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CLASS OF 2016
The Class of 2016 pleasantly surprised us with
their collective effort. Congratulations to them
and to the educators who prepared them. A very
special congratulations to our top achievers,
Jana Minnie (90% aggregate and 7 distinctions)
and Amey Meyer (91% aggregate and 7 distinc-
tions).
We are still awaiting feedback from all the subject
advisors, but we already know that the Engineer-
ing Graphics and Design learners achieved the
highest aggregate in the Western Cape.
two learners made it onto the Top 10 list for
French in the Western Cape: Savannah Dasse
(2nd) and Mateo Morin (4th)
The following subjects achieved averages of
80% and above: French, EGD, History, Visual
Arts, Design, Dance. The following subjects
achieved averages of between 70% - 79%: Eng-
lish Home Language, Mathematical Literacy, Life
Orientation, isiXhosa FAL, Business Studies,
Accounting, Life Sciences, Geography, Dramatic
Arts, Economics, Music, Portuguese SAL.
14 learners (18%) achieved an overall A aggre-
gate and 31 (40%) an overall B aggregate.
Well done to the Class of 2016!
GUEST SPEAKER
Paul Carew addressed
the Grade 10 - 12 En-
gineering Graphics and
Design learners on
Wednesday about pas-
sive energy in building design and how to use
responsive design to manage the environment.
Paul is the founder of PJC, Passive and Low En-
ergy Design, Cape Town. He combines his me-
chanical engineering background, keen interest
in design and his experience in the UK, Sweden
and Chile to integrate advanced, cost effective
and pragmatic concepts and methodologies to
the South African context from building to master
planning scale.
The learners and staff who attended found the
presentation fascinating and the matrics are
keen to incorporate some of the ideas into their
matric projects for this year.
PREFECT PREPARATION 2017
These eager and dedicated young men and
women, committed themselves to an extra week-
end of school before the year actually started.
The 2017 Prefect Body got to school early on
Friday 13 January and boarded a bus to Bona-
manzi Camp Site just outside Worcester. There,
they were put through team-building exercises,
river-rafting, a public speaking workshop and an
afternoon intensive-planning session. This is a
confident team that is ready for the year ahead.
ROBOTICS
Parklands Colleges Robotics team wins National
Competition
The First Lego League is a global Robotics com-
petition that is responsible for developing crit-
ical thinking, teamwork and presentation skills
through the application of Science, Technology,
Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) education.
The First Lego League Competition for 2016 had
“Animal Allies” as its theme. Teams around the
world were busy with the exploration of relation-
ships between human beings and animals in an
effort to devise a solution that solves their iden-
tified problem. Parklands College teams, Hyper-
ion Bots and Eureka, researched their favourite
topics, devised their solution and worked on the
Robot Game Challenge to complete their prepa-
ration for the Western Cape Regional competi-
tion held at the Cape Town Science Centre on
5 November 2016. The incredible show of talent
and entrepreneurship displayed by these young
innovative minds resulted in their first and sec-
ond placing respectively.
Teams Hyperion Bots and Eureka were then in-
vited to participate in the First Lego League Na-
tionals in Johannesburg at the Sci-Bono Centre
from 2 -3 December together with 27 other re-
gional qualifying teams. Their respective project
research focused on the following:
Team Eureka: Controlling the spread of high-
ly dangerous diseases through the large-scale
monitoring of bat migrations, focusing for re-
search purposes on the straw-coloured fruit bat,
achieving this through their bat box design.
Team Hyperion Bots: Massively reducing the
damage to horses’ nerve, bone and cranial struc-
ture caused by the use of horse bits by jockeys,
whilst still retaining their effectiveness by rede-
signing the bit using a more efficient material.
The results of the South African National Com-
petition was definitely something to be proud of.
Team Eureka won the Project Research Award.
Team Hyperion Bots impressed the judges in all
their presentations and was an overall favour-
ite in the competition. Team Hyperion Bots was
crowned the South African Champion in the FLL
National 2016 competition out of 233 teams who
had originally registered from 8 South African
provinces as well as a team from Swaziland. This
was the first time that a Western Cape team won
the South African competition and is definitely
another amazing feat for Parklands College.
Team Hyperion Bots will represent South Africa
in the Open Invitational First Lego League Inter-
national Competition on 19-22 April 2017 in Tex-
as, Houston.
- Mala Naidoo
Team Hyperion Bots
SA Champions
Left to Right : Ryan Sparg, Keagan Strydom,
Jade Bremner and Georgia Bowles
Secondary Faculty
SECONDARY
FACULTY
GRADES 7 - 12
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
From the Principal’s Office
Sylvia Steyn
We are very pleased with the smooth
start to the new academic year. Our
academic programme is in full swing,
the culture department is gearing up for
a very busy and productive year and
sports practices commenced from the
very first day - never a dull moment at
Parklands College.