OUR CONNECTION
Issue 16 2015
Dear Parents, Staff and girls,
It was such a pleasure watching our netball teams play their first match last
Thursday afternoon. From our little U9’s who were experiencing their very first
netball match to our amazing, almost unbeaten in 2014, Open team, the girls
played with confidence and determination! Congratulations to our coaches and
the girls who participated!
We have only two weeks left before we enjoy our Kingsmead Book Fair. This
once again, promises to be a most enjoyable day and I do urge all our parents to
make every effort to attend. Jo Hamilton, our psychologist is interviewing one of
the authors in the chapel during the morning. She was telling me about this author and the book that she has written, I asked Jo to give you an outline of the
book as I do believe there are many of our families who will enjoy this talk.
Kingsmead Bookfair – A worthwhile talk.
Come and listen to a talk entitled Starting Anew at 10:00-10:45 in the
Kingsmead Chapel.
Jo Hamilton, Kingsmead’s Junior School Psychologist will be talking to author
Flicky Gildenhuys about her book entitled “Blending Families”.
Jo’s comments about her book:
Flicky has written a practical, reader-friendly book which assists family
members to reflect upon the multiple changes and challenges of blending families. Flicky poses really useful questions and provides a space to
reflect upon one’s feelings and thoughts as well as the practicalities of
blending families. Her use of numerous vinaigrettes artfully assists the
reader to gain insight into various perspectives of the people involved
– from the children, to step parents, to widows and widowers and new
parents. I highly recommend this book to adults who are co-parenting
children and to those who are negotiating the journey towards happy
step-families.
Please note, as indicated on the calendar, the Junior School will be closing at
11:00 on Friday, 22nd May, the day before the Book Fair, in order to allow the
mums time to set up the children’s programme in the Junior School grounds.
As we normally do, the Junior School will run a programme commencing on
Monday, 18th May as a build up to the Book Fair. You will notice that it includes
parental involvement, please try and join us!
Wednesday: 13th May:
07:30 Grade 5 girls need to meet at
the Tyrwhitt avenue entrance
08:00 Grade 5 girls depart for camp
07:45 Grade 6 and 7 Geography
cycle test
Thursday: 14th May
08:00 Grade 1 – 3 Hooked on
Books in the Gym
Netball matches vs. Redhill
Friday: 15th May
Grade 7 to visit Randvaal Home for
the Aged
13:00 Grade 5 Tour returns
(parents will be notified of exact
time)
Hockey matches vs. St Andrews –
Grade 5 girls will not be playing
Monday: 18th May
07:45 Assembly in the Gym –
launch of Book Week
18:00 Grade 2/3 Choir “Let the
Children Sing: at St John’s
Tuesday: 19th May
07:30 – 08:30 Grade 000 to 3 Reading Breakfast with parents in the
gardens
08:00 – 15:30 Travelling Bookshop
in the Mini Hall
Wednesday: 20th May
08:30 – 09:30 Edith Bulbring
(author) to address Grade 5 – 7
Grade 000-3 Reading Breakfast
Tuesday 19 May 2015
07:30 – 08:30
As part of our Kingsmead book week we invite
parents of our Junior Primary girls to come to
school with your daughter to read together. Please bring a small picnic breakfast to enjoy
and a blanket to sit on and find a spot in our
beautiful school gardens to read with your
daughter. We look forward to seeing you on the
19 May between 7:30 and 8:30.
The Grade Seven girls have completed their Teen Talks and we shall now be moving on to the Grade Five and Six girls.
We would appreciate parents of the Grade Five and Six girls diarising Wednesday, 27th May at 07:30 in the Mini Hall
for Jo Hamilton to address you on what she will be covering with the girls.
There is great excitement amongst our Grade Five girls who depart on Wednesday, 13th May on their annual camp.
Please note that the girls need to be at school by 07:30 to leave at 08:00. The girls must please be dropped off, with
their luggage in Tyrwhitt Avenue where the bus will await them.
At assembly this morning we congratulated the girls who have been voted in as House Captains, Sports captains,
Choir and Orchestra captains for the term. Well done to these Grade Seven girls!
House Captains: Standing (L to R) Jemma Eckstein; Jemma Bennett; Nicola Gace; Marielle du Plooy
Seated (L to R) Sarah Minnie; Julia Courtenay; Rebecca Lee; Marina Georgiou; Georgina Gillson
Sports Captains: Sarah Benning (Hockey); Emma Davidson (Athletics); Georgina Beart (Netball)
Choir Captain: Chloë Buchel Orchestra Captain: Kiara Millerd
Reading Mrs Beekhuizen’s academic report, which is included in this newsletter, makes me realise just how much we
have extended our girls during the first half of the year. My thanks to the wonderful staff of the Junior School for
always being so willing to embark new educational initiatives!
Enjoy reading about what is being done!
BOOK FAIR NEWS
We are thrilled to announce that award-winning UK children’s author will be performing at 9am at Kingsmead on
Friday, 22 May in the lead-up to the Kingsmead Book Fair on Saturday, 23 May.
Chris Bradford's events are always action-packed. While writing his award-winning Young Samurai series, he trained
in Samurai swordsmanship and in preparation for his thrilling new Bodyguard series; he embarked on an intensive
course to become a qualified bodyguard! Come along for a demonstration of the close combat skills he has acquired
and find out how they helped him write his latest book based in Africa - Bodyguard: Ambush.
He'll also offer the audience a taste of the Young Samurai series as well some of the skills he's learnt in this area.
Interactive, entertaining and full of action.
For more information on Chris Bradford and his books, please visit www.chrisbradford.co.uk, www.youngsamurai.com and www.bodyguard-books.co.uk.
Exclusive Books will be at the event and students will be able to buy the books from both the Bodyguard series and
the Young Samurai Series. Books will be on sale for R150. There are 3 books in the Bodyguard series and 8 books in
the Young Samurai series.
Kingsmead Junior School Academic Newsletter
Some reflections on our academic growth during the first term
After the first couple of weeks settling back into the school routine at the beginning of the year, we began the preparation for
the actual implementation of the Prime Maths programme. This has been an exciting development – a culmination of many
years of investigating the most effective, meaningful and appropriate pedagogy regarding the teaching of Mathematics for our
girls. We had a wonderful turn-out of parents attending the very informative and fun-filled presentation given by Leigh Pleass.
The girls love the books which are colourful and in which the concepts are clearly explained, with many different strategies on
offer. The teachers are also enjoying the structured approach. I am sure that you would agree that the Prime Maths resources
are attractive and encourage engagement by your daughters. Hopefully you too have found the books to be useful in informing
you about the ‘new’ terminology and approaches as these have been beautifully and clearly set out, especially in the course
books.
Particularly at parents evening, the teachers often have parents asking about what extra activities their children could do to
improve their Maths. We believe that it is not about the latest app on an electronic device that will help a child develop their
math concepts, but rather actually physically doing things. It is through ‘doing’ that children learn to construct meaning for
themselves. The kinds of activities that we have in mind are easily done at home, require minimal supervision, and can occupy
children for hours without them realising that they are learning while having fun. Example of these sorts of activities are reading
a recipe, measuring ingredients and baking or making a dish for a meal, climbing trees, building ‘houses ‘ out of boxes or
furniture and cushions; playing with plain blocks that require imagination. With winter almost upon us, this is an ideal time for
the children to learn to knit and crochet for our collection of blankets for the needy. These activities are great for developing
problem solving skills necessary of all aspects of life and help children to develop physically too.
Kingsmead hosted a most successful ‘Chatterbox’ evening attended by eight schools in the area. All our learners were given the
opportunity to audition for the event, after having learnt about the process of preparing and presenting an interesting speech in
class. The girls also learnt how to give constructive feedback to each other. We encourage all the girls to audition for the next
Chatterbox event to be held at Auckland Park Prep on Tuesday the 9th of June. This serves as a great opportunity for our girls to
meet fellow speakers of similar age and builds confidence in sharing their interests and opinions with others. These events are a
lot of fun and we learn a huge amount about public speaking.
There is a world-wide debate about the value of teaching learners to print or write in cursive script. The IEB (Independent
Examination Board) has shared with us the perspective that while learners are taught print script for the first few years of
schooling as they learn to read and write, by the middle of Grade Two they should be starting to learn to write in cursive. Our
Grade Two girls are very excited to be returning to school this term to begin their cursive hand-writing lessons. The reason for
preferring this script over print is that it helps learners with spelling issues as it is easier to not confuse the ‘b’ and ‘d’ and it is a
faster way of writing. It has been shown to aid concentration as the letters are linked to each other in a constant motion in the
writing and is not broken up for each letter. It important that a learner’s handwriting is quick and legible as the matric exam is
written by hand and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. For this reason, we are encouraging all our learners up to
the end of Grade Six to use the cursive script. It will then be a personal decision that the Grade Sevens can make as to which
script they would like to use.
We ended off the first term with a wonderful Thinking Day that involved the girls being arranged into groups from Grades One
to Seven. The purposes of the day were to get to know and make friends with girls in other grades, while learning to work with
each other as we deepened our understanding of the 16 Habits of Mind. It was a day filled with loads of high energy and a huge
amount of fun and we all learnt more about the specific Habits of Mind allocated to each group. We were delighted to have
many parents attend the morning tea and to share in their daughter’s learning. We were all so impressed with the creative skills
of our learners as each group made an Inyoni (our Thinking bird) using only scrap materials, while the calibre of iPad presentations telling the stories of how their Inyoni had got better at specific Habits of Mind were excellent! The teachers were great in
facilitating these excited and noisy groups. They also prepared activities for the girls for later in the day that stretched our
learning about the Habits. Our Think Spot newsletter will highlight wonderful examples from the girls. Please be on the look out
for the next issue coming to you soon.
Ingrid Beekhuizen—Head of Academics and Curriculum Development, Junior School
SPORT NEWS
Netball:
On Thursday 7th May we played our first Netball matches for this season against Kings College. Only the A and B teams
played and all the players played extremely well. The results were as follows:
U10A
Drew 5 – 5
U10B
Won 13 – 0
U11A
Drew 7 – 7
U11B
Won 17 – 1
U12A
Won 14 – 5
U12B
Won 18 – 0
U13A
Won 25 – 5
U13B
Won 31 – 1
Well done to all the players. You did Kingsmead proud!
Our next Matches will be as follows:
Monday 11th May: Kingsmead vs Grayston Prep AT KINGSMEAD – Only the B – Teams managed to play before the rain
came down. We rescheduled the A – Team matches as follows:
U11A Team will play on Tuesday 12th May during their PE Lesson at
U12A Team will play on Monday 18th May during their PE Lesson at
13h30 – 14h30.
13h30 – 14h30.
The results for the U11B & U12B Teams were as follows:
U11B
Won 14 – 0
U12B
Won 11 – 6
Well done to these two teams! You played like STARS!
Tuesday 12th May: Kingsmead vs Grayston Prep AT KINGSMEAD – matches w3ill start at 14h35, or as soon as the
opponents arrive. Matches should be finished by 16h00.
U10A & U10B Teams
U13A & U13 B Teams
Thursday 14th May: Kingsmead vs REDHILL.
The U12 A – D Teams will play AT REDHILL.
Order of Play:
U12D
Court 4
14h00 – 14h30
U12C
Court 4
14h35 – 15h05
U12B
Court 3
14h00 – 14h30
U12A
Court 3
14h35 – 15h05
The bus will leave from the Grail House Gate at 13h15 and will return to Kingsmead at approximately 16h30, depending
on the traffic.
GRADE 3:The match against Redhill has been cancelled for the U9 girls. We will have a practice instead as we missed a
number of practices last term due to the concert and Easter weekend. The practice will start at 13h10 and finish at
14h30. We will play a round robin of games against each other on Thursday to give the girls some game practice.
PLEASE NOTE:
The U11’s will NOT play, due to the Camp. They will play on the 18th May at 14h35 – 16h00.
The U10 A – D Teams and the U13 A – C Teams will play AT KINGSMEAD.
Order of Play:
U10B
Court 1 14h00 – 14h30
U10D
Court 2 14h00 – 14h30
U10A
Court 1 14h45 – 15h15
U10C
Court 2 14h45 – 15h15
U13B
Court 5 14h00 – 14h30
U13C
Court 4 14h00 – 14h30
U13A
Court5 14h45 – 15h15
Good luck to ALL the Netball players!
Saturday 16th May:
The Annual U13A Team St Andrew’s Netball Tournament.
Players need to be at St Andrew’s at 07h30 for registration.
Hockey:
On Friday 15th May we will play our first Hockey matches for this season against St Andrew’s. The Grade 4’s and Grade 6’s
will play AT KINGSMEAD and the Grade 7’s will play AT ST ANDREW’S.
The bus will leave from the Grail House Gate at 13h15 and will return to Kingsmead at approximately 17h00, depending
on the traffic.
TIME
14:00
TEAM
VENUE
FIELD
St Andrew’s 7B vs. Kingsmead 7B
St Andrew’s
Astro
St Andrew’s 6B vs. Kingsmead 6B
St Andrew’s
Grass
14:45
St Andrew’s 6A vs. Kingsmead 6A
St Andrew’s
Astro
15:30
St Andrew’s 7A vs. Kingsmead 7A
St Andrew’s
Astro
14:00
St Andrew’s 4C vs. Kingsmead 4C
Kingsmead
Astro
St Andrew’s 4A vs. Kingsmead 4A
Kingsmead
Astro
St Andrew’s 4B vs. Kingsmead 4B
Kingsmead
Astro
14:40
PLEASE NOTE:
NO grade 5’s will play, due to the Camp.
Date
Activities
Opposition & Venue
Monday
18 May
NETBALL:
U12 A Team – During PE Lesson: 13h30 – 14h30
Grayston Prep U12A AT
KINGSMEAD
Thursday
21 May
U11 A & B Teams: Matches
will start at 14h35 – 16h00
NETBALL:
U9 – U13 A – D Teams
Redhill U11A & B Teams AT
KINGSMEAD
Against ST ANDREW’S:
U12’s & U13’s AT KINGSMEAD
U9’s; U10’s & U11’s AT ST
ANDREW’S
Friday
22 May
HOCKEY:
Grade 4 – 7
Against ST MARY’S:
Grade 4 A – C & 5 A / B AT
KINGSMEAD
Grade 6 & & A / B AT ST
MARY’S
Saturday
23 May
NO NETBALL FESTIVAL:
BOOK FAIR
Transport provided
Bus departs from Grail House Gate at 13h15 and will
return to Kingsmead at approximately 17h00, depending
on the traffic
Bus departs from Grail House Gate at 13h15 and will
return to Kingsmead at approximately 17h00. Depending
on the traffic