Dear Cedar House Families
Welcome to 2010: a momentous year in the history of our country and, I assure you, a year during which your children will experience a Cedar House education of joyfulness, academic rigour, energy and connections.
We bring up, love and educate adolescents in a deeply divided and complicated world. Despite this and truthfully very much in the face of this, the Staff and my mission, this year, is to offer an education that challenges hopelessness and that equips young people to develop voices that are able to confront the futures they might face.
We begin 2010 with an exceptional Staff and I know that what they will be offering and sharing with your children will be something enduringly memorable. As introduced in our last newsletter, we warmly welcome our new Staff members and look forward to all that they will contribute towards the strengthening of our community:
- Hazel Gubb (Head of Life Orientation, ex-Reddam Constantia)
- JP le Roux (Senior Teacher, Maths Department)
- Tamsyn Lancaster (Visual Art, Design and English teacher)
- Maré de Wet (Life and Physical Sciences teacher)
- Cathy Taffinder (Principal’s PA, Admissions Secretary and Office Manager)
NEW STUDENTS
We wish all of our new students everything of the best as they begin their experience at Cedar House. Our wish is that the magic of our community becomes an indelible part of their lives.
Grade 8
Ezio Ambrosi (ex-Bay Primary)
Claire Anderson (ex-Bay Primary)
Daniel Boraine (ex-Grove Primary)
Sam Chambers (ex-Auburn House)
Benjamin Claassen (ex-Ambleside School of Hout Bay)
Sarah Cohen (ex-ProEd)
Jack Davies (ex-Constantia Waldorf)
Damien Davis (ex-Western Province Preparatory School)
Sophie Field (ex-Auburn House)
Brad Fortuin (ex-Michael Oak)
Ted Frazer (ex-Forres)
Liam Harris (ex-Bay Primary)
Aneeb Hendricks (ex-Auburn House)
Samuel Heuermann (ex-Constantia Waldorf)
Seren Hutton (ex-Auburn House)
Juan Khan (ex-ProEd)
Anton Klein (ex-Herzlia)
Joshua Kovarsky (ex-Parkview Senior, Johannesburg)
Hanneke le Roux (ex-St George’s)
Morgan Masego (ex-Bay Primary)
Nathan Matthews (ex-International School of Cape Town)
Inga Ndzakayi (ex-Ellerton Primary)
Dylan Padowitz (ex-Wynberg Boys’ Primary School)
Sian Pressly (ex-Oakhurst)
Joshua Stevens (ex-St George’s)
Giles Stevenson (ex-Bay Primary)
Miguel Tablai (ex-Sunlands)
Rinchen van Rijswijk (ex-Star of the Sea)
Nqobile Vili (ex-Kenridge Primary)
Grade 9
Rouane Brokensha (ex-Michael Oak)
Chelsea Coetzee (ex-Little Blue Star)
Nicolas Fortuin (ex-St Joseph’s)
Candice Heuer (ex-Bergvliet)
India Julyan (ex-Tafelberg)
Manoly Kalligiannis (ex-Bergvliet)
Martina Monti (ex-Instituto Comprensivo Massarosa, Italy)
Joel Steinhagen (ex-International School of Hout Bay)
Grade 10
Daleel Abdullatief (ex-St George’s)
Nella Etkind (ex-St George’s)
Fiona Fievez (ex-Westerford)
Kelly Fischer(ex-Reddam Constantia)
Khaya Jacobs (ex-Little Blue Star)
Noah Kaplan (ex-Huguenot High School)
Julia Laurie (ex-Michael Oak)
Jacob Macfarlane-Jones (ex-Ambleside School of Hout Bay)
Sean Mac Pherson (ex-Michael Oak)
Richard McLean (St John’s College, Johannesburg)
Robyn Morton (ex-Tafelberg)
Zainab Motaleb (ex-St George’s)
Sideeqah Sonday (ex-Rustenburg)
Ashleigh Taffinder (ex-Michael Oak)
Megan Weber (ex-Michael Oak)
Grade 11
Darren Brown (ex-Westerford
Gabriella Casagrande (ex-Bergvliet)
Emma Gilpin (ex-St Cyprians)
Fabian Hasewinkel (ex-Michael Oak)
Olivia Martin (ex-St George’s)
Jessica Mayson (ex-Michael Oak)
Charne October (ex-Michael Oak)
Grade 12
Kristian Phillips (ex-Abbott’s College)
2009 MATRIC RESULTS
We are so proud of our 2009 Grade 12s who achieved excellent results in the 2009 IEB examinations. To have achieved so well in the context of the stringencies of the IEB system is outstanding and we congratulate them.
Some highlights of the results:
- 100% pass rate
- There are four categories of attainment (in the following rank order of merit): a basic National Senior Certificate, access to Higher Certificate study, access to Higher Diploma Study and access to Bachelors Degree study. It is an extraordinary achievement for our Grade 12s that, out of 42 candidates, there were no basic NSC or Certificate students, only 16 Diploma and 26 Bachelors degree students.
- Georgina Selander and Neroli Price were placed in the top 1% of all IEB candidates who wrote English Home Language.
- Georgina Selander (Afr, Eng, Fre, His, LO), Charlotte Marais (Eng, His, LO, VArt, MLit) and Jesse Vos (Mus, Eng, His, LO, Maths) achieved 5 distinctions, Talia Mayson, Michael Davies and Neroli Price each achieved 4 distinctions and Xabiso Vili achieved 3 distinctions. To attain these heights in such a strong pool of candidates is a fantastic achievement.
- 11 students achieved English distinctions
- 8 students achieved As or Bs for Afrikaans
- 8 out of 16 students achieved As or Bs for CAT
- 4 out of 11 students achieved As or Bs for Design
- 5 out of 11 students achieved As or Bs for Geography
- 13 out of 20 students achieved As or Bs for History
- 6 out of 14 students achieved As or Bs for Maths Literacy
- 6 out of 29 students achieved As or Bs for Core Maths
- 5 out of 14 students achieved As, Bs or Cs for Physical Science
TERM 1 2010 EXTRA-MURAL PROGRAMME
We enclose this programme for your interest and urge you to encourage your children to participate. It is a rich and varied programme. We have added Cooking Club and Astronomy club details.
MENTOR SYSTEM
We are committed to offering our students and their families as much support as possible. Our counsellors (Gabby Cloete and Laura de Villiers) are available for any support that may be necessary. Each student has a staff and peer mentor. They should be parents’ first port of call should parents have concerns. Mrs November oversees our staff mentor programme and the Student Leaders (in particular, Luke Moore and Zodwa Mbulawa) oversee the peer mentor programme.
2010 EVENING OF CELEBRATION
We are redesigning this event which is an important, annual celebratory acknowledgement of our school community. It is scheduled to be held on Friday 24 September, the last day of our 3rd Term, from 18h00-20h00, at the Baxter Concert Hall. This day is also Heritage Day; we respectfully request that our families do not make holiday arrangements on this day and that your families begin their holidays on Saturday 25 September; we would appreciate this very much.
PARENTS’ EVENING OF TUESDAY 19 JANUARY
PART 1: A beginning-of-year parents’ forum will be held in Room 6 from 17h00-17h45. I will explain how our forums work, our Deputy Principal, Benita November, will talk through the Grades’ camp programmes (Grade 10s and 11s go on camp next week) and the mentor system, our parents’ representative, Lisa Garson, will address you and our counsellors will share their forum ideas with you. I would also like to give our new front person, Cathy Taffinder, an opportunity to introduce herself to you and to talk through “office systems 2010”!
PART 2: There is a relaxed parents’ welcome function that starts at 18h00 in our garden. There will be musical accompaniment too! You are warmly invited to join us and share in a happy occasion that notes the start of our 2010 year at Cedar House. Delicious snacks are served and a cash bar will be available. All our Staff and our Chairman will introduce themselves. We look forward to welcoming you.
CAMP DATES AND MENTORS
| Grade | Date | Mentors | Venue |
| 8 | 22-24 FEB | H Gubb and T Lancaster | High Africa |
| 9 | 3-5 FEB | C Murray, L de Villiers and K Glover | Oudtshoorn |
| 10 | 25-27 JAN | C Peckham, J le Roux and C Lancaster | High Africa |
| 11 | 27-29 JAN | G Gubb and M de Wet | Rafters |
| 12 | 17-19 FEB | D Rumboll, B November and G Fella | High Africa |
GRADES 8 and 9 MATHS EVENING
This exciting initiative takes place on the evening of Thursday 28 January. Gail Gubb will be in contact with families to set up the details.
GRADE 8 CREATIVE WRITING EXCURSION TO FISH HOEK
This memorable experience happens on the morning of Friday 29 January. Debbie Rumboll will be in contact with families to set up the details.
GRADE 8 LIFE ORIENTATION EXCURSION
Hazel Gubb will be arranging this event which promises to kick off the Life Orientation programme with a bang! It will happen on Monday 1 February.
EXTRA-MURALS’ ASSEMBLY SIGN –UP
All students will sign up for this Term’s extra-murals during the Tuesday 2 February assembly.
VERTICAL TEACHING PROJECT
It gives me great pleasure to announce the start of this project. It will involve all Grade 9, 10 and 11 students. Every Friday, mixed-age groups (consisting of between 8-10 students) will be taught a module for which they will sign up tomorrow. There will be an assessment which parents will receive at the end of the 6 months of the module. Each student will experience two modules a year. This is a very exciting initiative that we think our students will benefit from in terms of sharpened thinking skills, engagement and learning in mixed-age groups with a range of ideas. What follows is a list of all the modules for which students can sign up:
Staff member’s name: Frank Rumboll
Title of project: Reading and considering Shakespeare’s Othello
Description of project: An interactive, real world study of Shakespeare’s great tragedy, Othello. Students will be involved in themes of jealousy, lust, racial politics and soap-opera style intrigue! Watch how a 17th century text meets 2010. Who would be interested? Anyone who is committed to exploration, ideas and reading
Staff member’s name: Benita November
Title of project: The Apprentice
Description of project: Teams will each be given starting capital of R200. The aim is for the team to, by the end of 6 months, have used their entrepreneurial skills to put this money to the best possible use. They will be tasked with various challenges. The winner is the team with the most money in the end.
Who would be interested? Anyone who is up for a challenge, who can strategise and apply their business savvy.
Staff member’s name: Biddy Glenday
Title of project: Woodstock 69
Description of project: In 1969 a music festival held on a farm southwest of Woodstock, New York, became an event described as “one of the greatest and most pivotal moments in popular music history” This project looks at the event, the music and the context of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair
Who would be interested? Hippies, historians and rock music lovers
Staff member’s name: Brian Johnson
Title of project: Documentary Photography
Description of project: A study of old and recent photographs which record events and situations and the production of two sets of photographs: a place and an event
Who would be interested? A person with a basic digital camera, an eye and a brain
Staff member’s name: Brian Jacoby
Title of project: Backbone of the Night
Description of project: The San call the Milky Way the “Backbone of the Night”. There is a cosmic connection between Human Evolution and the Universe Story. We will examine the story of the universe from the Big Bang to the origin of Humankind
Who would be interested? Someone who is questioning – and amazed by the wonder of the universe
Staff member’s name: Christine Peckham
Title of project: Art and Play – a return to childhood
Description of project: a course which attempts to bypass the left brain and move into a playful, purely intuitive right brain activity. Assessment will be aimed at participation and response to own creativity and the works of other artists working this way.
Who would be interested? Those who are able to participate in seemingly illogical activity
Staff member’s name: Corrine Lancaster
Title of project: The Museum of Mini assortment (MoMa)
Description of project: We will study the history and practice of encapsulating items from widely different bunches to precise archives of things. We will generate, market and curate our own exhibitions of collections of whatever our collective creative spirit guides us to
Who would be interested? A student excited by the power of collections, who has an interest in creative pursuits, a compulsion to categorise and an aptitude for the bizarre
Staff member’s name: Gabby Cloete
Title of project: Peer Counselling Skills
Description of project: The course will take you through the basic counselling skills used and will equip you to help others in a non-judgemental and empathetic manner. You will learn a lot about yourself too!!
Who would be interested? Anyone interested in helping others, who has compassion and those interested in counselling or psychology as a profession
Staff member’s name: Gillian Fella
Title of project: adVANTAGE
Description of project: A broad outline on what the world of advertising and marketing entails – a beginner’s course for those looking to gain practical skills and study the theoretical background of a dynamic industry.
Who would be interested? Those students considering advertising/marketing as a career or those who enjoy cutting edge (and classic!) advertising.
Staff member’s name: Kari Court
Title of project: Issues of faith - Christianity
Description of project: A look at Christianity in a fairly academic way. We will study some stories of the Bible to raise questions for debate. We will have guest speakers, watch some movies, ask questions that do not have easy answers
Who would be interested? Anyone interested in spiritual questions. Not necessarily Christians
Staff member’s name: Lizelle MacLachlan
Title of project: “Normal” – or not?
Description of project: An academic study of abnormal psychology, looking at anything from schizophrenia to obsessive-compulsive disorder to multiple personality disorder – and how these are portrayed in film Who would be interested? Anyone interested in the field of human behaviour and exploring the human mind.
Staff member’s name: Gail Gubb
Title of project: Be the change you want to see
Description of project: Students will learn about and engage with social and environmental movements that have or strive to bring about change. They will become familiar with parliament and its process. They will conduct their own “change” campaign.
Who would be interested? A passionate idealist who is committed to a just and equitable world.
Staff member’s name: Debbie Rumboll
Title of project: Reading and thinking through the novels of Ian McEwan
Description of project: We will read 8 of Ian McEwan’s novels and talk through what lies behind the work of a novelist some regard as the world’s greatest contemporary author. Who would be interested? Serious readers and serious thinkers. (For the daring….. if you’re a non-reader and even a non-thinker, this might ignite something.)
Staff member’s name: JP le Roux
Title of project: Cryptography
Description of project: The study of secret codes is called cryptography. Writing messages in code plays an important role in history and technology. We will look at the history and art of cryptography, the working of the enigma-machine and other methods used in code breaking.
Who would be interested? Students who are intrigued by secret codes, who want to explore encryption and decryption used in past and present technology
Staff member’s name: Kim Glover
Title of project: Amazing Race meets Ripley’s
Description of project: We will be exploring weird and wonderful places around the world, to discover something new about each, eg. an interesting dish (we’ll make and eat it!) a crazy custom, an amazing landform or the history behind the name. Who would be interested? A student who is curious about our world and has a love of adventure.
Staff member’s name: Tamsyn Lancaster
Title of project: From Silent to Violent: A History of Film
Description of project: A historical, theoretical and critical overview of the history of film – from the silent films of German Expressionism – to the specific contemporary directorial and cinematic styles of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers. Who would be interested? The student with an interest in film who has the desire to critically and actively engage with its history and theory. (You may be required to surrender some breaks or time after school to watch a film).
CALENDAR DATE CHANGE
The Grade 11 Western Cape Schools Festival at Artscape happens on 16 and 17 March, not 16 and 17 February.
REPORTING PROCESSES THIS YEAR
Friday 19 February
All new students (Grades 8-12) will receive brief comments on their teachers’ perceptions of their progress
End Term 1 Comments from all students’ teachers
End Term 2 Mid-year marks and comments from all teachers
End Term 3 Comments from all students’ teachers that focus on challenges for students as they face their final term; Grade 12s receive full prelim reports
End Term 4 End-of-year marks and comments from all teachers
KLINGENSTEIN FELLOWSHIP
On Wednesday, I leave to take up my Klingenstein Fellowship award at Columbia University, New York. I am away for 3 weeks and am very excited about all that I will learning, hearing and researching (the focus will be on independent education, multi-age, across-Grade teaching, social action and leadership). The next newsletter (Friday 19 February) will detail that which I think you might enjoy reading.
I have full confidence in Benita November who will be acting Principal in my absence.
My sincere thanks to our Trust and to you for making this opportunity possible by permitting me to be away from Cedar House for the next few weeks. I shall miss our community but feel confident that my experience at Columbia will enrich our School’s future directions substantially.
SOME READINGS…
I have enclosed some readings from our beginning-of-year Staff meeting. Enjoy! The one is a quote and one is a poem that might help one make some sense of working alongside adolescents.
From Ann Schuster’s Foolish Delusions
Stories move in circles
They don’t move in straight lines.
So it helps if you listen in circles.
There are stories inside stories
and stories between stories,
and finding your way through them
is as easy and as hard
as finding your way home.
And part of the finding is
The getting lost. And when you are lost,
you start to look around
and to listen.
- Corey Fischer, Albert Greenberg and Naomi Newman,
A Travelling Jewish Theatre, Coming from a Great Distance
You go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment’s notice, a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage and mental soberness. And above all you go to a great school for Self-knowledge.
I wish our Staff, Students and all of our families a fantastic first Term. Cedar House is absolutely committed to connecting you with as much value and goodness as possible.
Yours sincerely
FRANK RUMBOLL
Principal