I am Anastasia Rigney and excited to be the Principal of ACUDEO College Protea Glen. My passion is education and I have been involved in the 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 and forming relationships with learners and parents.

In 1997 I transferred to Turffontein Primary school, first as teacher and within two years I was promoted to Principal. It was an immense challenge for me since the new school was a previous model C school and also the first truly multicultural school in the south of Johannesburg. While challenging at first I soon realized it gave me an opportunity to develop critical managerial skills which helped me to build bridges with the staff and the Gauteng Department of Education, and 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 do a Master’s programme in Educational Leadership at Harvard University in the USA. This helped me raise my impact as Principal and develop the school to where I was truly proud of our achievements.

In 2015 I took a sabbatical to 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 like reading, mountaineering, hiking, watching movies and exercising. I never lost my passion for education and when I the opportunity arose to become the Principal at ACUDEO College Protea Glen, I had no hesitation in taking it on.

It is my intention to co-create with all of you an environment at ACUDEO 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