Volume 15 ∞ Issue 17 ∞ 16 November 2012

W e have reached the stage of the year amidst its hustle and

bustle of exams, nativity play, re-ports, and other events, to take stock by looking back and assessing the good and the not so good. We start-ed the year with a new member of staff, Mrs Lindy French. She came to us from the Public Library Services and her kindness, enthusiasm, atten-tion to detail, as well as her care for our young and not so young borrow-ers is such an asset.

P ossibly the most perplex-ing and frustrating issue for the Staff has been the

enormous number of books that are returned late, thus incurring a fine. We try to inculcate an ethos of con-sideration for other readers. It makes financial good sense to purchase only two or three copies of bestsell-ers, so the turnaround needs to be as quick as possible. It’s so frustrat-ing to be desperate to read some-thing like The Hunger Games, only to find someone keeps it out for 5 weeks or more. Fines for overdue books are charged at R1.00 per book per day late with a 2 day grace peri-od. Such fines are charged to par-ents’ accounts as we no longer ac-cept cash.

T he Library has also been busy with Research Skills classes in both the Junior

and Senior sections. The aim of these lessons is to encourage our students to become holistic re-searchers. In a recent article enti-tled “Why ‘Googling it’ is not enough”, the author, Annie Paul, raises the question as to whether the Internet has changed the way stu-dents conduct research. A survey of more than 2000 middle and high school teachers has returned a re-sounding, “Yes, and not always for the better.” ‘Research’ for today’s students usually means ‘Googling’, with the result that research has moved from being a relatively slow process of intellectual curiosity and discovery to a fast-paced, short-term exercise aimed at locating just enough information to complete an assignment” (Paul, 2012). In the words of Barry Ronge from a 2007 Sunday Times Magazine article, stu-dents are receiving “the sound bite instead of the whole speech and the headline instead of the whole story”.

Our annual stocktake will be upon us shortly and we request that everyone return their Library books before 21 November. We hope you have had a chance to take advantage of our R5 a book sale and have stocked up with good reads. Finally, The Library Staff would like to take this opportunity to wish our users a blessed Christmas with safe journeys and great piles of riveting reads in your stocking. Paul, Annie Murphy. 2012. Why ‘Googling it’ is not enough. [Online]. http://blogs.koed.org/mindshift/2012/11/why-googling-it-is-not-enough/ [Accessed 12/11/2012] Ronge, Barry. 2007. The changing pat-tern of research. The Sunday Time Mag-azine 21 July, p.7.

Marilyn Pattenden Media Centre Co-ordinator

M any of the events of the year have been reported in previous

Hat Chats, but perhaps a statistic that is not so well known is the fact that about 2000 new books, maga-zines and audio visual items have been added to the collection. It is so gratifying to discover in this age of kindles, iPads and tablets that chil-dren still turn to a book for their en-tertainment reading and quite frankly there is nothing to compare with sit-ting close to a young child and shar-ing a picture book full of exquisite pictures and great stories. If the rush to claim a new book at the end of the New Book Display period is anything to go by, our TWC teenagers still love books. As Maya Angelou said in an interview with Oprah, “some things are best said on soft paper and not hard metal”.

While everyone is quick to acknowledge the benefits of the Internet for research pur-poses, for a

wide variety of reasons, including engaging multimedia formats, many teachers express great concern that easily-distracted students with short attention spans are not developing the skills required to do deep, origi-nal research – something which is vital for successful tertiary education. Not only that, but “Googling” encour-ages plagiarism through “cutting and pasting”. This practice has become rife and has dire consequences for those who practise it, yet young peo-ple are so tempted to try and get away with it. The Research Skills classes are a vital part of the Li-brary’s work with the aim of steering our students safely through the many pitfalls of modern research tech-niques.

SENIIOR SCHOOL NEWS

The Lady Principal and Staff

cordially invite you to attend the

Senior School Prize-Giving (Grades 8 to 11)

to be held in the Atrium

on 30 November 2012 at 09:00

Tea will be served at Rosie’s after the Prize-Giving

JUNIOR SCHOOL NEWS NATIVITY PLAY

T his year’s Nativity Play, enti-tled One Starry Night in the Karoo, has, as the title would suggest, a distinctly

South African flavour. However, the central message remains timeless and for all people in all places; Jesus’s birth is to be celebrated bringing hope, love and peace to the world. I continue to be amazed by the crea-tivity and ingenuity of staff members who, year after year, enable us to experience ‘the Nativity’ in new and fresh ways. And of course it would not be possi-ble to produce an annual Nativity Play if we did not have such support-ive parents. All are to be thanked for assisting in countless ways, for cop-ing with disrupted schedules and for attending the performances.

Belinda Mabaso

Dhiya Bhagwan

Aphiwe Ndaba and Amahle Khanyile

Topeka Koning Abby Anderson

Zia van Niekerk

Keen readers seen with Mrs Michie after having presented a cheque to Ms Magdalena Wos from Heifer International : Read to Feed. Back left to right: Isabella Clarke, Mariam Jooma, Grace Grant, Haseena Kajee. Front: Aaliyah Sacoor, Clarice van Niekerk, Sherrel Michie and Bronagh Johnson.

These girls participated in a Tennis Tournament hosted by Durban Girls College on Saturday. Left to Right: Shannon Firman, Megan McDonald, Samantha Yeats and Kate Dunton. The College Cup was won by the Open 1

st Team, Samantha Yeats

and Megan McDonald; and the Open 2nd

Team, Shannon Firman and Kate Dunton, were the runners-up. This is a particularly special achievement as TWC Junior School has won the College Cup for the third consecutive year. All the girls are congratulated.

GENERAL SCHOOL NEWS

Dear Parents, Girls and Staff of TWC

Once again we are collecting Christmas Presents which will be placed under the tree at Festival of Praise and then distrib-uted to underprivileged children. Please wrap your present in Christmas Wrapping Paper and place a sticker on it indicating the AGE GROUP and whether the present is for a BOY OR GIRL. You may place the presents in the collection box in the Mar-keting Office.

REPORTS These may be collected before or after school on Thursday 29 Novem-ber. Closing times as per Term 4 Calendar.

Grades RR – 2 11:45 Grades 3 – 5 12:20 Grades 6 & 7 14:00

Boarders may sign for their reports. Flick Wright Junior School Headmistress

APPEAL

Calling all parents and businesses

This year, we are again hoping to attract your support for Upstream 2012 through page sponsorship. The cost of sponsorship is: R200 per page R300 inside front cover and inside back cover

The text will be printed across the bottom of the page and could read something like:

“This page sponsored by the Smith Family”

OR “This page sponsored by Grade

12, 2012” OR

“This page sponsored by Smith Engineering”

Please would you make your bookings by e-mailing the Up-stream Editor, Ant Lovell, on antony.l@twc.org.za or leaving a message for him at Senior School Reception.

JUNIOR SPORT HIGHLIGHTS

SENIOR SPORT HIGHLIGHTS

SWIMMING TWC "C" Team won the Gala which we hosted on 1 November. TWC "A" Team came second to Merchiston at the Gala held at Merchiston on 6 November, whilst our TWC "C" Team came sixth. As our Galas are over for the year I would like to take this opportunity to tell the swimmers that I am so proud of them. Thank you to all the coaches who are involved in their training.

SQUASH RESULTS Our TWC 1 and TWC 2 Teams won both their matches against Scottsville with a score of 12 - 0. Results vs Merchiston: TWC Team 1 won 10 - 2, TWC 2 won 8 - 4 and TWC 3 drew 6-6.

Results vs St John’s: TWC 3 won 12 - 0, TWC 2 won 9 - 3.

Our TWC 1 Team played Epworth and lost 4 - 8.

Our Squash girls, too, have had a very successful season, and I would like to congratulate all players and coaches. Gaynor Weir

TENNIS Congratulations to Samantha Yeats and Megan McDonald who won the Durban Girls' College Cup on Satur-day 10 November, held in Durban. This is the third consecutive year that TWC has brought this Trophy home. Kate Dunton and Shannon Firman were the ‘”runner up”. This meant that both TWC Tennis Teams played each other in the Fi-nal. Well done, girls, and thank you to Denise Gouws for her coaching and Chanti Fir-man who travelled with the Team.

TENNIS The KZN Midlands girls’ tennis leagues have come to a close after an extremely competitive year in which the TWC teams have been primary contenders for the win-ner’s podium on the termly league ladders. In the third term, the Joy Watt U19A League, U19B, U19C and Emily Howard leagues were won by the TWC U19A, U19C, U19D and U15A teams respectively. It must be mentioned that the U19B team were entered into the same league as the A side and their results enabled our A team to bring home the winning trophy. This is a definite improvement by all teams from the first term leagues where our teams were a few points behind the league winners.

INDOOR HOCKEY The indoor teams have played a number of matches over the last two weeks. Senior 1: vs St Anne’s 1 lost 2 – 7 (Melissa Glutz) Senior 2: vs St Anne’s 2 lost 1 – 4 (Aimee te Riele) Senior 3: vs St Anne’s 3 won 4 – 3 (Beth de Carle x 2, Hayley Keyser, Cynthia Kijjambu) Junior 1: vs St Anne’s 1 lost 0 – 3 Junior 2: vs Grace 1 won 3 – 0 (Meagan Deenik, Bulelwa Kupe, Nicola Brill) Junior 2: vs St Anne’s 2 drew 0 – 0 Junior 3: vs Grace 2 won 6 – 0 (Kristine Davis, Jordan Magrobi x 2, Lucy Bryant x 2, Catherine Lohrentz) Junior 3: vs St Anne’s 3 lost 1 – 5 (Lucy Bryant) Junior 4: vs Grace 2 won 1 – 0 (Lucy Bryant) Junior 5: vs Alex 1 lost 2 – 3 (Catherine Lohrentz x 2)

Lyndal Robertson

Abigail Vigar pushes the ball to Aimee te Riele who scored against St Anne’s.

CANOEING Last weekend 5 of our canoeists entered the Inter-Schools Canoeing Enduro at Shongweni Dam. Each team consisted of 3 or 4 members who, over a 2 hour period, completed numerous 2.5km laps on the dam in a relay. Courtney Mackenzie joined up with two Epworth girls to form an U18 team. Our U16 team, consisting of Amanda Peake, Linda Sit-hole, Holly Edmonds, and Katherine Barry, did very well and were placed 2

nd overall.

Congratulations to Sarah Harries who was placed 3

rd overall in the U16 girls’ section for 2012.

We are very proud of our TWC canoeists who came 2

nd in the Inter-Schools Girls’ Section for the 2012

season. Well done to the girls for a great season with much excitement and improvement. Thank you to Rowan Ainsworth, our coach, who has put time and effort into the training sessions and has supported the girls on the river during the races. Thank you to all the parents who provided much appreciated support and cheering at all the races throughout the season.

Sam Barraclough

WATER POLO

WATER POLO CO-ED FESTIVAL FRIDAY 2 NOVEMBER. To end the 2012 Water Polo season TWC hosted the second Inter Schools’ co-ed festival. The tour-nament involved ten KZN boys’ and girls’ schools. The format meant each school played three match-es during the course of the evening, had quality so-cialising time and an interval in which each player enjoyed a Prego roll and an array of salads provid-ed by Capitol Catering. The event was such a suc-cess that we already have schools booking for the 2013 Festival. Thank you to several of our Junior players who helped make the tournament possible by providing their DJ services, working the Tech Table and even assisting with rush hour at the catering table. Sarah Dixon racing a MHS player to get the ball Grades 8 and 9 girls helping at the Tech table

SPORT’S COACHES

At TWC we are always striving to get the best available coaches to assist with the training of our girls at

their sports practices. We are in the process of planning for 2013 and are still short of coaches in the fol-

lowing sports:

WATERPOLO (Jan to March – 1x per week)

NETBALL (March – June – 2 practices and 1 match per week)

BASKETBALL (July – September - 2 practices and 1 match per week)

Our coaches need to have their own transport and be willing to umpire/ref their own games.

Should anyone know of students or even parents that are able to assist us, please send their contact details

to the Senior School Sports Department on 033 342 0752 or via email to sport@twc.org.za.