PART THREE: ANNE JONES – WHEN LEARNING TO SWIM BECOMES A LIFE SKILL
With opportunity comes responsibility: to use what we have, what we know, and what we teach to create opportunities for others.
Our pools and coaching expertise develop competitive swimmers and water polo players, but their impact can reach much further.
Through the Roedean Academy, girls who may arrive unable to swim develop swimming ability, confidence and greater awareness around water. At the heart of that journey is Anne Jones, Old Roedeanian and Learn-to-Swim Coach, whose relationship with Roedean spans generations.
For these girls, success is not measured by a podium or a stopwatch. It is about leaving with a practical skill they can carry for life and knowledge that can travel with them into their homes and communities.
A ROEDEAN LEGACY SPANNING GENERATIONS
For Anne Jones, Roedean is far more than the school she attended. It is part of her family’s history, her personal journey and her enduring commitment to service.
Her association with Roedean began through her mother, who was both a student and a French teacher at the school. Anne herself arrived at Roedean at just four years old.
Since then, the connection has extended across generations, with her two sisters, four nieces, three grandnieces, two daughters and one granddaughter all attending Roedean.
Her contribution has also extended well beyond the classroom and swimming pool. Anne served on the Roedean Board for six years and chaired the Roedean Appeal, which raised R3 million in support of the school.
Yet it is perhaps through her work in swimming and water safety that her two greatest passions find their most meaningful expression.
A lifelong commitment to Roedean and a passion for teaching swimming and water safety to people of all ages.
Through the Roedean Academy, these passions come together in a programme that does more than teach girls how to swim. It equips them with confidence, knowledge and the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.
UMUNTU NGUMUNTU NGABANTU
An African axiom captures the philosophy behind this work:
Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.
Loosely understood, a person is a person through other people. It speaks to our interconnectedness and to the idea that what we have can be used to help others move forward.
Roedean has pools, experienced coaches and generations of knowledge in aquatics. Sharing those resources is one way we can play our part beyond our own gates.
And this year, the Academy’s Learn-to-Swim programme has taken that philosophy a meaningful step further.
Previously, the programme focused on teaching Grade 10 Academy girls to swim. In 2026, Anne and the team introduced an important development: the Grade 11 girls who had completed the programme the previous year would return to help teach the incoming Grade 10s.
The impact has been significant.
The Grade 11 girls have grown in confidence, strengthened their swimming abilities and developed the skills to teach others. Anne has also observed improvements in their academic performance.
Meanwhile, the Grade 10 girls have demonstrated stronger swimming skills than those achieved by previous groups at the same stage.
What began as an opportunity to learn has become an opportunity to lead.
The girls are no longer simply recipients of knowledge. They are becoming mentors, sharing what they have learnt and helping others overcome the same challenges they once faced.
This is the essence of Ubuntu in action.
We may teach one girl, but we cannot always measure how far that knowledge will travel.
A YEAR OF WORK, ONE MOMENT TO SHOW WHAT IS POSSIBLE
The transformation takes time.
Across the year, Anne and the Academy girls work through milestones that may appear small from the outside but represent enormous progress for each girl.
The first float.
The first independent movement through the water.
The first length completed without assistance.
And now, for some, the first opportunity to guide another girl through those same milestones.
The culmination of that work forms an important part of the Roedean Prestige Cup, where the Academy girls showcase what a year of commitment, perseverance and coaching has made possible.
The juxtaposition is powerful.
Some of the country’s accomplished young water polo players compete at a high level, while in the same pool another group of girls demonstrates an achievement of a different kind.
They can swim.
And increasingly, they can help others learn to swim too.
Both stories belong at the Prestige Cup because both demonstrate what access, opportunity and coaching can unlock.
MORE THAN A TROPHY
This is central to the broader premise of the Prestige Cup.
It is a highly competitive water polo tournament, but its significance extends beyond the final score or the team that lifts the trophy.
It brings together schools with pools, coaches, skilled swimmers and considerable knowledge.
Collectively, that is a powerful resource.
The opportunity is to ask how that expertise can extend beyond competitive sport.
Through the Prestige Cup’s Learn-to-Swim initiative, participating schools are encouraged to partner with under-resourced schools within their communities, sharing basic swimming and water-safety knowledge.
One school reaches another.
Then another does the same.
And within those communities, the girls who have learnt to swim may themselves become the people who help others acquire this essential skill.
The Prestige Cup becomes more than a competition. It becomes a platform for mobilising a community around a shared purpose.
AN OLD ROEDEANIAN GIVING BACK
Anne’s place within this story is particularly meaningful.
Having grown up within the Roedean community, served the school in leadership and fundraising capacities, and dedicated herself to teaching swimming, she continues to invest her knowledge and time in the generations coming behind her.
Her influence also begins much earlier for many of our girls, who start swimming lessons with her during their formative years.
Those first lessons establish the fundamentals from which different journeys can emerge.
Some become confident recreational swimmers.
Others progress into competitive swimming or discover water polo.
And for some, those early beginnings can eventually lead to provincial, national or international competition.
Every journey is different, but the foundation matters.
For Anne, the significance of her work lies not only in teaching someone to swim, but in seeing that knowledge passed forward.
The Academy’s new peer-teaching approach brings that belief to life. Girls who once needed guidance are now becoming confident enough to offer it.
It is a powerful reminder that education reaches its fullest potential when learning becomes something we can share.
WHEN WHAT WE HAVE REACHES FURTHER
Across this series, we have explored three different dimensions of Roedean’s strength in aquatics.
Anita Trninic represents the strength and continuity of our water polo programme.
Siyabonga Guzana demonstrates our connection to national and international competition.
And Anne Jones shows us what becomes possible when our expertise is used not only to develop our own girls, but to create opportunities for others.
For one girl, the journey may ultimately mean representing her country.
For another, it may mean leaving the Roedean Academy able to swim and better equipped to navigate water safely.
And for another, it may mean discovering that she has the confidence, knowledge and ability to teach someone else.
All three are achievements worth celebrating.
And that brings us back to Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.
What we achieve has greater meaning when what we have and what we know can help someone else move forward.
