Our Connection: Issue 7 2022

Dear Kingsmead Community,

It has been a great start to the new school term. The fresh, crisp air is energizing and signals new beginnings. To all those in our community who have the opportunity to share motherly love at home, a Happy Mother’s Day for last Sunday.

Our students have already been hard at work in their classes, music studios and sports fields. Please take careful note of the daily schedules available on the Live Calendar on the Kingsmead App so that you don’t miss a beat. There is so much planned to make this term a wonderful experience and we are hoping to share this all with as many of you as possible.

Reading is the single most important thing in the education of young minds. Those who read have exposure to a world of new vocabulary, new experiences, emotions, and diversity. Children who read, are able to understand perspective, build critical and creative thinking skills and the necessary comprehension strategies to analyse text and new situations. Encouraging a culture of reading in our homes, in our school and in our country should be our greatest priority in ensuring cognitive and social confidence. Teaching social concepts through the art of story-telling is really powerful, both at home and in schools. Our challenge as parents and adults is to role model healthy reading habits, share our stories and engage positively with a wide variety of books. Let us all aim to give our children the gift of books and the love of reading.

Please gather and give some ‘gently read’ books for our book drive. It is a privilege for us to share the gift of reading with our community partners over the course of the next few weeks. Book Week details have been shared with our parents. Please take careful note of the exciting plans and please diarise Friday 20^th May as a ‘flipped classroom’ day. As usual, the campus is closed to onsite learning for the day in preparation for the Book Fair on Saturday 21 May. Detailed information will be sent home to all grades for that day.

We look forward to seeing you back on campus as we unfold the Term 2 experiences with you.

With love and Courage Always,

Kim Lowman
Head: Kingsmead Junior School

Arts & Music

We thoroughly enjoyed a busy 1^st term, getting back to performing in front of full audiences, and we LOVED it! What a thrill and joy to share our music with families and friends.

Congratulations to our magnificent musicians: members of the Marimba bands, Drum gym and Orchestra who performed so enthusiastically and fantastically at the annual Kingsmead Ensemble Festival in the 1^st week of April. Enormous thanks to our music parents for your ongoing support and encouragement.

Well done to all our singers who performed with gusto and confidence at the Junior Voice Concert in the last week of last term. It takes great courage to sing in front of an audience and our singers did themselves proud!

Diarise the upcoming events (up to before half term). The full Arts & Music term calendar can be found on the App in the Arts & Music folder.

Welcome to our new teachers
This term we welcome two new teachers to the Music department: William Nobela (Cello) and Mathapelo Wesinyane (Saxophone). We wish them both many happy years at Kingsmead.

The Arts & Music department wishes all our Kingsmead families a happy and fulfilling term ahead!

Sport

I hope you had a relaxing and safe break and that you were able to spend some quality time together with your family. It has been fantastic seeing the students return to school and settle quickly into Term 2.

Term 1B brought a lot of excitement as we were able to start the netball season which we have missed for the past 2 years. Students are very excited to be able to participate in the winter sports season again. We started off Term 2 with fixtures against St Teresa’s, a good start to get us back into sport.

We have also started with pre-season hockey during Physical Education and after school. We will be training once a week whilst the netball season is still running, and we will be switching over to 2 sessions per week once the netball season is complete. Please ensure that all players arrive at hockey with shin pads and a gum guard. Kingsmead will provide hockey sticks for players who do not yet have.

Please do encourage your daughters to participate in at least one sport per season. Students do not have to be selected for a team to participate as our sports on offer are open to all students.

Sport news

Netball
Congratulations to all netball players who took part in our first fixture on Friday against St Teresa’s. It was a lovely day of fixtures to get Term 2 underway. Our players all played their hearts out and we are very proud of you.

Netball clinic
Coach Basetsana with her fellow coaches hosted a very successful netball clinic on Saturday 7 May. Both players and coaches learned a lot of new skills and polished up on the basics. Thank you to Coach Basetsana for a very successful clinic.

Upcoming Events (Two weeks ahead)

• Thursday 12 May: Grade 3 Netball vs Roedean/St Mary’s (Teams 1-6): at Roedean
• Friday 13 May: Grade 4 & 5 Netball vs Roedean/St Mary’s (Teams A-D): at Kingsmead
• Friday 13 May: Grade 6 & 7 Netball vs Roedean/St Mary’s (Teams A-D): at Roedean
• Saturday 14 May: Grade 3 & 4 Netball Festival (Teams A & B): Festival will take place at Holy Rosary. All information will be sent via email to parents of selected players.
• Saturday 14 May: Grade 7 Netball Festival (A Team): Festival will take place at St Andrew’s.
  All information will be sent via email to parents of selected festival players.
• Thursday 19 May: Grade 3 Netball vs Assumption/St Katherine’s: Teams to be confirmed): at Assumption
• Friday 20 May: Grade 4 & 5 Netball vs APPS/St Stithian’s (Teams to be confirmed): at APPS.
  ALL PLAYERS TO MEET AT KINGSMEAD BY 13:00 TO TRAVEL ON BUS.
• Friday 20 May: Grade 6 & 7 Netball vs APPS/St Stithian’s (Teams to be confirmed): at St Stithian’s.
  ALL PLAYERS TO MEET AT KINGSMEAD BY 13:00 TO TRAVEL ON BUS.

A few reminders for parents & guardians:

1. Please send any sport 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 the Tuesday for a Thursday fixture and the Wednesday before the Friday fixture.
4. A reminder to refer to the week ahead document and the Term 1B/2A Sports information on the app under the Sport section.

Yours in sport,
Shavaun Hanekom
Head of Junior School Sport

Kingsmead Book Fair 2022

The preparations for the annual Kingsmead Book Fair, which takes place next Saturday, 21 May 2022, are in their final stages. We are thrilled to have this event back in-person. We have a diverse, interesting, and exciting programme on offer this year. If you have not had a chance already, please do visit our website for more information.

The programmes have been published here:
Kingsmead Book Fair Adult Programme
Kingsmead Book Fair Young Adult and Children’s Programmes

Tickets have gone on sale on Webtickets.

There will be a Webtickets Box Office in the Arts & Music Block Reception from 07h30 – 15h00 from Thursday 12 May – Thursday 19 May.

Don’t miss out – book your sessions!

We look forward to seeing you at this signature event on the Kingsmead calendar.