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Every year, I mention how
the membership of the Craft
Club has increased, but this
year has been a record.We
started off with over 20 learn-
ers, but it has now stabilized to a regular group
of 14 learners, consisting of Grades 7 and 8
learners, but we do have two loyal matric learn-
ers, Luigia Nicholas and Kayla Coetzee as well!
We decided to continue with fabric painting
for two quarters, with basket weaving in Quar-
ter 3. Mr Frederick very kindly allows us to use
his Art classroom.The learners have made several
very colourful tablecloths, cushion covers and aprons – I’m always amazed by their
creativity and enjoy teaching the various crafts.
craft
club
The Com-
puter Club’s
backbone
is hinged on programming grounds and
is divided into two groups: Java and
Scratch on a Monday, and Robotics on a
Thursday. Pieter Goos, the Chairperson
of the Java programming group organ-
izes what needs to be covered during
the utility session.The focus for this
year was to integrate fun with solving
problems.This has been achieved using
Netbeans, Greenfoot and Scratch.The
instructor, Ural Jonathan Alp, has led
the team into designing a space invader
game, which is really quite amazing!
These young and enthusiastic program-
mers have also registered with Oracle
iLearning Academy, thereby interacting
with more than 800,000 Java develop-
ers worldwide. Learners play differ-
ent educational games constructively,
thus enabling deeper understanding.
After playing a game, a group analysis is
performed on the strengths and weak-
nesses of that game. Discussions follow
this, which inevitably sharpens learners’
analytical skills and encourages the all-
important ‘higher-order processing’.
The Robotics utility on Thursdays,
under the guidance of Mr Musiyiwa and
Mr Peters, provokes learner creativ-
ity by providing challenging tasks to be
solved using NXT Robots.We strongly
believe robotics has begun taking a
larger and very important part in
education.This male dominated club
has been given a facelift with the inclu-
sion of Mikayla and Kayla, both from
Grade 11.These ladies are proving that
programming, particularly ‘NXT’, offers
a systematic transgression in coding and
that the robotics discipline is not meant
for males only!We are looking forward
to taking part in the Computer Olym-
piad next year and demonstrating the
learners’ programming proficiency!
In Art Club we
experiment and
explore different
creative activities.
The learners have
a lot of fun painting and drawing,
as well as working with mo-
saic. A major project was one
where learners designed and
made scarecrows for our lovely
herb and vegetable garden at
the hospitality classroom and
restaurant.
Lab Assistants or “lab rats” is a Science Club
that allows young minds of any grade to be
inspired and enriched through advanced scien-
tific exploration.The lab assistants do a lab safety
course, which prepares them for any laboratory emergencies.They also do numerous
hands-on practicals, requiring advanced scientific calculations. Lab assistants also test prac-
ticals with the laboratory technician before they are done in class, so they have a first-hand
view of most of the Science practicals. Some lab assistants are given the opportunity to
attend Science talks and expos and go on outings. We welcome new members - as long as
they are willing to go through the lab assistants’ course, before being awarded the labora-
tory assistants’ badge and participating in the Grade 7 Science camp held at the end of the
year.
art
club
lab assistants
computer
club
