Our Connection : Issue 1 2023

Dear Kingsmead Community,

The year has started off so well. We have welcomed new and existing families and staff with warmth and happy smiles, as we always do. I hope that your holiday was good and that you have all returned fresh and ready for a great year ahead. It does seem that the energy brought to school this year is positive and restored.

This year hopes to be one of celebration and promise as Kingsmead begins its 90th year. We thank the whole community for your support, generosity and connectedness. This is the year to lean in and step up.

Thank you for attending the information and welcome evenings. It was good to meet and connect with the joint responsibility of raising our precious Kingsmead daughters. Our opening whole school assembly started the year off with the reminder to hold onto the good, celebrate the courage and embrace positive hope for the future.

In my opening address, I reminded us of the importance of doing simple things, really well. It is through this that we make excellence a habit. Let us teach our students the value of hard work and efficiency. DV Thomson is quoted as saying to this effect “We should all remember that big things start with little things. The bud must come before the blossom.” Please help us to get students to school on time, proudly dressed and prepared for the day ahead.

Our sincere congratulations to every 2022 matriculant. Your results are indeed worthy of the greatest celebration. Congratulations to those who achieved their dreams. It may have been a distinction, a pass, an improvement in a certain area; it may have been the people you have met along the way; the sports or cultural participation; it may have been the happy fulfilment you feel now walking out our Kingsmead gates. Whatever you celebrate today, know that we are behind you and will always be with you as you take on the next exciting chapter of your lives. The world awaits you! The Junior School is so proud of you.

May we hold onto our Kingsmead blessing for the year ahead:

Loyal, Happy and Free
guard that good thing, committed to thee
Goodness, Beauty and Truth
guard that good thing, committed to thee
Let us keep safe the spirit of happiness
and praise with our lives the values of Kingsmead
search after God in whom there is peace
the Soul and Spirit of love and service
Loyal, Happy and Free
guard that good thing, committed to thee
Goodness, Beauty and Truth
guard that good thing, committed to thee.

With love and Courage Always,
Kim Lowman

Staff News

We extend our congratulations to Ntombizodwa Manyike on the birth of her beautiful baby girl. We wish you good health, much joy and love on this new journey of parenthood.

Cultivating Courage at Kingsmead

As we leap into 2023, I sit back and look at our school buildings, our classrooms, our gatherings and ask myself, how can one begin to define anything as vibrant and dynamic as a school? After all, a school is a collection of people, and each time the year turns and the student, staff and parent body changes, this subtly shifts on a gear and we become a little bit stronger and better than the year before. So is that what defines us? The belief in the individual and the dedication of all of our staff, teachers and support staff alike, to enable our students to become what they have the capacity to be; and the sense, in each member of our community, that his or her contribution makes a difference to who we are.

Our goal for 2023 for all at Kingsmead, is that we ‘Cultivate Courage’ because our aspirations for our students are that they will each make a noise in this world and make a difference in their homes, their communities, their workplaces and beyond. Our students are characterised by their energy, their courage, their integrity, their self-knowledge, their commitment to the Kingsmead values. Achieving in the various aspects of school, be it academics, socially, within the arts or sports departments, courage leads to success. At Kingsmead we aim to support your daughter through fostering skills that develop a Growth Mindset by utilizing and developing the various thinking skills such as, the Habits of Mind, Thinking Maps, Visible Thinking Routines to name a few. Our students learn how to take risks in their learning, embracing success and failure within a climate of support. These approaches provide a security that builds her confidence and resilience to meet the challenges of the next opportunity.

It’s important that we grow brave children. We want students who are happy to take risks physically, emotionally and intellectually. There are good reasons for that….courageous students are going to be the ones who find out early what their strengths and weaknesses are, what they love and loathe. They can use that knowledge powerfully in their learning and growing. If they are ‘armed’ with that knowledge, then they are more likely to create a life they love. They are also going to be the students who take learning risks that lead to lateral, out-of-the-box thinking. The world needs that kind of thinker.

Let 2023 be a year where we see your daughter, stepping in, reaching out.

Courage Always

Tarryn McLaren
Deputy Head: Senior Primary

New students and staff welcome

We welcomed our new students from Grade 1-7 and new staff by inviting them to place their stone in their relevant gabion that sites within Isivivane Garden and make their own sound as they beat the dun-dun drum. We wish them all a long and very happy association with our school.

Arts & Music

Welcome back to all our parents and students! The music department is already a busy and noisy place, and we love the sound of music coming from every direction!

The Music Department is an alternate universe where pupils are often unrecognisable from who they are outside of it. The shy become confident. The agitated become calm. The lonely become included. The quiet become heard. And the lost become found. Music reveals the real child. ~ Vaughan Fleischfresser

The Arts & Music department strives to provide a space where all students feel welcome and know that there is a place for them to get involved and express themselves. If we had our way, every student in the school would play an instrument!

Sign-up forms for Music lessons or Group Music making are all available in the Arts & Music folder on the app: Find the 🎵icon. Access it HERE

Meet your Music Teachers Week
Come and meet us! All Kingsmead parents are invited to meet the Music staff on Monday 6 February at 18h00 online from the comfort of your home. We would love to tell all our Kingsmead families about the wonderful programmes we run in the Arts & Music department and give everyone a chance to ask questions and see what we look like!

During the week 6-10 February, we welcome all parents to pop into your daughter’s music lesson or rehearsal and meet our music teachers. We would love to get to know all our music families at Kingsmead!

Contact us should you have any questions regarding Arts & Music at Kingsmead.

Sports

The Kingsmead sports season kicked off on 5 January with various pre-season clinics for Term 1 sport. We had great attendance and the students had fun whilst improving both their fitness & technique.

We also had swimming and tennis trials in the first week of the term to determine teams. Preparations are underway for the annual St Mary’s Summer Splash event where our Grade 7s will join the Senior School in a diving competition and our junior swimmers will join the senior squad to participate in the gala.

Our remaining sports seasons for the term will start towards the end of January with swimming galas, tennis fixtures and water polo fixtures scheduled. We urge parents to keep track of the events on the live calendar as all up-to-date information will be accessible to parents.

Team vs beginner/intermediate sessions
There have been a few questions regarding team vs beginner/intermediate sessions. Please note that all sessions are open to all students until the team lists have been published. The team lists will be published on the App for parents and on the sports board (located by the Grade 4 classrooms) for students within the next 2 weeks.

Gymnastics
Congratulations to Iysla Perera for being selected to represent the Central Gauteng District team at South African Championships last year. We are very proud of your achievements.

Upcoming Events
Thursday 19 January – Tennis Trials
– Trials will take place at Kingsmead.
Saturday 21 January – Grade 4-7 Summer Splash Gala 08:00 – 11:00
– Gala will take place at St Mary’s.
Saturday 21 January – Grade 7 Summer Splash Diving Competition (selected divers) 11:00 – 15:00
– Competition will take place at St Mary’s.
Friday 27 January – Grade 6 & 7 Gala (teams to be confirmed on app by no later than Wednesday 25 January)
– Gala will take place at St Katharine’s.

A few reminders for parents & guardians:
1. Please send any sports achievements (school & non-school) to Mrs Hanekom.
2. A reminder to please download the Kingsmead app as this will be the direct method of communication to parents on sport fixture days.
3. All team lists will be published on the app by no later than Tuesday for a Thursday fixture and the Wednesday before the Friday fixture.
4. A reminder to refer to the week ahead document on the app under the Sports section.
5. The Junior School Extra Curricular Schedule will conclude on Friday 25 November.

Conversation Starter

Welcome back to 2023. You may well remember the Conversation Starters for Families in our newsletters during Term 3 of 2022… as we know, one of the signs of a healthy family is open and meaningful conversation/communication. But often finding the time or the points to speak to, don’t always come easily. We thought we would share some prompts to facilitate this process, which are ideal to share around the table, on a trip – anytime, anywhere.