MESSAGE FROM OUR HEADMASTER

Dear Parents,

2018 has got off to a good start at Highbury and I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the boys back in the classrooms, on the sports fields and enjoying their cultural activities. On a walk around the Weavers’ Nest this week, I enjoyed observing a group of girls who were happily engaged in a fantasy game of mermaids and dressed for the part. I warmly welcome all the new children and their families to Highbury and look forward to walking the special Highbury journey together.

During the holidays I enjoyed reading a number of books and found ‘Boys Adrift’ by Leonard Sax a particularly interesting read. Sax, a practising family physician and psychologist in America, is troubled by the patterns he observes in boys who have come through his practice over the years. He notes a growing trend of boys who are becoming less resilient and less ambitious than they were two decades ago. In the book he discusses the following five points:

● Video Games● Teaching Methods● Prescription Drugs● Environmental Toxins● Devaluation of Masculinity

I was challenged by the book and, while I disagreed with some of Sax’s opinions, I found a number of similarities with his

work and my own experience of educating boys over the last twenty years. I will focus on the section of his book that

discusses the influence of video games on boys. As a young boy I remember spending many hours playing computer

games on a ZX Spectrum; back in the 1980s we dreamed of better graphics and the possibility of hearing something

remotely resembling a human voice through the speakers. Times have certainly changed and the last computer game I

played was ‘Half-Life’ back in about 2002 on my first laptop. What alarmed me in ‘Boys Adrift’ was the growing addiction

to computer games that has become, according to Sax, a concern in many American homes. He states that it is not

uncommon for boys to be playing games in excess of twenty hours per week on their computers.

Sax states, “If you haven’t played video games in the past ten years, you may not understand how addictive some of them

can be, owing to the advances to technology…”

With the increase of technology, the improvement of graphics and sound in the games the boys are playing, they are

presently enjoying a very different experience to mine in the 1980s. Sax warns parents to be aware of the games their

children are playing and that the two most common games played by boys in his research were: ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Grand

Theft Auto’ which both come with an age restriction of 18. Games have increasingly become more graphic in their

violence and have high levels of profanity. In the case of Grand Theft Auto, nudity is also included in the script.

Sax comments, “There should be no expectation of privacy when your son is playing a video game. You should be looking

over his shoulder to make sure that the game meets your criteria.”

I found ‘Boys Adrift’ an interesting read and, having enjoyed playing computer games in my youth, wonder how addicted

I would be to the latest games with their much improved technology. I do believe that the message needs to be about

balance and in no way am I suggesting that our Highbury families turf the Playstation. As families, I encourage you to

know what computer games your boys are playing and to note whether or not they align with your values. I think it is

important to be aware of the age restriction of the games and follow this guidance. Limit the amount of time spent on

computers and encourage a healthy balance of sport, cultural activities and a board game around the dining room table.

Sincerely,

Roland Lacock

Headmaster

A HANDFUL OF HAPPENINGS

Q&A WITH HIGHBURY BOARD OF GOVERNORS

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM: HIGHBURYPREPUse our new hashtag #happyathighbury

LIAISON MUMS’ MEETINGThank you to all of our Liaison Mums of 2018 for your important role in the smooth running of Highbury! Our Liaison Mums spent an informative and fun morning together on 2nd February being briefed on their role and the year ahead.

KEREN WATSON

LEGAL

Q: What year did you join the Highbury Board?A: I joined the Highbury Board in 2016

Q: What do you love most about Highbury?A: Passionate staff and beautiful grounds Q: What has been your most memorable contribution as a Board member?A: I have found it meaningful to work on regularising some matters in the Highbury School Education Trust and Highbury Association because I think these bodies will be integral to the long-term growth of the school.

Q: If you could choose a super-power what would it be? A: The ability to sleep anywhere!

Best wishes to Keren and Simon on the imminent arrival of their daughter - little sister to Henry who started in Weavers’ Nest in Grade 000 this year.Partner

Cox Yeats Attorneys

OPEN DAYSOur Weavers’ Nest and Highbury Open Days on 13th and 14th February were wonderful opportunities for prospective parents to visit our school and experience all that we have to offer. For the first time this year, we had a Grade 7 speaker, Guy Roberts, who delivered a wonderful engaging speech, well done!

EXPLORE OUR AMAZING WORLDHave you seen our magnificent new world map? It is next to the Library, on the way to the Cultural Centre and is a wonderful learning resource. Thank you to Gatehouse - how special to have two Highbury Old Boys installing it for their dad, Graham Harrison.

WELCOME PARTYOur Parents' Association Welcome Party was a stunning event, absolutely packed with parents and staff mingling, chatting and enjoying friendships both old and new. Thank you to Bianca Livesey for another brilliant Highbury party!

STAFF NEWS

Congratulations to Sarah and Rowan Louw on the birth of their daughter, Ellie Grace.

Congratulations to Nqobile and Peter Adigun on the birth of their daughter, Inioluwa Adigun born on the 19th of January.

ISASA VISITLebogang Montjane and Sandy Sagar from ISASA met with Mr Lacock at Highbury. They enjoyed discussing a range of educational matters which was followed by a tour of the campus. Highbury enjoys a strong relationship with ISASA and Mr Lacock appreciated the visit.

HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAYMrs Thwaites celebrated her 60th birthday over the school holidays. Her boys surprised her with a belated birthday celebration in late January and spoiled her with beautiful bunches of flowers and a voucher for a local art supplies shop as painting is her favourite hobby! Happy 60th birthday to Rohan Henderson who also celebrated his birthday over the school holidays.

Congratulations to Sabrina de Charmoy (Locum Grade 4 2017) on the birth of Ariela on the 5th of December.

WELCOME TO OUR NEW TEACHERS 2018Welcome to our new teachers for 2018, from left to right: Cheryl Reddy (Grade 4), Holly Laskey (Locum Grade 2), Trevor Stone (Grade 6), Norma Minter-Brown (Locum Grade 6), Hayley Clark (Grade 0000).

WELCOME TO OUR NEW INTERNS 2018Welcome to our new interns for 2018 who have joined us across the school from Weavers’ Nest to Senior Primary. We wish you a wonderful year of learning and growth.

WEAVERS’ NEST

GRADE R ACTIVITY EVENINGWhat an exciting surprise awaited the Grade R boys when they came to school this morning. Mums and dads outdid themselves creating spectacular tanks, trains, airplanes, rockets and boats using recyclable materials.

GRADE R

Our little fledglings are all in the nest! It is wonderful to see how happily all of our little girls and boys have already settled in at Weavers’ Nest. They are thriving in their happy and secure environment.

THANK YOU!Grateful appreciation to Ryan and Byron of CoroKraft, who donated over 30 colourful plastic bikes for our Weavers’ Nest children to enjoy!

TIE AND TEDDY DAYOur Grade R boys are learning about the letter "t". The boys were surprised and delighted to discover they were being treated to a terrific tractor trek, wearing their ties trailing their teddies behind them.

Grade R is our biggest point of entry into the Highbury family and all of our new boys have settled so smoothly into happy, busy days here full of learning and fun!

FOUNDATION PHASE

ACTIVE LEARNING IN GRADE 1Active learning is how boys learn best... our Grade 1s had a wonderful Afrikaans lesson singing and dancing under the trees on our beautiful estate.

PRAYING FOR CAPE TOWNA beautiful moment when our boys gathered together in prayer for rain to drench Cape Town and fill their dams.

ENGLISH FUN How many adjectives can you come up with to describe the popcorn at your table? Tasting, thinking, writing... our Grade 3s loved a creative english lesson with Mrs Wilson.

CRICKET FEVER!Cricket season is in full swing, kicking off with a Dads and Lads mini-cricket braai on the LEAP fields at the start of term which was a lovely social occasion for the Dads to find out what to expect from the season ahead. On Friday 2nd February, our Grade 2s enjoyed their opportunity to play in their first Cricket match of the year!

EXTRA-CURRICULAROur Grade R-3 boys were delighted to meet Sharkie and Dolphi from Garvz Sports Academy at the start of the year. The boys had an absolute blast during the demo Judo session too.

FLIP FLOP FRIDAYOur Grade 1 boys celebrated learning the letter 'f' sound with a Flip Flop Friday! The boys were all surprised with foam on their desks for writing and drawing all things 'f'. What a fabulous,fantastic foamy fun Friday it was!

GRADE 1 - LEARNING ‘N’The Grade Ones hammered home the ‘n’ sound by pretending to be Noisy Naughty Nick. They nipped away to hammer nails and no-one even noticed.

SENIOR PRIMARY

ORGANIZING OUR ORGANSOur new Grade 4 teacher, Mrs Reddy, had the boys thoroughly engaged in boy-friendly learning... they had to cut out organs, colour them in and stick them in the right places of the life-size boy!

BRINGING HISTORY TO LIFEGrade 4s are learning about the history of Highbury Preparatory School. They had to be historians and investigators to find the answers to the clues that they were given. A real life experience walking through the history of our beautiful school. Lots of learning happened!

AUTHOR LETTER EXCITEMENTLast year, the Grade 4 boys sent letters to authors around the world. Raine Scoular from Grade 5R was delighted to receive a reply with an autographed book!

SPIRIT OF ADVENTUREOur Grade 7s had the opportunity to practise the basics of leadership and build some wonderful team spirit as they start their final year at Highbury. Facilitated by the Spirit of Adventure team, the boys were involved in fun and challenging tasks on our Highbury estate.

GRADE 7 NUTS AND BOLTS SCULPTURESThe Grade 7 boys have been creating beautiful sculptures out of scraps of metal and nuts and bolts this term. Pop in to the Library Foyer to see their creations!

OUTREACH

VALENTINES’ DAY DRESS UP FOR CHOCOur children of Weavers’ Nest and Highbury supported CHOC by dressing up in red and white for Valentines Day and brought a donation to support children with cancer. Through the generous support of our Highbury families we were able to make a substantial donation to this worthy cause.

TWINNING WITH INCHANGA PRIMARY SCHOOL: READING PROGRAMME ‘NEEMA’Neema was started by the Baptist Church in Kloof and is a literacy outreach programme to improve the standards of reading in disadvantaged schools. Neema is a Swahili word that means ‘Grace’. Teams of volunteers work in seven schools in the Outer West area and they aim to make a positive impact on our education. The base of the programme is phonics, with some sight words added. The emphasis is on the vowel sounds and it is a systematically structured programme. There are 40 different organizations around the country working with over 3000 children using this programme.

From the start of 2018, we have created a Highbury team to implement the Neema programme with Inchanga Primary. We have six volunteers of which three are ex-Highbury teachers. Our team will be going every Friday morning for one hour to Inchanga Primary to implement the programme with their Grade 1s of 2018. It is a four-year programme, with the intention that from 2019 the Inchanga Grade 1 teachers are able to run the programme themselves, and our volunteer team will move to Grade 2. Highbury is responsible for all the printing of the teaching materials each term. If there are any parents who would like to get involved, please contact des@hps.co.za

Stewart Falconer, a Grade Five Highbury pupil, has initiated this school shoes and takkies outreach endeavour. Stewart will be placing two collection bins in the FP section and two collection bins in the SP section. Highbury pupils will be encouraged to donate their unwanted/outgrown school shoes and takkies to the Inchanga Primary pupils. They need to be black lace-up shoes (no sandals) and boys can place them in the branded brown bins around the school. We are looking for all sizes, suitable for boys from Grade R to Grade 7.

CULTURE AND ACHIEVEMENTS

ROYAL SCHOOL OF MUSIC PIANO EXAMCongratulations to the following boys who passed their Royal Schools of Music piano exams! Tristan Glenny GD 1 Pass, Matthew Lamplough GD 1 Distinction, Nicholas Railston-Brown GD 1 Distinction, Riley Fitzsimons GD 1 Pass,Joshua Paton GD 2 Pass, Dale Jackson GD 1 Merit, Thomas Mckenzie GD 2 Pass.

This is an international exam and we are very proud of these boys as the pass mark is 66% - their hours of practise have paid off. Due to his outstanding achievement in this exam, Nicholas Railston-Brown has been invited to play at the South African Society of Music Teachers Achievers Concert in March. Well done, Nicholas!

NEW DRUMS FOR HIGHBURYWe are delighted to announce that Highbury has bought a selection of new drums which our boys will now start learning under Mark Whittacker. We have 8 new box drums which are played while sitting on them and with snares inside that make them versatile in sound and really compact and practical to move around. This new style of drumming has been growing in popularity with bands locally and abroad and we are so excited that our Highbury boys will now have the opportunity to learn to play them.

OPEN DAY MUSICAL PERFORMANCESOur boys worked hard to have a wonderful performance ready for Open Day, having only five weeks of school in which to get ready! The orchestra played 5 pieces, interspersed with solo performances from Jonathan Divall, Luca Borrageiro and Nicholas Railston-Brown. Our Djembe drummers wowed all the visitors with two powerful pieces to end off our Open Day. Well done boys on a beautiful performance that made us very proud!

TRINITY COLLEGE EXAMCongratulations to the following boys who passed their Trinity Music Theory Exam:Mayaskar Nail GD 1, Thierry Waters GD 1 Merit, Stephen Kruger GD 2 Pass, Kyle Berry Gr 2 Merit, Sandiso Hlongwa GD 3 Pass and Alex Nortje GD 1 Distinction.

ROCK SCHOOL DRUM KIT EXAMCongratulations to the following boys who passed their Rock School Drum Kit Exam:Rory MacEwan GD 1 Merit, Thomas Hulse GD 1 Merit, Kyle Berry GD 4 Pass, Kunashe Kamwendo GD 4 Merit, Luke Hepker GD 4 Merit.

SPORT AND ACHIEVEMENTSSENIOR PRIMARY INTER-HOUSE GALAA cool evening, warm water and hot competition! The SP Inter house gala was a closely fought affair with a number of records being broken. Boys and their Houses vied for top spot, cheered on by their enthusiastic supporters on both sides of the pool. Congratulations to Robinson’s as they were crowned champions for the second year in a row. Luca Sandri broke four Highbury U11 swimming records: 100m Individual Medley in 1:16:59, the 25m Butterfly in 15:50, the 50m Backstroke in 35:40 and the 50m Freestyle in 31:00. Highbury’s previous 50m Freestyle record was 31:54, set by Matthew Gibbs in 1986 – more than 30 years ago. Gibbs went on to represent South Africa in Surf Lifesaving… we are all excited to see what the future holds for Luca!

WESTVILLE A CHAMPIONSHIP GALAOur U13 swimming team went to the Westville A Championship Gala in early February. There were seven primary schools represented. Highbury came joint third with Sarnia Primary.

SPORT AND ACHIEVEMENTS

CONGRATULATIONS TO HIGHBURY OLD BOY, LUNGI NGIDIExcitement reached an all-time high when our 1st XI cricket team had the opportunity to visit Kingsmead and watch the Proteas practice, and then meet Lungi Ngidi and Protea batting coach and Highbury Old Boy, Dale Benkenstein. Together Lungi and Dale autographed a cricket shirt for Highbury, which will be displayed with pride in our Mike Procter Cricket Pavilion.

WESTVILLE BOYS’ HIGH T20 CRICKET TOURNAMENT (1st XI)On Friday 9th and Sunday 11th February, the Highbury 1st XI cricket team participated in the Westville Boys High School 20/20 cricket tournament. After a few grueling days, the team finished unbeaten and were crowned as winners this year. Ivan Lockem, was named the Batsman of the Tournament, while Ross Coetzee won All Rounder of the Tournament. 5 players were also named in the Team of the Tournament. Well done to the whole team!

MIDMARCongratulations to all our Midmar swimmers!

1st XI CRICKET - PREP SCHOOLS’ CRICKET FESTIVALOur 1st XI Cricket team are in Cape Town for the Prep Schools’ Cricket Festival at WPPS - we wish them well! Old Boy, Ross Minter-Brown, wished them well at their send-off. He was part of the only team who won all three matches during their tour in the history of the Prep Schools’ Cricket Festival.

VALENTINE’S DAY GALAOur Grade 2s and 3s had a wonderful afternoon Inter-school Gala hosted by Highbury, competing against seven other schools. “Roses are red, Violets are blue, Excited to swim in the lane next to you!”

SPORT AND ACHIEVEMENTS

KARATELuke Hart won the Sincerity Award at his karate prize giving and won gold and bronze medals at his last JKA Tournament.

GOLFCongratulations to Asher Hollister who came 1st and 2nd in two SA KIDS Golf tournaments which were held at Cotswolds Down and Kloof Country Club recently.

MOTOCROSSCongratulations to Jack Pullen who won all 3 races in Round 1 of the 50cc pro class KZN Regional Motocross Championship. There are 5 more rounds this year, all the best for the next races, Jack!

SWIMMINGOur Highbury boys made us proud at the recent KZN Premier Championships. Joshua Paton (far left) was awarded three medals for U12 Backstroke, including a Gold medal for 50m. Luca Sandri (middle left) came 2nd in the Province in three events and 3rd in two events. Lukas Smithers (middle right) won two gold medals and one bronze and qualified for the SA Junior Nationals. Thomas Godwin (far right) won four medals: one gold, two silver and one bronze and qualified for KZN Level 3 Champs.

GOLFGuy Harcourt (left) and Reece Brown (right) came 1st and 2nd respectively in the recent Cotswold Downs Golf tournament. Guy also came 1st in the KZN Interschools Golf and 2nd in the SA Kids Golf tournaments at the start of this year.

TENNISCongratulations to Caleb Fyvie who has been selected for the Ethekweni District Tennis Team and will be playing in KZN Trials at the end of February. He also was runner up in the U14 Boys Singles for the KZN Mini Masters 1 at Westridge.

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