Quarter 2 Newsletter 2021

5 Our musicians have continued to enthrall us each week with their Assembly performances. Trinity practical examinations are available on the online platform throughout the year and we had excellent results from our first group of candidates, which included eight Distinctions. Some of our learners wrote the Theory examination in May and also received outstanding results. We had a large number of entries for the Western Cape Virtual Eisteddfod as well as the Cape Town Eisteddfod and these entries will be adjudicated soon. We continue to strive to expose our learners to a variety of instruments and genres and this quarter culminated in our first annual celebration of World Music Day on Monday, 21 June. This Celebration of Music included performances by our Junior and Senior Orchestras, our Grade Six Marimba Band and a solo item to showcase the piano, recorder, violin, flute, drums, cello, percussion, saxophone and vocal opportunities offered to our Preparatory learners. We are looking forward to our annual Junior and Senior Preparatory concerts next quarter. - Mr Ernstzen Ge o r g i a O’Keeffe, an American modernist painter and artist said, ‘To create one’s world in any of the arts takes courage’. The Preparatory learners are certainly very courageous, as ‘Eisteddfod’ was the buzzword of the quarter, and performance, in any form, takes an enormous amount of courage, perseverance and determination. We recorded and took photos of items for the Allegretto Eisteddfod, the Western Cape Virtual Eisteddfod as well as the Cape Town Eisteddfod for Art, Dance, Drama and Music categories. Our young performers are becoming quite adept at presenting for a camera. La Pebras hair gel, new stockings, and bright costumes were the order of the day as our dancers ‘pulled up and smiled’ for their Eisteddfod recordings. The Cape Town Eisteddfod offered entry to the Set Solo sections for Ballet and Modern Dance and many of our Grade Three to Six dancers participated in this. We have submitted their recordings and look forward to receiving their results. Our Grade Five Tap dancers also recorded their items for the ISTD Tap examination, one of the first international examination sessions of the year. Our dance educators are thrilled to be starting Modern Dance lessons for learners in Grade One, Two, and Three next quarter too. It has been such a treat to have every Drama class taking place in our beautiful Drama rooms. The learners have had to extend their presentation skills as we reverted to live performances within the class this quarter. Live presentation is vital to help build confidence, communication skills and stage techniques. Our Junior Preparatory Drama Society members continued to work well in groups, exploring stories and themes. They learned the Choral Verse poem, ‘The Witch and the Wizard’ by Clive Sansom, and were delighted to each have solo lines to speak. We are extremely proud of the Senior Preparatory Drama Society members who participated in the Allegretto Eisteddfod and were all invited to participate in the national ‘Showcase Level’. We eagerly await their results for this section as well as for the Poetry and Prepared Reading sections of the Western Cape Virtual Eisteddfod. The entire group recorded a playlet entitled, ‘A Green Harvest’ which focussed on preserving our earth. Each learner had solo lines to speak and we incorporated some music, rap and interesting movement to complement the spoken word. Although we encourage participation in Eisteddfods and examinations, our culture and enrichment lessons are designed to cultivate an understanding and life-long appreciation of the arts and a love for the particular genre. As Arsene Wenger says, ‘At a young age winning is not the most important thing. The important thing is to develop creative and skilled players with good confidence.’ - Mrs Buckle A CULTURAL ADVENTURE A MUSIC ADVENTURE Tinkering in Tynker is what my Grade 3’s enjoyed. Coding a “Mash-Up” of two characters colliding and turning into something new. Then making a ‘How to Video’ to explain to another learner, for example, how to get a character to move with arrows. And, teaming up with the always-up-for-adventure Mrs Crouse, we are coding a Tintin maze game. Ask them to show you ;) - Mrs Niemand The Senior Preparatory Robotics Lab has been abuzz with the sound of robots once more. The grade 4 and 5 learners have been developing computational thinking and problem-solving skills by completing various challenges. Learners eagerly coded the LEGO EV3 robots to explore various accepts of coding such as loops, commands and events. During the challenges the learners have moved their robots forward using degrees, rotations and seconds, as well as discovered how an ultrasonic sensor works by transmitting and receiving signals to aid the robot in making "intelligent" choices. To end off the quarter we used the knowledge we gained to make our robots dance and played Sphero Soccer in the hall. As you can imagine, this was a lot of fun! Grade 6 learners spent the quarter looking at the app design process to design their own apps which were used to present their iTrade orals for the quarter. The creativity shown by the learners was outstanding: they used transitions, magic moves, animations and many fabulous effects to make their presentations spectacular. Learners even created Apps in a game format, added feedback forms, or just added a joke at the end to make their teacher smile. We look forward to more exciting adventures in Robotics next quarter. - Mrs de Wet Poetry Eisteddfod Candidates A Green Harvest - Senior Drama Society The Witch and the Wizard - Junior Drama Society Skeleton