Dear Parents
Please take note of the following information as well as a few reminders:
Sherpa Kids and Mornington Aftercare
Our aftercare programmes run very successfully every afternoon of the week. Grade 000-1 students are encouraged to attend Mornington aftercare and Grade 2-7 can attend Sherpa Kids. It is preferable for students to be engaged in these activities or extracurriculars during the afternoon as opposed to being left unattended around the school. Some of our girls are only collected late in the afternoon. Please be advised that these girls are not supervised after hours unless it is during a scheduled extracurricular activity or aftercare enrolments. Our reception area closes at 4pm. It is therefore not always possible for students to contact parents late into the afternoon. Please remind your girls to go to aftercare or our security guards should they be concerned about waiting for parent collection.
Jabula (Tuck shop)
A reminder that students, with the exception of Grade 7s, are not permitted to buy from Jabula during school hours. Students from Grade 3-7 are permitted to buy independently using their tuckshop bands and cards after school. Students younger than Grade 3 must be accompanied by an adult. Grade 7 girls will be issued with a tuckshop card (and not a band) at the start of the third term.
Road safety
Please drive cautiously when dropping or collecting your daughters from school. While we teach our girls road safety and ensure that we have supervision during peak hours, it is still the responsibility of the adult drivers to ensure the safety of our students while driving on the school premises.
Birthday Balloons
We love to celebrate your daughter’s birthday with her and make it a special day, but unfortunately the balloons that are being sent to school are becoming distracting to teaching and learning. They are unfortunately not environmentally friendly, and while we certainly enjoy the beautiful and creative designs these days, it becomes competitive between the girls. Please could you assist us by not sending birthday balloons to school going forward.
Staffing
We wish Mia Loock good health and happiness as she begins her maternity leave in preparation for the birth of their newborn baby girl!
Kim Lowman
Head: Junior School
Coffee Morning for Grade 4 – 7 Parents
The Coffee Morning for Grade 4 – 7 Parents held in May, was focused on Organisational Skills. It was made up of two parts. The first presentation was by Tarryn Marcus and Gillian Greyling our on-site, external Occupational Therapists, who spoke about Organisational Skills and Planning. They discussed two subareas of executive functioning, Planning and Organisational skills.
Planning was described as the building block to executive functioning. If a planning difficulty is experienced one would struggle to follow through with an instruction or a task demand, even when it is understood. Subsequently, a fight or flight response might be triggered as this response does not require sequential planning but is merely a reflex.
Organisation was defined as the ability to effectively manage time, work load and resources.
Strategies to improve planning and organisational skills were discussed and included:
- Organising your work space;
- Setting up clear structures around time management;
- Sequencing and labeling the steps needed to complete a task;
- Consistency in schedule to enhance the ability to learn and interact effectively.
Resources shared included:
- theottoolbox.com
- https://theinspiredtreehouse.com/
- App: Kingsmead/Resources for Parents/Junior School Resources – Organisational Skills and Planning
- App: EpicWin – assists with organisational skills
- App: Evernote – helps you to focus on what matters most
- A Book: ‘The Organized Child – an effective program to maximise your kid’s potential – in School and in Life.’
The second part of the presentation was presented by Moira Severin, our in-house Educational Psychologist who spoke about ‘Fostering independence in your child’.
Moira contextualised middle childhood; reinforcing the importance of parents creating an emotionally secure and nurturing relationship with their children, which forms the foundation for fostering independence in children. Guidelines for fostering independence were discussed, a brief summary of which are provided below:
- Setting boundaries provides security for children – flexibility within the boundaries provides children with a sense of choice and control;
- Reflecting on children’s feelings enables them to feel heard and validated;
- Allow children to make mistakes – they have the potential to solve conflict;
- Discussing with children their strengths, and areas which may require strengthening, enhances their self-awareness;
- Prompting children with starter questions (instructions in ‘disguise’), provides children with a framework from which to approach tasks;
- Quality one-on-one time spent with children leaves them feeling with a sense of ‘I matter’;
- Children take cues from the adults in their environment – as parents we need to be cognisant of how we model managing emotions in a healthy way;
- Set the stage for homework success by helping to establish routine. Tackling easier homework tasks first leaves children feeling more positive to then manage more complex tasks;
- Create opportunities for success; celebrate the process and effort, not just the end result.
We thank these presenters for taking the time to share their expertise and experiences with us.
Academic Support Team
Award-winning speaker and best-selling author, Nikki Bush, will be presenting her talk:
‘Children Living in the Red Zone’
On Tuesday 30th July from 18:00 -19:30 in the Joel Hall.
All Junior Primary Parents are invited to attend this informative and pertinent talk while the Junior Primary girls are enjoying an evening of story-telling and Hot Chocolate, snuggled up in their warm PJs,
Each family will receive a copy of her ebook Parenting Matters 2.0.
Please complete the online reply slip by Friday 26th July.
We regret no siblings.
Please complete the RSVP form on the Kingsmead App >Resources for Parents> Junior School Resources.
SERVICE
Grade 2 to 7 Knitting Project
Girls from Grades 2-7 have recently been issued with a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool. The girls are going to knit squares which will go towards making blankets for Mandela Day in 2020. The girls have been enthusiastically participating in this project and are knitting in every spare moment that they have.
Dance Marathon Handover
On Monday, 15 July the Junior School handed over the Dance Marathon donations to the Community Engagement Partners. A total of R 120 341 was raised for the following partners: St Vincent School for the Deaf, Society for Animals in Distress, JAM, Sunshine Association, Fight with Insight, The Bunny Hop Haven, Kingsmead Trust, OKA and PTA. Thank you to the entire community for their generous donations.
67 Minutes
The Bluebells and Buttercups made soup to distribute to the homeless.
Grade 0 made Rock Cakes for the Baragwanath Burns Unit. 55 of our knitted blankets were also distributed to the Baragwanath Burns Unit along with the Rock Cakes.
Kingsmead College, in collaboration with Community Hours, hosted a Make-and-Donate-a-Sleeping-Bag event on Mandela Day (18 July 2019). Kingsmead College students, staff and volunteers from the community made 167 sleeping bags from newspaper and recycled plastic. A handmade scarf was placed in every sleeping bag. These scarves were made by the Kingsmead College Senior School students during a sleep out event they had to raise awareness for homelessness. The sleeping bags and scarves will be distributed to the homeless in the inner city by Dollar and a Dream. The Grade 1 girls coloured in pictures to also go in the sleeping bags, and grade 2-7 girls were involved with Making and Donating a Sleeping Bag. It was a wonderful day, marked by collaboration and a real sense of giving.
Lauren Myburgh
Junior School Head of Service
ARTS & MUSIC
South African National Youth Orchestra ‘What it takes: Viola’ Workshop
One of our keen musicians, Caitlin Stride, was recently selected to attend a workshop: ‘What is takes: Viola’ with expert teachers Louise Lansdown, violist and Head of Strings at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Tony Alcock, principal bass at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The course covers many aspects of professional musicianship including audition preparation, marketing of yourself as a musician, posture/injury prevention, performing with an orchestra, music history related to the instrument and master classes. It gives insight into solo, chamber and orchestral playing as well as teaching and other career options.
What a wonderful opportunity for Caitlin!
Viola & Bass students and teachers
Louise Lansdown, Caitlin Stride and Toby Holden
Magic of Music
Congratulations to our Junior School Orchestra, Drum Gym Group and Grade 4-7 Choir who blew the audience away last week Thursday at the annual ‘Magic of Music’ evening. You did Kingsmead so proud!
Grade 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 Music Concert
It takes great courage to perform in front of an audience and we commend all our young musicians for sharing their music with us. It is always such a joy and privilege to see how much they have learned and grown as musicians at our term concerts.
Marimba Fun Day: Saturday 3 August
Instead of visiting the International Marimba Festival and Competition this year, we have decided to run our own Marimba Fun day at Kingsmead instead. The festival has become very expensive and is a heavy weekend after a long term. We hope that a few fun workshops on our campus, closing the day with a lovely picnic concert, will be a great way to end the term for our marimba band members.
The day will run as follows:
9h00-9h35 Session 1
9h35-10h10 Session 2
10h10-10h20 BREAK
10h20-10h55 Session 3
10h55-11h30 Session 4
11h30-11h40 BREAK
11h40-12h15 Session 5
12h15-12h30 BREAK
12H30 – 13H30 Picnic Concert – all our Marimba bands will perform
- The sessions will include: Body percussion, Movement, Drumming, Marimba technique and learning a new song.
- The cost (to pay the facilitators who will run the sessions) is R100/participant.
- We will provide snacks and drinks for the girls for the breaks. The PTA/OKA will sell some picnic eats and drinks for parents – more details to follow.
- Please click here to confirm your daughter’s attendance at this event.
- The girls can wear any comfortable clothes on the day.
Mia Loock Maternity leave
Mia Loock will be on maternity leave from the 27th of July until the end of 2019.
Dineo Matsepe will be taking Mia’s violin students from next term. Her Grade 4-7 Music classes will be taught by Sanri Naude, Dineo Matsepe and Wian Joubert and the Choir by Ashlea Martin and Este Meerkotter.
We wish Mia a special time with her new baby! She will be back in January 2020.
Upcoming events:
Tuesday 23 July 18:00-19:00 Grade 5-7 Music Concert Joel hall
Saturday 3 August 9:00-13:30 JS & SS Marimba Fun Day Music Department
Elsabé Fourie
Director of Music & Arts
SPORTS
St Mary’s DSG Hockey festival
The grade 7A and 6A participated in the annual St Mary’s DSG tournament on the weekend. Not only were they fortunate to have been in the same hotel as the Toyota Cheetahs, but they also posted pleasing results. The team played 7 matches. They achieved 4 wins, 2 draws on 1 loss. Congratulations to our Grade 7 team.
The Grade 6 team found their pool much more challenging. They team also played 7 matches. Unfortunately, they lost 3, drew2 and won 2. We would like to thank the members of staff who accompanied our young players and made this tour possible. A special thank you to the parents who came through to support the girls at the side of the field.
Grade 3 Hockey
Congratulations to our Grade 3 Hockey players who played in their first mini matches this week. It was awesome to see their newly learnt skills in action. We look forward to watching them in the Roedean festival on Wednesday evening. All details will be uploaded on to the live calendar. Please do come out and support them.
Grade 3 Roedean Festival
Our Grade 3 teams will be taking part in the annual Roedean festival on Wednesday 24 July 2019. Transport will be provided and we expect all players to use the bus. Girls will meet at the gymnasium for registration at 14:40. Players can leave with their parents once they have completed their matches.
Please keep an eye on the live calendar for fixtures and team lists.
Grade 000 – 0 Fun Morning.
Please do come and support the PTA as they will be selling refreshments during the fun morning. We will endeavour to provide as much shade as we possibly can, and we ask that you remain on the stands. The astro and hockey dug will be out of bounds to protect the surface from incorrect footwear and food stuff. We look forward to spending this morning with you.
Sheillah Muchauraya
Junior School Head of Sports
Art Cards
Dear Parents,
The girls are working on artwork during art classes that can be used on greeting cards. These cards are packaged in packs of 10 at R170.00 per pack. Accounts will be debited accordingly.
For additional orders or, should you NOT wish to receive a pack please advise via email to sandra@wbs.co.za by no later than the 8 August 2019.
The design below is an example of the final work that each pupil will produce. The pupil’s name will appear on the back of the card together with the school’s logo. The front will showcase their spectacular design for the card.
The size of the card is 14cm x 14cm which is an attractive square.
Positive Feedback
Last week I was serving coffee to the parents, staff and kids at Mandela Day, where Kingsmead was making the sleeping bags.What struck me was the politeness of the kids and their generosity to help.
I have served coffee at various schools but it was noticeable at Kingsmead, how the girls greeted with a smile. I asked a couple of girls where toilets were and the tuck shop, they insisted on showing me rather than just pointing.Lovely culture, thank you.
– Sergio Acquisto