Exclusive Books Kids’ Lit Quiz

On Monday 19th February, eight pupils together with Mrs Bause and I attended The Exclusive Books Kids’ Lit Quiz held at St George’s Prep School in Port Elizabeth. Team one (Ella Boonzaier, Emily Cownie, Eva Hurley and Daniel May) were placed seventh and team two (Samara Howell, James Beckley, Joshua Richardson and Layla Reynolds) ended in nineteenth place out of twenty teams from twelve schools in the Eastern Cape. This is the third year in a row that a SFC team was placed in the top ten.

Talent Show

On Friday 16th March, we held a talent show for Grade 00 to Grade 3 followed by a senior primary talent show. There were a range of categories from art, photography, instrumental, singing solos/ duets, drama, comedy, sport skills and dance. Abig thanks to Mrs Natasha Brown for all her organization and Mrs Shona Marais had the unenviable task of deciding the various winners. 

Greenwood Bay College (Plettenberg Bay) Sports Tour

The sports tour to GBC took place on Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th February. The first XI cricket team convincingly beat GBC by 77 runs. The senior girls played a number of volleyball games on their beach sand court and won by five sets to nil.

The next day, a well organized Grades 4 to 7 gala took place in a ten lane pool which GBC won by 227 points to 222. Both schools emerged from the weekend with great credit in terms of manners and sportsmanship.

Surfing

Hannah Praetorius (Girls Under 14) and Rory Dace (Boys Under 10) represented Nelson Mandela Bay Surfing (Eastern Province) at the 2018 Surfing South Africa and Sea Harvest SA Grom Games which was held from 21st to 25th March at Pollock Beach, Port Elizabeth.

Rory was placed first in his age group and thus won the Under 10 trophy. He was also awarded a medal for ‘future stars’ which are awarded to the ‘stand out’ surfers from the event and a silver medal in the tag team event. Hannah was placed fourth in her age group.

U13A Girls Water Polo

At the beginning of the term, Haydn Holmes came to speak to me about the possibility of our girls playing water polo matches. I gave him our full support as this was something I desperately wanted to see happen at Woodridge. Other than swimming, girls have little option in the summer as boys have cricket as an extra. Little did I know what the girls would achieve in such a short space of time. Our SFC Under 13A girls’ water polo team won their inaugural match against Collegiate Junior U13B team 4-1 on Tuesday 13 February. This was followed up with an astounding 8-6 victory over Pearson High School U14B team the following Tuesday. We then lost 0-7 to a very accomplished, battle hardened St George’s Prep U13A team but this does not detract from a marvellous season for our girls and a feather in the cap of Haydn Holmes, their coach.

Cricket

The first XI cricket team have enjoyed a most successful 2018 thus far. The team has recorded victories over Stulting by 71 runs, GBC by 77 runs, Sea Vista by 98 runs and Victory Christian School by 8 runs in a super over after a tied match. Last week, our Under 11 team beat Stulting by 18 runs.

A number of our boys participated in Under 10 to Under13 Kouga (KCPC) cricket trials and the following were selected: James Beckley and Alexander Moolman (Under 13); Gian Moolman and Connor von der Marwitz (Under 11) as well as Jac Duval, Rylan Jarvis, Nicholas Niven, Christopher Cownie and Troy Kennedy (Under 10). Mr Ralton Fortuin is the coach for the Under 13 team.

The Grade 2 and 3 boys have played in three cricket festivals namely Victory Christian School, Jeffrey’s Bay Primary and the forty team (25 schools) festival at Mount Pleasant Primary School in Port Elizabeth. Team one has won four of their five games including all three in PE and team two won three out of five.

Independent Schools Gala

However, the true acid test for swimmers happened on Tuesday 20 February when SFC was invited for the first time to swim in the Independent Schools Gala hosted by Woodridge Prep. We were only given two weeks’ notice and the invite only happened due to Haydn Holmes and my association with Woodridge. Despite not having time for an inter house gala beforehand and not being aware of the 50 metre races in Under 11,12 and Open age groups until the morning of the gala, our swimmers performed magnificently.

There were 54 races in all, 34 individual and 20 relays. St George’s Prep from Port Elizabeth won twenty and obtained 43 top three places. DSG/ St Andrew’s Prep won fourteen/ 51 top three, Woodridge Prep won ten/ 27 top three, SFC won eight/ also 27 top three and Kingswood Prep won two and 14 top three places. The argument to leave us out next year will be difficult to justify. I am especially pleased when one considers that all these schools have nearly three times more pupils than our school.

Today marked the swimming of the fun ‘Splash in Gala’ at Liquid Lines for Grade 0 to 2 pupils as well as the Inter House Gala for the rest of the school. Next week Tuesday is our local inter schools gala at Nico Malan High School where we will attempt to retain our trophy.

Stulting Primary Inter Schools Gala

Our swimmers have done it again! The Bayview Boating Floating Inter Schools trophy has been retained comprehensively for the fourth consecutive year. We competed against Jeffrey’s Bay Primary, Stulting Primary and Victory Christian School on Tuesday 20th March. VCS scored 61 points, Jeffrey’s Bay 86, Stulting 92 and SFC 194 points.  We managed to win 19 gold, 25 silver and 13 bronze medals out of the 36 races breaking eleven records in the process.

Chess

Our SFC chess players have enjoyed an exciting first term.  On 2 March, we beat Stulting Primary School by 5 and a half games to four and a half. Then, on Saturday 10 March, we participated in a chess tournament at Stulting on Saturday.  Nathan Hendricks placed third (bronze medal) in the Under 14 section and Vaclav Horak third (bronze medal) in the Under 10 section. On 22 March, we our seniors lost by two and a half games to seven and a half and our junior primary pupils lost by two and a half games to three and a half to Pharos Primary School in Jeffrey’s Bay.

News from the Nursery School

Another term is done and dusted and what a great term it was! All the children at the nursery school have settled so well and it is great to see such happy little ‘Bumble Bees’ and ‘Ladybirds’ every day.

Teacher Chané has done a fabulous job of taking over the Bumble Bee class. Well done, Chané, it is a pleasure to work alongside you. We would like to welcome Aleksandr Ofsowitz to the Bumble Bee class and MP van Staden to the Ladybird class. We wish all the very best to Joshua Millar and his family with your next chapter in your lives.  It has been great to meet you all and get to know little Josh this term. He will be missed and we hope to see you all again sometime soon.

The new gate system has to be mentioned. As far as the staff is concerned, the gate has made a huge difference in the settling in of all the children both new and old.  Please note that the pickup time for the children is 12h00 and 12h45 to 13h00. If anyone is unhappy in any way with this, please do not hesitate to chat to me.

Have a wonderful holiday and see you all next term on Wednesday 2nd May.

Teacher Jane

News from the Parents' Association

Wow! What a term! It certainly has been action packed.

On a fundraising front, we started off with a bang, raising R20 000 from the Valentine’s raffle.  From the recent Family Fun Day, we have raised approximately R25 000. An enormous thank you to our sponsors, parents, teachers, support staff and pupils for making Family Fun Day so successful and so much fun!

We have a couple of parents with a keen interest in our Eco Schools projects and we would like to get working on something new that the children can all be involved in. If you would like to be a part of this, please pop me a message or call on 082 292 5909. We would like to put together a proposal and get a team working on it.

Enjoy your holidays and keep safe

Heather

Chairperson, PA