Weekly Round-Up 23 July
Our matrics exceeded every expectation on Friday night when they turned up for the matric ball looking every bit like elegant celebrities on the red carpet. Thank you to everyone who assisted in making this such a memorable evening.
Annie Musical Production – 23-31 July 2010
We trust that we will see many of you attending this marvelous production. Please book at Computicket, Checkers or Shoprite. Limited seats will be on sale at the doors. There are performances on the following days at the following times:
Friday 23 – 19:30 Wednesday 28 – 19:30
Saturday 24 – 15:00 Thursday 29 – 19:30
Saturday 24 – 19:30 Friday 30 – 19:30
Tuesday 27 – 19:30 Saturday 31 – 19:30
Individual school photographs
Individual photographs were taken of all the learners and sample photographs have been posted on the notice board for learners to peruse. Sets of individual school photographs can be ordered now. A set consists of two big photos, a calendar with the learner’s photo on, two keyrings and photos to fit in the keyrings. The cost of the set is R70.00 and will be billed to your account. Kindly ask your child to hand in the order at reception.
Past Learner news
Please send us updates on any past learners with whom you have contact. I would like to share their stories with our present learners and parents.
Subject choices for Grade 10 and 11
Every year at this time the learners start getting anxious about their subject choices for the following year. Please rest assured that we take the process seriously and will assist the learners in every way possible. Grade 9 Parents are invited to attend an information meeting in the hall on Tuesday, 3 August at 18:00. Educators teaching the various subjects will be available to answer any questions you may have.
Life Sciences Outing
The Grade 11’s are going on a Life Sciences Outing to the Heart Transplant Museum at Groote Schuur Hospital on Friday the 30 July. The bus departs at 7:45 and returns to school at 12:30. Learners need to bring a packed lunch. We will be travelling with the school bus accompanied by Mrs Rowe, the Life Science educator. Any queries can be directed to drowe@parklands.co.za. Learners are allowed to bring their cameras.
Red letter days for parents this quarter
- 5 August Braam Malherbe, conquerer of the Great Wall of China, will share some parenting tips
- 2 September Sport, Culture and Service Awards Evening
- 3 & 4 September Derby vs Elkanah House
- 6 September Prevention through Education workshop for parents, addressing bullying
Staff news
Congratulations to two of our stallwards in the Annie production who are celebrating their birthdays this weekend: Today, the 23 July is the birthday of Cathy Dodders, Director and Designer of Annie and tomorrow, the 24 July is the birthday of Pamela Barr, Musical Director of Annie.
Associate Principal: Learner Affairs – Stephen Le Feuvre
The week ahead
The week ahead is full of home sports fixtures. Along with the Annie Musical this should make the College a great hove of activity and entertainment. If you can, please take some time off work and come and support our teams.
Saturday 24/7
Matinee Musical Production @ 14:00
Musical Evening Production @ 19:30
Rugby vs SACS (a)
Tuesday 27/7
U/14 Soccer vs Reddam (h)
Musical Production @ 19:30
Wednesday 28/7
U/13 & U/14 Rugby vs Rondebosch (a)
U/19 Soccer vs JG Meiring (h)
Girls Soccer vs Fairmont (h)
Musical Production @ 19:30
Thursday 29/7
Art Jamming Session @ 14:30
All Netball vs Proteaus (h)
U/16A Soccer vs Reddam (h)
Pienaar XI vs Table View (h)
Musical Production @ 19:30
Friday 30/7 Musical Production @ 19:30
Saturday 31/7
Class Rep Training Day
Final Musical Production @ 19:30
Notices:
First Aid Training
All learners who wish to complete their First Aid Training – Level 1 or Advanced – must please fetch a letter from Mrs Vosloo on Monday. The dates for the training workshops are as follows:
• Level 1 – 6th and 7th August 2010
• Advanced – 14th August 2010
Walk in high heels or dress up – it’s a 2km FUN WALK
We would like to encourage our women to participate in a unique charity event supporting all women from all walks of life that will take place on National Women’s Day, the 9 August, at the V&A Waterfront’s Clock Tower. The uniqueness of this event is a walk in high heels. Many prizes will be given away during the day for the best dressed, most creative, most effort and best male outfits in various categories.
The High Walk’s beneficiary is The Clothing Bank that has established an entrepreneurial skills development programme for unemployed disadvantaged women. The cost of the event is R 40 and for more information you are asked to contact the organisers on 021 559 4613 or 072 3615539.
Recent Internal Events:
Rugby
Bright and early on Saturday morning a group of nervous yet excited rugby players arrived at the bus to leave for their rugby match against Rondebosch Boys’ High School. What a marvellous opportunity for our boys, who are relatively new to the game of rugby, to be exposed to a school with such a long history in the sport. Although we lost the match, we gained valuable experience and played with much enthusiasm and tenacity. After the match the boys all went down to the central grandstand and watch the first team from Rondebosch Boys defeat Brackenfell High School. Mr Joubert was able to point out tactical plays. Watching this match did much to motivate our boys to reach this level of play. A big thank you must go to all the parents and staff, Mr Loseby, Mrs Smid and Mrs Steyn for their support. We would also like to thank Mr Roth for driving the boys and for his support and for Mr Joubert for organising these friendly fixtures. We wish the boys the best for the matches this week against SACS.
We would also like to extend a very big thank you to Mr Les Herring, rugby parent and owner of Auto King, for his generous donation of rugby pole protectors and tackle bags. The boys have already started making use of the equipment and this will assist us to further develop our young rugby players. Safe rugby is effective rugby! We are expecting delivery of our scrum machine shortly!
Soccer
The U/16A Soccer Team played yesterday against Fairmont and lost 4-2, with Conor O’Sullivan being nominated the Man of the Match.
On Wednesday the Girl’s Soccer Team resumed their unbeaten season with a frustrating 0 – 0 draw against arch-rivals Elkanah. The girls continued to play with determination and tenacity and the 12 shots on goal, as opposed to 2 by Elkanah, shows how Parklands definitely dominated the game. Player of the match was Taylah King for her awesome work rate down the right side of the pitch. Special mention also goes to Maggie Gianokopolous for her excellent defence and attack from the midfield.
The Pienaar XI struggled this week against a very strong JG Meiring team. Although we lost the match, the boys did us proud and they can be really pleased with the way in which they managed to keep their composure and sense of humour. A special word of thanks to the following boys: Alex Hopking, Shiraaz Kader, Tristan Jacobs, Adan Manser, Jason Milne, Mihlali Qupe-Matyana, Thomas van der Merwe, Chan Park, Keagan Adriaanse, Matthew Rebelo and Luciano da Silva.
Acknowledgements
Golf
Renato Santo received a prize for coming tie 3rd at the Glacier Junior Series at Steenberg
Dance
Tamsyn Ruhl has qualified to dance in the WDC (World Dance Council) Championships to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in August this year.
Associate Principal: Academics – Ansie Bailly
In order for you to be aware of when the assessments tutorial lessons will take place, the assessment and tutorial programmes will be mailed to you shortly. I urge learners to prepare well for their assessment tasks and to attend tutorial lessons offered by the teachers. The tutorial programme serves as a guideline only and appointments outside of these times may be arranged by the teacher and learner. Teachers may also insist on compulsory attendance of a particular tutorial lesson. Your assistance is required to help your child to plan and manage his/her time and prepare in advance for these tutorials.
There has been extensive press coverage about the latest amendments to the National Curriculum Statement. For your benefit we are including the major points raised by our Minister of Basic Education. As an independent school, Parklands College maintains high standards, continues to enrich the curriculum and provides our learners with a stimulating learning environment.
Excerpts from speech by the Minister of Basic Education: Mrs Angie Motshekga
Curriculum reform is not something that the system takes lightly. My message from the onset of the Curriculum review process has been that we need to work against change fatigue in order to build confidence and enthusiasm amongst all our stakeholders. At the same time, we need to deal quickly and efficiently with curriculum implementation challenges and difficulties that do exist. We have and will continue to make changes on an on-going basis where they can be made with minimal disruption.
Short-term, immediate changes with long-term implications
We have reduced the number of projects for learners, and have done away with the need for portfolio files of learner assessments. We have also discontinued the Common Tasks for Assessment (CTAs) for Grade 9 learners with effect from January 2010. Provinces have already informed their schools about the form of assessment that will replace CTAs in 2010.
Medium-term curriculum change
Every subject in each grade will have a single, comprehensive and concise Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement that will provide details on what teachers ought to teach and assess on a grade-by-grade and subject-by-subject basis.
The new Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements will repackage the existing curriculum into the general aims of the South African curriculum, the specific aims of each subject, clearly delineated topics to be covered per term and the required number and type of assessments, also per term. Topics and assessments to be covered per term are being aligned to available time allocations per subject.
The Council of Education Ministers’ meeting that met on the 29th June to consider these and other curriculum matters agreed to call all learning areas and programmes SUBJECTS. From 2011, learning areas and programmes will be called subjects across the curriculum from Grade R-12.
Additional recommendations
Council agreed to regular, externally-set assessments at grades 3, 6 and 9 in literacy (in home language and first additional language) and numeracy/mathematics. It agreed on a weighting of continuous assessment and end of year examinations as follows:
Grades 7 – 9: 40%: continuous assessment; 60% end of year exam
Grades 10 – 12: 25% continuous assessment; 75% end of year exam
Should any more information come to hand, we will relay this to you.
