I am Anastasia Rigney and excited to be the new Principal of Prestige College Protea Glen. My passion is education and I have been involved in that profession for 32 years. I started out as a teacher at Klipspruit West Senior Secondary school. Being fairly young and new to the profession it taught me a lot about teaching, students as well as forming relationships with parents.

In 1997 I transferred to Turffontein Primary school, first as teacher and became Principal 2 years later. It was an immense challenge for me since the new school was ex model C and the first multicultural school in the south of Johannesburg. At first it felt as if I was thrown into the deep end while I could barely swim.  However, soon I realized it gave me an opportunity to develop critical managerial skills which helped me to build not only internal bridges with the staff and GDE but also with parents and other stakeholders of the school.

During my time at Turffontein I felt privileged that I was able to create an exchange program with the UK Education Department through the British Council and I was invited to a Master’s program  in Educational Leadership at Harvard University in the USA. The combination of my practical role as Principal with international experience have contributed to the development of the school of which I am proud I was part of.

In 2015 I took a sabbatical and was able to spend more time with my sons aged 26 and 23. I travelled quite a bit and enjoyed the down time for my other hobbies: reading, mountaineering, hiking, watching movies and exercising. I never lost my passion for education and when I was recently introduced to the possibility of becoming the Principal at Prestige College Protea Glen I was thrilled.

It is my intention to co-create with all of you an environment at Prestige College Protea Glen which is inspirational, co-creative, positive and a platform for professional and personal growth. I sincerely believe these are critical values through which we can all reach our highest potential, which should be the essence of education.

I am looking forward to meeting all of you soon!

Warm regards,
Anastasia