Newsletter #1 2020 17 January 2020 Dear Parents, I am pleased to report that 2020 at Camps Bay High School is off to a smooth start. Pupils have been allocated to classes, text books have been issued and lessons have started. The academic year is underway. Each year I like to have a focus and at our first Assembly I shared our 2020 focus with the pupils. This is based on a set of values that were chosen by the staff at our Strategic Planning Meeting last year. So our covering statement is that, "In 2020 we are going to do the right thing for the people we are with, in a way that is respectful". To achieve this, we will focus on the following values: Term 1: Integrity and Honesty Term 2: Loving and Caring Terms 3 and 4: Empathy and Responsibility We are not losing any of our existing values like Respect, we are simply going to grow these values this year. Part of this will be discussions in the morning in Tutor Classes, on what these values look like for us. For instance, when we talk about a value of "love" we are not looking at romantic love. From the media, our pupils are fed this narrow definition of love, our discussions will hopefully allow a much broader understanding of this value. This week I have been in the fortunate position to be invited to attend the DBE's Lekgotla in Johannesburg. I feel quite privileged as only three chief directors are here from the Western Cape. The purpose of this conference is to focus on the Future of Education. We have had some themes that we can pick up at school. These are the research into how the brain learns a language and Mathematics. How technology aids and hinders learning, what a "school that works" looks like and the need to build entrepreneurship into our curriculum. I will give a more comprehensive report when the conference is over. A highlight was an address yesterday morning by our President, Cyril Ramaphosa. He spoke well, and was really encouraging about the role that education plays in nation building. Our Matric results are a measure of how we are doing as a school. See the analysis of our 2019 Matric results overleaf. Yours sincerely, David de Korte PRINCIPAL SCHOOL FEES A reminder that a discount of R1500 to your annual school fees will apply - if you settle the full amount of R35 500 by 31 January 2020. Thereafter the 2020 fees of R37 500 will apply. INTOUCH PARENT PORTAL Camps Bay High School makes use of the InTouch Parent Portal for communications. If you are a new parent to the school, you will need to register for the Camps Bay High School InTouch Parent Portal. We also have quite a few existing parents who have not yet registered, so please use this opportunity to register now! The InTouch Parent Portal is a website that parents can use to see information about their children at Camps Bay High School and is a convenient way to help you keep up to date with School announcements Upcoming events Calendar information Student & family contact information Correspondence sent to the family Attendance records Student behaviour Copies of term reports To get started: Go to http://cbhs.intouch.zone/public/login Register using the e-mail address where you currently receive Camps Bay High School newsletters. Once you have registered, your Username = your E-mail Address. If you need additional help, go to http://help.intouch.zone The InTouch portal has a help site which contains FAQs that will help you to register and use the site. DOMINIC HOLLING SAILING TO RIO Dominic Holling, in Grade 10 this year is a member of the JML Rotary Scout crew which is currently about half way across the Atlantic Ocean, on route to Rio in the 2020 Cape2Rio Yacht Race. At 15 years old, Dominic is the youngest crew member on board JML Rotary Scout, with the average age of the sailors on this yacht being only 17 years of age. They were part of the first fleet which set sail from Cape Town harbour on 4 January 2020, and are doing a fantastic job keeping up with the more experienced sailors in the fleet. They are represented by the purple yacht in the image on the following page. Dominic has been writing journal of his experiences at sea. Here is his latest entry: Day 9, 10, 11 (11, 12, 13/01/2020) By Dominic Holling The first 7 days of our trip went by incredibly fast and it did not seem like we had been sailing across the Atlantic for a week. Although it felt short, each day was very different and we were all adjusting to life on board. Now it seems that we have reached a different stage of the trip. Daily routines have started to kick in and we have all adjusted to our shifts. Sleeping has become the favourite pastime alongside having silly conversations. Matthew has taken a particular liking to this with his clever and very entertaining wit and being really relaxed has also taken to really good shut-eye which comes across as envious hibernation aboard the boat. Space on the boat is very limited and taking long walks has become a distant memory. Even with this restricted space we have started our very own workout program. Led by the glorious muscles of Ewan and Matthew, our foredeck has been turned into our very own gym. You can always count on someone to be practicing the art of exercise in the mornings. It usually starts off with a little stretching yoga session by Ewan followed by other workouts. Doing push ups or sit ups on a boat is a whole new experience - while the boat goes up and down the waves create very interesting anti-gravity effects and then intense gravity splits, making the workouts all that much harder. Most of us have gotten stuck into books to occupy ourselves, but only the intellectuals such as Mika and Ewan have finished them cover-to-cover. Ewan also spends his time feeling like a very accomplished teacher, teaching Josh and myself maths and some other subjects. On that note, I would like to send a wish to all the poor children starting school on the 15th. We all wish you luck but find it hard to empathise with your school-starting dilemmas as we sail here across the Atlantic in a wide open ocean. The most loved method of showering has been trailing behind the boat when our speed allows it. It’s quite a unique feeling and is probably one of the coolest showering methods I have tried. One of the most hated chores on the boat is the cleaning of the heads (the toilet). When we realised that the sweet box was close to being depleted, it was decided that it was high time that we implemented a system to deal with the “gimbas” of the boat. So we have come up with a method of combining this problem with the problem of greedy people - basically all of us! At lunch time we have a trial for the person accused of eating too much. If found guilty by the jury, they are sentenced to heads cleaning duty. Since I was found guilty of such a crime everyone had been very self-concerned of their consumption, always asking the others multiple times before having seconds or having a snack. When Max was accused, Nick and Daniel successfully managed to negotiate a settlement agreement on his behalf. Meals have been very good. Our fresh bread on the boat keeps improving every day as we learn new and improved methods. After having eaten our fresh tuna that we had caught for 4 days in a row at both supper and lunch we have finally finished our tuna stock. Now everyone is enjoying the break from fish for a while before we re-cast our lines. But what’s the need for lines if the fish come to us? This has been the case over the past days as we have entered the seas of flying fish and some often come and land on the boat. As the days are getting hotter we have recently taken out our biminy shade cloth to have some shade in the cockpit. It also adds to a more home-like or caravan feel to the boat. We have had some other major accomplishments in the past few days. Our sailing has been very good and the wind and swell has favoured us. With our constant sail changes and tactics, we have been able to achieve a regular 6-7 knots daily average. Earlier, our passage record got broken, when Josh was surfing down a big swell and got an amazing 13.1 knots. He was overly excited and was very proud with the amazing record. On day 9 we hit 1000 nautical miles! We are also building up with excitement as we approach the Greenwich Meridian. KIDIMBU JUNIOR PART OF WINNING WESTERN CAPE BASKETBALL TEAM Huge congratulations to Camps Bay High School Matric Pupil, Kidimbu Junior, and the rest of Western Cape U18 Basketball Team who are the South African National Champions! Kidimbu and the rest of his team mates travelled to Pretoria in December to participate in the inter-provincial SA National Basketball Championships. The team from the Western Cape beat North West to go through to the semi-finals to face Gauteng, whom they also beat.