Churchill School (Harare)

Churchill School is a public, day and boarding school for boys aged 12 to 19 located in the Eastlea suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe. The school had the first school pipe band in Zimbabwe and produces cricket players of national and international calibre.

Churchill School
Location
Coordinates	17.8284°S 31.0824°E / -17.8284; 31.0824
Information
Type	Public, boarding and day, high School
Motto	Churchill
Established	1950
Headmaster	Mr P. Mugwanda
Staff	83
Number of students	1487
Colour(s)	Purple;Grey;Platinum
Mascot	Bulldog
Alumni	Churchillians
Information	747088
Website	www.churchhillschool.ac.zw

At one time, the school's pipe band was in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest piping hours. Pipers Neville Workman, Patrick Forth, Paul Harris and Clive Higgins blew their pipes for a combined 100 hours in July 1976, breaking the previous record of eighty hours.[1] It has also produced Legendary athletes like Fabian Muyaba who was the 13th fastest in the world during the early 90s and the fastest in Zimbabwe that time.

History

Founded in 1950 as Salisbury East Boys' High School, headmaster E.J. 'Jeeves' Hougaard helped inspire most of Churchill's traditions. Hougaard is credited with establishing the name of the school and its affiliation to Winston Churchill and his family, and the school mascot, the bulldog. The school was established using the name Eastlea Boys High School and operated at Roosevelt Girls High for the first two terms while a block was being built at Eastlea Boys High. It happened then that the headmaster, Mr. Hougaard, wrote to the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, to rename the Eastlea Boys High School after him and the permission was granted. Since then the school has been known as Churchill School.[2]

Houses

Two boarding Houses which had about 180 pupils, were named Winston and Spencer houses. The games houses (Akroyd, Beaumont, Cardell, Hamilton, Maxwell and Wakeham) recall pilots who died in the Battle of Britain. These houses compete in sports and cultural activities for the prestigious Governor's Cup.

Sport

The school offers a number of sporting disciplines such as rugby, baseball, hockey, cricket, basketball, tennis, soccer, water polo, volleyball, golf, swimming, athletics, cross country, squash, chess and, at one time, shooting. It has a very passionate sporting culture which has been carried on for generations. It is regarded as one of Zimbabwe's best sporting schools and competes for top honours with Harare's other big sporting schools, mainly St George's College, St John's College and Prince Edward School. The bulldogs hold a top ten spot in every sporting discipline that they offer.

Their cricket team is the most successful high school cricket team in Zimbabwe as it has held the number one spot in Zimbabwe's Schools Cricket One Day League and has produced players like Prosper Utseya, Hamilton Masakadza, Tatenda Taibu, Elton Chigumbura,[2] Douglas Hondo and Lameck Mufambisi.

Their baseball team was ranked as one of the best teams in Zimbabwe since 2015. The team has produced top players In the sport including Joel Tenderere, Cuthbert Nyamangara, Ashlon Chibvuri, Courage Chaibva and Tafadzwa Kasiyamhuru who have all managed to play for Zimbabwe's first team.

Their soccer team is also one of the most popular teams in the country and has gone on to produce soccer stars such as Samson Choruwa, Norman Maroto and Eddie Mashiri.

The volleyball team has also been the backbone of the Churchill pride, being the best team in the country. Their glory is credited from more than 5 years of an undefeated streak of the 2006 to 2011 era. During this period national team players like Nyasha (Rasnas) Takawira, Tatenda (Nhapsy) Mapigoti, Tawanda (Dzugi) Pamire, Misheck Chimutanda, Tawanda (Pladzva) to mention a few came out of the great institution Churchill. It was the first school to form a schools club volleyball team that competed in the premier volleyball league of Zimbabwe and was always in the top 3 of the league. The seem had a lot of Southern African tours and was popularly known as the Bulldogs Volleyball.

The rugby team, which is popularly known as the bulldogs, enjoys a relative amount of success and like the cricket team, is highly rated. It is the most important team in the school and has also produced excellent rugby players, namely Tendai Mtawarira, Tangai Nemadire, Jed, Shingie, Sibanda, Madondo, Dan Hondo, and Bryan Taylor of the then Rhodesia Boys' U21 1st XV and captain of the school's 1st XV (1960).

Boxer Dereck Chisora attended during the 1990s and went on to fight for a World title.

Other influential personalities

The school also has produced visionaries in the business field such as Interfin's Farai Rwodzi and Kingdom Holdings founder Nigel Chanakira. In politics, figures such as Bright Matonga and Leo Mugabe are products of Churchill School. It produced Chengetai Madondo, a pioneering black swimmer in a sport usually dominated by non-black athletes. The athletics team is credited for bringing up the likes of Ngoni Makusha and Gabriel Mvumvure, both Olympic athletes. Another notable figure is the infamous budding independent journalist Phoenix XI.[2]

The upcoming influential personnel from this school include Ebenezer Nobela[3] who served as the 2014-2015 Junior Mayor of Harare.[4] Nobela[5] was also honored with a certificate as a World Child Rights Ambassador by the World Children's Prize Program. He has been named one of the best serving Junior Mayors [6] in the history of Harare Junior Council [7] and is now a law student.[8] Another one is Poseidon Tsautsau [9] who served as the Junior Mayor and Junior Town Clerk [10] [11]for Chitungwiza (though he was no longer a student of this school by the time he got that office, apparently he is studying legal studies and owns multiple businesses. He is also rated as one of the best Junior Town Clerks Chitungwiza had, and is known to be a preacher of child participation[12].

See also

• List of schools in Zimbabwe
• List of boarding schools

References

1. Guinness Records, Guinness superlatives Ltd.,(1984) p182
2. Makonyonga, Trevor; Tapureta, Beaven. "Churchill High School Celebrates 60th Anniversary". The Zimbo Jam. Archived from the original on 2010-12-07. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
3. Dauramanzi, Farai (26 June 2015). "Harare's Junior Mayor at the end of his term". Harare News. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
4. "Ebenezer Nobela - Pachikoro". www.pachikoro.co.zw.
5. "Zimbabwe: Jah Prayzah, Sulu for Harare Air Show". All Africa.
6. "Take charge of the environment for a better future: Junior councillors - NewsDay Zimbabwe". www.newsday.co.zw. 2015-07-06.
7. "Junior council takes office".
8. "REPSSI Launches Zimbabwe Country Strategy 2014 – 16 - News of the South". newsofthesouth.com.
9. "Chitungwiza Junior Council celebrates Day of African Child".
10. "Chitungwiza Junior Councils 2016 Intake - Pachikoro". www.pachikoro.co.zw. 2016-04-21.
11. "Child Rights Org. In Zimbabwe Launches 'Men As Role Models' Advocacy Campaign". GirlTalkHQ. 2016-09-09. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
12. Herald, The. "Search for Miss Chitungwiza Junior". The Herald. Retrieved 2019-07-19.