the NW High School Leagues (two U19 teams and three Junior teams) and participate mainly in the NW Super B leagues for U19s and U15s.
‘As Potchefstroom High School for Boys, we want to thank Cricket South Africa and North West Cricket with this fantastic gesture of improving our cricket services program at our school. We have the facilities, coaches and learners to ensure our cricket program improves towards becoming a Blue Chip School in the NW Province. This funding ensures that there’s further cricket development for the school and the province,’ said Mr John Swanepoel (Deputy Principal – PBHS).
Potchefstroom High School for Boys has produced numerous players that have went on to play for various NW Provincial Age Groups at CSA National Cricket Weeks, Semi-Pro level, Franchise level and even National level, the likes of Julian Soutter (NW Dragons), Johannes Diseko (NW Dragons, former VKB Knight player), Vusimuzi Mazibuko (former NW Dragons & Bizhub Highveld Lions player) and Eddie Leie (former Gauteng Strikers & Bizhub Highveld Lions, Proteas, current VKB Knights player).
‘With the funding received from CSA, it means a lot for our school and we have an aim of reviving our school cricket culture through the funding provided by CSA and NWC,’ said Mr Alec Conradie (Cricket Master – PBHS).
‘It is a great privilege for one of our schools to be recognized by CSA as a focus school, and this is a step in the right direction in terms of reviving the standard of cricket at Potchefstroom High School for Boys by CSA. Potch Boys High is one of our partners when it comes to providing cricket services to our stakeholders and with this CSA initiative we can surely get close to achieving our goals in providing quality cricket at school level and when we host CSA National Cricket Weeks, thank you to CSA for their support of schools cricket,’ said Vincent Prior (NWC: CEO).
What is the Schools Quality Index “SQI” assessment tool?
The Schools Quality Index is an evaluation template to score the quality of services provided at any specific School. The Criteria used to evaluate a schools status are – adequate no. of matches per team, a minimum no. of Teams, a suitable no. of adequately qualified and cleared Coaches, an acceptable Player/ Coach ratio, optimal facility levels and representivity within Teams. Based on the score achieved against the set criteria, Schools can aspire to achieve three different status levels.
