We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.²¹ In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name.²² May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you. Psalm 33:20-22

With the Grade 7-11s writing exams at the moment there are many a request for prayers of help. Unfortunately as we all know unless we are disciplined in studying, the probability of the answer falling from heaven is remote. I have related this story before when a learner was overheard praying during an exam “please Lord, make Paris the capital of Turkey”. Not being the greatest fan of exams as I can still recall the sheer terror of writing them. However, they do instil a sense of challenge when it’s just you and the exam. Often in life when we are alone and confronted with such challenges whom do we call for help? Throughout scripture God reminds us we can depend on Him for help. The result is often the calming of our troubled hearts and minds. The strength to continue and the hope of God’s unfailing love for us as Jesus reminds us in Matthew 11:29 “Place my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”.

P.S. My all-time favourite answer was in a Physics exam: "What is a current?" = Something similar to a raisin!

At a recent conference I attended a presentation by a highly respected Cape headmaster Gavin Kellar. Gavin reminded us that Academic success is dependent upon both genetics and the environment. The home, the community and the school are essential environments that makes the genetic blueprint become a reality. If this environment falls short, the blueprint is never fully realised. If the blueprint has challenges, the environment can make a fundamental difference because of the malleability of our brains!

Kellar stressed that for a child to focus properly on academic pursuits, they must first feel safe and happy in an environment and that schools are focusing too much on academics and not enough on empathy and kindness. He believes that empathy, kindness and relationships are more important than academic rigor. It is certainly obvious that a happy child will do much better than an unhappy child. It is our responsibility as a school to ensure that our pupils want to be here. That they do not fear going to school on a daily basis. That does not mean that it is because they can do as they wish. To feel safe means to understand and to know your environment and its parameters. To know what I can do in order to be in a very comfortable space. Discipline in a school or home is not something that children should fear, but rather something that places them in a structured and predictable space where they can be safe and ultimately happy. 

 

Last week I shared some thoughts about Curiosity. Funnily enough, Curiosity is a fundamental stepping stone for this week’s focus: CREATIVITY.

In its simplest form, Creativity is the act of fostering new ideas that have value. In one of the most-watched TED Talks, Sir Ken Robinson poses the question, “Do schools kill creativity?” In his opinion, they do, but they do so unwittingly. As in last week’s case with Curiosity, young people are trained out of their creativity by a deep fear of being wrong. Formal education has determined a bank of content that our young people must cover, and they all – despite the rich pantheon of research that talks to multiple intelligences – are assessed in pretty much the same way: a standardised test/examination.

Both sides of the brain are creative. It is also an error-strewn cliché to think only of subjects such as Drama, Art, Design etc. as creative. Maths is creative, Sciences are creative. Everything around us stems from a moment of creativity. We need to challenge our paradigm of creativity and, in so doing, acknowledge that its potential abounds everywhere.

Children are not all the same, yet education as we know it largely treats them as if they are. They must grapple with curricula content in a chronological order and in a preset timeframe, and then recall said content in a controlled, formal assessment which is mostly written.

Like Curiosity, young people have the most incredible capacity for Creativity. Education must create and promote consciously opportunities that will celebrate our children’s creativity, thereby empowering them to become content creators instead of simply being content consumers. Our world desperately needs new solutions to old problems, new solutions to new problems, and potential solutions to potential problems before they even arise.

In a mass survey conducted by IBM in 2008 which involved more than 1500 global industry leaders, Creativity and Adaptability were identified as the key skills and dispositions required by the world economy from our young people. May formal education as we know it take heed of these findings sooner rather than later. But, until it does, may we at Thomas More College value our children’s Creativity and nurture it as something of immense value.

PLEASE NOTE:

Community Safety Alert

Our colleagues at Kloof High School informed us of a local mugging of Kloof HS pupils near Kloof Shopping Centre during the day. Please ensure that if your children are walking in the neighbourhood, provision has been made for their safety. It is a pity that we have to think this way, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. Our best wishes are extended to the young people from Kloof High School who were involved in this daylight robbery.

Closing times for the last days of Term 2:

Friday 23 June: 13:00

Monday 26 June: 12:00

Tuesday 27 June: 12:00

Wednesday 28 June: 13:15

Thursday 29 June: 12:00 (Homegrown - school starts at 8:00, not 7:30)

Friday 30 June: 10:30 (reports released electronically at 12:00)

Homegrown: Thursday 29 June

We are in the final throes of tying down the logistics for our inaugural Homegrown Experience which takes place on Thursday 29 June. We have 49 past and present parents and alumni who will be sharing their personal experiences and insights about their respective careers.

The Homegrown experience is aimed at our Grade 9-12 students (the Grade 8s will be involved with their own programme that day). Our Homegrown “Silverbacks” (the experienced elders sharing wisdom with their young) will be engaging your children in informal conversations, as well as formal presentations. Your children will be given a key (which parents will also receive via email from me this week) so that they have a clear understanding of who the Silverbacks are and what they do.

The 4 grades will be put into two groups: the Grade 9s and 11s will be together, and the 10s and 12s will be together.

Programme of the day:

8:00 Registration classes

Assist preparing venues for Homegrown

8:25 Assembly in the quad

9:00 Session 1

Grade 9 and 11: Informal chats with Silverbacks

Grade 10 and 12: Split venues for formal presentations

10:15 Break

10:45 Session 2

Grade 9 and 11: Split venues for formal presentations

Grade 10 and 12: Informal chats with Silverbacks

12:00 End of day

CRITICAL NOTE TO PARENTS ABOUT THE HOMEGROWN EXPERIENCE

We are incredibly blessed and fortunate that so many parents and alumni have volunteered their time to be with us for Homegrown 2017. Your child will have the freedom to move about and engage those volunteers whose career choices and experiences interest him/her. Thus, I ask you to engage with your child once you receive the key of volunteers and their respective careers about which ones your child will engage with.

For want of not sounding draconian, I simply cannot have (and won’t tolerate) children wandering off and seeing this as an unfocused day. If your child is not interested in maximising this opportunity, I’d rather they stay at home as I do not want to have to expend any energy at all on following up on youngsters who are not prepared to be fully engaged in the programme. This will prove to be a profoundly valuable day for our children; if they do not perceive value in it, I’d prefer it if they remained at home. Homegrown is about the responsible response to choice. I expect our children to respond accordingly.

Thank you for your support and co-operation in this matter. I look forward to reporting on an outstanding day in our first Horse’s Mouth next term.

 

I do trust you all had a restful long week-end and that even our pupils still writing this week were able to have some time off this past long week-end.

All of our Primary School pupils will be given the Parents’ Council Country Fair raffle forms next week. These traditionally get handed out now so there is time to fill them in, with the holiday coming up. There are super prizes to be won. This is not only for the lucky ticket holders but also for our pupils. For each fourteen tickets sold there are two free ones. There is also a super draw for great prizes for those additional tickets. Some of these prizes will be shown to our pupils at an assembly next term. At the moment we are still looking for prizes, so if you have any contacts you can pursue this would be appreciated.

Our rugby season is over but there are still a few netball and girls' soccer matches to be played. We wish our pupils well for this. There will be Grade 6, and possibly Grade 7, play rehearsals in these last two weeks in preparation for our production next term.

Next week Monday, 26 June, is a civvies day in return for bringing a tombola item for our Country Fair. Any new Tombola items such as stationery, toiletries, small toys or games, soft toys etc. are most welcome. There are further ideas on the communicator

Wishing you God’s blessings in the week ahead and strength to our Grade 7s as they continue with their last exams this week. All the best for the second “Toppies and Tots” this Friday afternoon, on the day the Grade 7s conclude their exams.

 

Weekly Achievers 

Kindly sponsored by Wetrock Adventures - visit www.wetrockadventuresco.za for further info. 

Please send us photographs of your children enjoying their Weekly Achiever vouchers at Wetrock to tmc@thomasmore.co.za.

Debating

Nicholas Leisegang, Jordan Pieters and Sarah Gonggryp have all been selected to go to the Provincial selection (Interleague debates) at Hillcrest High on 30^th June and 1^st July. We wish them all the best.

Furthermore, the Grade 8 team consisting of Justin Keep, Rebecca de Klerk and Jessica Mills have made it through to the quarter finals of our Durban Coastal League and so have the Seniors.

Music

Congratulations to Brendan O’Loughlin’s who did his Trinity exam at the end of May. He received a distinction for his Grade 5 Trumpet examination. Well done Brendan.

Gymnastics

Congratulations to Sophia Koen and Holly Ahlschlager for receiving medals in gymnastics.  Well done girls.

SP Netball vs Gelofte

U10A won 4-0

U11A won 9-6

U11B lost 5-2

U12A lost 8-12

U12B lost 5-2

1st Team lost 12 – 16

2nd Team won 13 - 2

SP Rugby vs St Henry's

U10A won 10 - 0

U10B won 35 - 0

U11A won 30 - 5

U13A lost 5 - 36 

Congratulations to Alexander Jackson who has been selected to represent the DRSU U11 team at the Bushveld Junior Club Champs in Pretoria.  Well done Alexander.

Rock Climbing

Congratulations to the following Rock Climbers who took part in Nationals held in JHB this weekend:

Faran Steenkamp 8^th place U15

Brendan Kuhnert 10th place U17

Keshav Gounden 6^th place