Principal’s Message 17th August 2016

17^th August 2016

Dear Parents 

What a busy week it’s been and it’s only Wednesday!  It started with us welcoming members from our QLTC (Quality, Learning and Teaching Committee) Adopt-a-Cop Ms T Mamarega, Mrs A Gani and Ms M Harding to our ‘It takes a Village to Raise a Child’ IP assembly which stressed the number of people who support and assist the children at RCS ‘in the background’.  This committee has a number of initiatives planned in the next little while to support and guide the children at the school.  Watch this space – we will keep you posted.   A big thank you to all ‘the outsiders’ who attended and who support our school so loyally.

Our Gr 1s walked to the Police Station yesterday and had a great morning.  The teachers were shown the cells (maybe the police noticed something about them that we don’t see) and the experience scared the daylights out of them.  Just to round off their lessons, on People who help us in the Community they will be walking to the Fire Station next week which is also always an enjoyable experience.

At the same time our Gr 3s boarded buses for an ‘adventure’ to visit the Willem Prinsloo Museum. This outing is designed specifically to take folk back in time to an age before technology.  Children learned how things used to be done – by the sweat of the brow and by rolling up sleeves.  Although they enjoyed the experience, most left very pleased they were products of the 21^st century.

Sport

Cricket

Tennis – sadly the team was defeated by Taalfees on Monday.

Good news – Mohamed Gani, Xadrian Hattingh, Kevin Qiu, (U13),Chad Hartley and Thabiso Mahlango (U12) made it through to the next round of cricket trials.  We all join in congratulating them and wishing them success, a level head and a good eye in the next leg of the competition.

Yesterday U/11 cricket beat Middelburg Primary by 56 runs whilst the U/10 lost by 4 wickets.

Hockey

• Congratulations to the U/11 hockey boys who are, thus far, unbeaten this season.  They won against St Thomas 5-0; WCA 2-0 and Klipfontein 1-0.  We are most impressed – well done Mr Tau and team.
• On Monday against Klipfontein the boys achieved varied results.   U/10 won 2-0; U/11 won 2-1; U/12 lost 1-0 and U/13 lost 2-1.

On Saturday our Mini Cricket players (U/7 and U/8) and Mini Hockey girls (U/7, U/8 and U/9) will be competing at the Taalfees Mini Festival.  Unfortunately, I will not be there to cheer them on as my youngest granddaughter is celebrating her first birthday on that morning but I know many of our coaches and parents will be there supporting our teams.

Many parents are phoning about reregistering for their child to return to RCS in 2017.  These calls tell us that your child is NOT giving you our circulars and correspondence and you need to row with him/her about that; but you also need to dig in their bag and look for these things yourself.   We sent reregistration forms home in MAY – so you either need to find the form and return it completed or you need to drop a line to Aunty Penny asking for a new one.

It is with regret that I inform you all that at this stage it looks like we will not be able to have our Big Walk this year because we need to find another venue.  Some weeks ago we made enquiries at the municipality and Witbank Nature Reserve regarding their ‘new’ regulations and charges (if you were at the Big Walk last year you may remember the fuss they caused) and we heard this week that they will not budge and permit schools that are fundraising, cheaper rates.   That means that, in effect, we will be putting most of our efforts into raising funds for them because they insist that we pay the following BEFORE they permit us to use the facilities:

Per child R3,50 = 800 children x 3.5 = R2800; Per Adult (including staff WORKING) R19,90 = 150 parents and 50 staff members = 200 x R3980.  Total R6780 before we’ve spent one cent on prizes, chips and water – sadly making it out of our reach.  This is an appeal to any of you who can get that amount reduced – even if you can get them to let our staff go in to work for nothing – to do so.  The RCS Big Walk goes back many decades and it would be a shame to stop doing it. 

The good news is that we have another, exciting fundraiser planned to take its place.

Yours sincerely 

Mrs L J  Bannatyne

Principal