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Volume 20 ∞ Issue 6 ∞ 28 April 2017

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Senior School

today. One can only assume how history may have been changed had Einstein stayed in his native country and helped Germany win the nuclear arms race and produce the first bomb of its kind. The Smithsonian mu-seum allowed us to marvel at how Galileo had actually managed to detect the two moons of Jupiter with his own telescope and provided us with an accurate sea

clock as the pendulum clock was affected by the sea’s constant motion. I will also never forget the words and dance that were improvised when the man started beating his bucket outside The Whitehouse. The flight to Orlando was not uneventful but the memories we made there will probably remain with most of us the longest. We needed more time to ex-plore the Kennedy Space Centre, but what we had time to see was thought provoking. The Wright brothers first took to the sky in 1903 and by 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon - humans are truly amazingly intelligent! The mind bog-gles at how it took us (travelling at a speed of over 900 km/h in a large boeing), about eight hours to cross the Atlantic Ocean and yet people travelled in

Zepplins like the Hindenberg, filled with highly reactive hydrogen gas, across that same expanse of sea without too many fatalities. Disneyland is an experience all on its own; it is a city that has its own highways and transport systems and resorts. Our final evening was spent at the Magic Kingdom with a fireworks display over the castle. This ended the holiday on a high note as it reminded us that we all have a little princess inside that loves to dream of castles and fireworks. The colours were dazzling! The experiences led us to reflect that if we learn to question, we would understand so much more about the world around us. My sincere thanks go to Mrs Watson, Mrs Marx and Mrs Beckedahl who gave their time and efforts in their holi-day to accompany girls on the tour. I would also like to thank the girls for the way in which they embraced each part of the tour. Despite the little hiccups, we had the most amazing trip. To the parents who made this trip possible, your daughters and I would like you to know that we are indeed very grateful. Dalene Briggs

SCIENCE TOUR TO AMERICA The 18 months of planning finally became a reality when 4 staff and 41 girls left on 24 March for the Science Tour of the USA. Armed with copious amounts of paper work for each girl we made it safely through the Home Affairs red tape here in South Africa and were all granted entry into the USA. After about 27 hours of non-stop flying we realized the world is not so small after all! We were greeted in a cold, snowy Boston ready for the adventures to begin. Harvard is a beautiful campus and we were reminded that only the top academic pupils from schools are granted entry into this Ivy League university. MIT was fascinating; they have the engineering works of the students on display and experts spoke to us about Newton’s slide rule and how holograms are made. Arriving in New York was unforgettable. We spent three nights in the Resi-dence Inn, a hotel in the cen-tre of the city which is a rare treat as we were in walking distance of Fifth Avenue and Broadway. It is easy to un-derstand why it is called “the city that never sleeps”, it is constantly busy and has an atmosphere of its own. The “School of Rock” Broadway show lived up to our expectations and it was mind blow-ing to see how children could master playing musical instruments in an Andrew Lloyd Webber show. We all became stars in our own reality TV show at NBC Studi-os; spent quiet time paying our respects at Ground Zero; posing at The Statue of Liberty and enjoying the open air of Central Park. The tour of the United Nations, and seeing actual artefacts that were left after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, left me reeling. Washington has more space and we felt a certain free-dom when we arrived after having spent time in the con-crete jungle of New York. Brooklyn is filled with litter and graffiti and does not feel that much dissimilar to Johan-nesburg. The cherry blossoms were evident as we ar-rived in time for the festival. The spy museum caught my attention. On display there is a letter written from Albert Einstein to President Rooseveldt in 1939 asking him to provide funds into the research of Uranium to make nu-clear weapons. This bomb certainly assisted in making the USA one of the most powerful nations in the world

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Out Of The Hat

Welcome to Term 2. I hope you all had a relaxing holi-day and are ready for another busy term. Many girls and staff had a busy sporting holiday, starting with the u13 netball and hockey festival held at TWC. The 1

st hockey and netball squads travelled up to Jo-

hannesburg to participate in festivals and this was a great way for them to start their seasons. The u16 hock-ey squad played in a festival at St Mary’s in Kloof. Girls were also involved in swimming during the holiday. Thank you to all the staff who were involved and thank you to the parents who supported the girls. Details of the events can be found in the sport section of Hat Chat. Other activities during the holiday - 41 girls went on a Science tour to the USA and 8 girls carried out commu-nity outreach work in Zambia. Pam Esterhuysen deliv-ered a paper at an international Geography conference in Boston, USA. The feedback from all three experienc-es is very positive and more details follow in Hat Chat. Girls spent many hours rehearsing for the school play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The performances were ex-cellent and most entertaining. The audiences thoroughly enjoyed the play, with many people commenting that they would like to watch it again. My grateful thanks go to Ant Lovell for directing the play, and to Jane Howes and other staff members involved for all their hard work.

On Friday, the Choir performed with the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir and The University of Pretoria Choir at Mu-sic in the Mountains. It was a wonderful weekend of fan-tastic music and a great opportunity for our girls. On Saturday, the Chamber Choir performed Carl Orffs Car-mina Burana with the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir and Old Boys. It was a very powerful performance and wonderful to listen to. Thank you to all the parents who were able to support the girls at their various performances. The two building projects (Chapel extension and staf-froom) are progressing as planned and I am hoping that the Chapel will be ready by Founder’s Day. Grade 9 and Grade 12 girls have had their next round of study skills with Elevate Education and hopefully the girls will put what they have learned into practice. The girls have made the most of Spirit Week, enjoying the activities organised by the Grade 12s, including a Day Girl / Boarder evening, inter-house quiz, a rock pa-per scissors competition, a musical statues competition and dressing up as a character from a book. Today is our annual Market Day and I am confident that it will be a great success. Thank you very much to all the families who have supported the day. I would like to thank Sheryl Watson, Anne-Lee Marx, Levern Green, Bev Black, Louise Maher and all the other staff mem-bers and girls who were involved in organising the day. Have a great term. Sue Tasker - Lady Principal

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AAG Conference 5-9 April 2017, Boston, Massa-chussetts, US During the school holiday I attended the American Asso-ciation of Geographers Conference in Boston, Massa-

chussetts, where I presented a pa-per on my ongoing research on the value of fieldwork. I consider this a feat as mingling with some 9300 del-egates presenting papers, posters, hosting workshops and panel discus-sions, is quite daunting. So a few thoughts… Boston is a city of contrasts: diverse, divided, delightful and beautiful. ‘Bigger and better is an American

motto and I certainly experienced that attitude. But I came away quite confident that educationally we can

hold our own in that kind of environment. In fact we, at the Wykeham Collegiate, offer sound, quality and innovative educa-tion that prepares stu-dents for the work-place. Boston must be the most expensive city to live in and needless to say finding a reasona-ble restaurant amongst the 44 Star-bucks outlets and 122 Dunkin Donut places was quite a challenge.

Boston is very easy to explore either by boat, bus or train or by walking. The streets are safe, clean and full of people walking, exploring and sightseeing. Tours that are really worthwhile included the skywalk; Duck tours on an amphibian motor vehicle (WW II era); a bus trip to Salem and the Heritage Walking Trail. The New England Aquarium with its three storied tank is cer-tainly interesting and has an option of viewing 4-D mov-ies. I consider myself privileged to have been there and to have done it, and to have the badge to go with it! Anoth-er bucket list item to tick off. Pam Esterhuysen

INTER-HOUSE KNITTING

A reminder that the annual interhouse knitting competi-tion is well underway. We have encouraged each girl to knit at least one square, but sadly to date no squares have been handed in. This competition ends at the end of May. Squares are worked together into rugs and small blankets for distribution.

RECYCLING Please remember to collect bread tags and empty ink cartridges and pop these items into the containers at our collection points. We are still collecting the plastic tops from bottles. These caps are used as counters in the primary school mathematics classes in rural are-as. The bottle top bucket is in the Geography Classroom foyer.

BREAD BUDDIES (a reminder)

Thank you to those girls who have embraced the Bread Buddy Campaign. We encourage the girls to bring left over bread from the weekend and to hand in at recep-tion on a Monday morning. If you would like to make sandwiches this would also be acceptable. Our donation is dropped off at Youth for Christ in the afternoon and they delighted to receive the bread and sandwiches. The food is then handed out to street children at their shelters. Pam Esterhuysen

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GIRLS PLAYING SPORT WHILE SICK The season of influenza, bronchitis and stomach bugs is most certainly upon us with many girls being laid low with these ailments. I have recently met with both the Junior and Senior School Sports Departments to discuss the issue of girls playing sport while sick and would like to draw parents’ attention to the following: TEAM SELECTION: ILLNESS

A girl who has been off sick may only be considered for selection for a team according to the following conditions:

Saturday matches – she must be at school, in class for the duration of Friday.

Midweek – she must be at school, in class for the duration of the previous day.

Any girl who is on antibiotics for flu related illness may not play sport.

In any other circumstances, cases will be considered on their merits.

INJURY

Girls who are injured are expected to attend practice in a non-active capacity.

Girls who are injured and undergoing physiotherapy or other treatment may not play matches or actively practise unless we have a written ‘go ahead’ directly from the physiotherapist or parent.

Please understand that girls often understate their level of wellness/fitness as they are, understandably, eager to play. I would like to request parents particularly of day girls to inform the school, sick-bay and sports office (see emails below) if their daughter is on anti-biotics or undergoing treatment for injury. We cannot risk having girls develop secondary infections or complications that endanger their health further. A girl returning to active sport after injury or illness will still be selected on her merits. The coach must consider attendance at practices and her fitness and strength levels before allowing her to play in a match. It is the coach’s prerogative to reintroduce her players slowly back into action. In the interests of all girls, I ask that parents assist us in this matter. Cathy Thomson - Deputy Head : Pupil Affairs

Junior Sports Office email: jnrsport@twc.org.za Senior Sports Office email: sport@twc.org.za

Awesome, unforgettable, heart-wrenching, uplifting, in-spiring, this and so much more, describes our week at the Nchila WildLife Reserve on the very tip of beautiful North Western Zambia. The remoteness of our desti-nation was such that our journey took us from Pieter-maritzburg to Johannesburg, Lusaka and Solwezi by plane, and then in Landrov-ers to the Cuturi’s farm. After a morning of shopping in Solwezi for the supplies we needed, we set off in convoy at two o’clock the following morning for an eight hour trip to reach our final destination. The vehicles and drivers were all supplied by Carlo Cuturi. The logistics involved in moving our merry band hundreds of kilometres to our destination could not have been undertaken were it not for the meticulous planning of Priscilla Cuturi. More wel-coming, generous hosts one could not wish for.

The orphanage is in the Nchila Wildlife Reserve where owners, Pete and Lynn Fisher, ensure its fund-ing and smooth running. Billy and Ruth manage the day-to-day affairs of the fifty or-phans and their seventeen

helpers. The children live in houses in a family unit of five to seven children and their gogo. Looking at how happy, well-fed and clothed the children are, living in a safe and beautiful setting, with people who love and care for them, it was easy to forget that they were still orphans, separated from their families, many through tragic circumstances. The aim of the trip was to paint the dining room, kitchen and bathroom areas and to interact with the children using games and art. The initial reticence of the children on first meeting quickly changed to their greet-ing us with cheerful grins as we arrived at the gate; little hands shyly enclosed in ours as we started the day’s activi-ties. By lunch time, the school-going children raced on their bikes back to the orphanage,

eager to join in the art and games of the day. As each day drew to a close we took our leave, with increasing reluctance, to return to our camp to prepare lunch and activities for the following day. These are the facts, easily recorded and relayed. Less easy to translate is the inner joy and enrichment gained by all involved in the project. Goodness, love, respect and generosity overcame barriers of lan-

guage, religions, cultures and countries.

We would all go back in a heartbeat.

Christine Stiebel

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Junior School Welcome back after what we hope was a relaxing and happy holiday with your girls. We are all ready and excit-ed for the term ahead and look forward to many exciting ventures and happy days at school. We welcome three new families this term and encour-age them to become fully involved in the life of the school. Lize and Vida Boshoff from Piet Retief are in Grade RRR and Grade 3 respectively, Palesa Parkies also in Grade 3, has joined us from Cowan House and Reese Gilson in Grade 5 comes from Underberg.

GRADE RRR At the beginning of the year, we asked for ideas for a name for our new Grade RRR class. After much deliber-ation and discussion it has been decided to call both Grade RRR and RR Poppets. Thank you to those who offered various suggestions.

WORLD BOOK DAY This was a wonderful celebration of the joy of reading, and the girls loved the opportunity to dress as their fa-vourite book character. The Junior School staff entered into the spirit of the occasion, with a ‘back- to- front’ day. The atrium was abuzz with Pocohontas and Pippi Longstockings, with Musketeers and a myriad other de-lightful, creative characters.

Mrs Rule and Mrs Boshoff in back- to- front mode!

COOKING CLUB Cooking Club is a favourite amongst the older girls as they get a chance to make and eat special treats. As much as they enjoy baking, tidying up is not always their favourite activity.

Grade 3s end of term fun maths lesson The Grade 3s finished off the term by playing a game called ‘Around the World’. They worked in groups and rotated through nine group activities to consolidate the Maths and English concepts taught throughout the term. The girls had great fun playing iPad games, palmanism cards, calculator activities and play dough sounds.

We have to check the taste before putting it in the oven! L to R: Sarah, Erin, Makanaka and Mbali.

Olivia, Saiyuri, Lunathi and Iysti playing WORDY on iPads.

Tyler, Olivia, Keona and Zoë playing palmanism games.

Zanda, Pari Sharma, Tori and Siyamthanda playing card games.

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GRADE 4 MUMS AND DAUGHTERS The Grade 4 girls enjoyed some uninterrupted bonding time with their mums on Saturday morning. Mums brought along something to drink and eat, which they shared whilst making folk art chickens. The girls brought

some special paper, feath-ers and other adornments and stunning chickens were created. We can never overestimate this special time the girls have with their mums and it is always very well support-ed.

Elle and Bronwyn Glasspoole in the foreground and Ginty and Abby Chalk in the back-ground.

Sue and Robyn Chapman.

Debbie and Dané Meintjes.

Sharleen and Erynne Marais.

Thabo and Babalwa Fanayo.

Hannah and her mum Claudette Elliott.

Keya and Ureka Mudaliar.

Cassandra and Tamika Hariparsad.

Danielle and Nadine Baxter.

The finished product.

GRADE 6 ASSEMBLY Our theme in the Junior School this year is ‘Wisdom’. At a class assembly recently, Mrs Burczak’s Grade 6 class dramatised the Bible story of the wise and foolish build-ers. The story tells us that a wise man builds his home on rock giving it a solid foundation, whilst the foolish

man builds his home on the sand which often shifts. When there is a storm, the house

built on the sand will collapse and so it is wise to heed the advice of build-ing on a solid foun-dation. Jesus is compared to a rock (solid foundation) and so if we be-

lieve in Him, our foundations will be firm. Jesus, the solid foundation gives us hope, peace, kindness, joy, pa-

tience, trust and faith.

GRADE RRs VISIT ALISON HOMES. During last week of the term, some of the Pop-pets visited Alison Homes with their mothers to

share Easter eggs with the residents.

We are extremely proud of Esihle Mthethwa, who, at 12 years old and in Grade 7, has been chosen to per-form as a soloist with the KZN Phil-harmonic Orchestra at the annual Young Performers Concert. She will be performing Mozart – Andante for flute in C major K315, 1

st move-

ment. The concert will take place on Saturday 20 May 2017, at the Play-house Drama Theatre, at 19h00. This is an incredible

achievement and we congratulate Esihle on her success.

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STAFF DEVELOPMENT The day before the start of the second term, the staff attended an art workshop hosted by our talented Grade 4 teacher, Karin Rabe. She showed them how to make a daschund out of papier mâché and the inside of a pa-per roller towel. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the activi-ty, with some feeling the pressure of creating a perfect piece!

Karen Gardner - Headmistress

Mrs Berndsen, hard at work.

Mrs Gardner getting the nose right!

Mrs Mustard delighted with her pup and Mrs Black making sure that the tail is the correct length.

It looks just like a daschund Mrs Bailey!

Pleased as punch with their creations, are Mrs Ashton

and Mrs Woodley.

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SPORT HIGHLIGHTS Junior School

SWIMMING During the March holidays our swimmers participated in SA Level Galas in Sasolburg. Kelly Zwart, Abby Daugh-erty, Isabella Thornton-Dibb and Rebecca Edwards par-ticipated in the Level 3 gala, while Kimberley Lewis swum in the Level 2 gala, finishing with 2 silver medals in the 50m and 100m backstroke. The girls qualified for the finals and swum personal bests with Chelsea Wal-den (Grade 8), Isabella Thornton-Dibb, Abby Daugherty winning the silver medal in the Medley relay.

U13 TWC Hockey and Netball Festival During the first week of the holidays, 30 girls participat-ed in the U13 TWC Hockey and Netball Festival. Girls participated in coaching sessions, played many, many matches and sang an amazing rendition of Hakuna

Matata on the Satur- day Night.

Thank you to Mrs Bodley, Ms Bodley and Mr Coombes for coaching and assisting the girls.

Chelsea Walden (Grade 8), Isabella Thornton-Dibb and Abby Daugherty won the silver medal in the medley relay.

Kian Green, Esihle Mthethwa, Jamie Martinson, Madison Shaw and Savannah Ingledew getting ready to defend the goals.

Mbali Gama shooting, while Tshama Bi-lenge waits for a rebound.

Kian Green received the award for the best hockey defender at the Festival.

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SWIMMING 1. Casey Wilson competed for the KZN swimming team

at the SA Senior National Swimming Championships in Durban. She swam really well, achieving some personal best times and made three semi-finals.

2. Emma Huxtable participated in the SA Junior Nation-als and the Elite Youth division of the SA Senior Na-tionals. She achieved pleasing results despite knee injuries. She then went on to represent KZN at the SA schools championships in Polokwane where she was made the KZN girls’ captain. Emma achieved gold for both the 50m and 100m breaststroke and made the finals for the 200m breaststroke.

3. Tara Wheeler competed at Level three in Sasolburg. Her results were as follows: 4th for the 50m and 100m backstroke; 5th for the 50m freestyle; 6th for the 200m backstroke and 9th for the 100m freestyle.

4. Chelsea Walden swam in Sasolburg at the SA Level three Regional Age Group Champs. Her results were: 50m breaststroke – Gold; 100m breaststroke – Bronze; 200m breaststroke – Bronze; 4 x 50 medley relay – Silver.

5. Paige Brombacher swam at the SA Junior Nationals and her results were as follows: 1

st for the 100m

breaststroke, 2nd

for the 50m reaststroke, 3rd

for the 200m IM and 6

th for the 200m breaststroke. She then

swam in the SA National Aquatic Champs represent-ing KZN and was placed 11

th in the 100m and 50m

breaststroke. 6. Catherine Royden-Turner participated in the SA Jun-

ior Nationals despite being off with injury for most of the swimming season and she did well, improving her entry times and being placed 15

th in the 50m back-

stroke and 21st in the 100m backstroke.

EQUESTRIAN Hayley Conway competed in the KZN dressage challenge at Mount Verde equestrian Centre. She competed on Saratoga My Fair Lady in the junior novice section and came third in the challenge. She also competed on Casanova in pony rider elementary-medium and won her challenge with a great score. Hayley and Casano-va also did well at the Equistar show held at Shongweni. They came first in the pony rider ele-mentary-medium 3 and 4.

Senior School

ACTION NETBALL Tanna Wesson was a member of the KZN U14A team which were placed 8

th at their

tournament.

NETBALL The 1

st netball team participated in the St Andrew’s Net-

ball Festival during the holidays. ‘One of the highlights of the tour was reaching our goal of being placed in the top 10 out of 32 schools. Prior to the festival, we played two warm-up matches against Pecanwood College and St Andrews, which proved to be a great start as we won both of these matches. Our first day of the festival was very tiring, winning 2 of the 3 matches. The second day was very successful, winning all 4 matches and being placed in the championship section. This section was extremely tough, but it was great to be exposed to such a high standard of school girls’ netball. We were placed 8

th out of 32 schools

which was a huge achievement’. Jade Newman (captain)

Savannah Lotze. Kayla van der Westhuizen.

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Congratulations to the following girls who were selected for the Umgungundlovu Netball teams. They will repre-sent the district in their respective age groups at KZN trials on Saturday 6 May:

HOCKEY The U16 hockey team participated in the St Mary’s Kloof U16 Hockey Festival and were placed 11

th out of 16

schools. The 1

st hockey team participated in the St Mary’s Wa-

verley Hockey Festival. ‘On 5 April, we set off in our TWC bus in high spirits and with a positive attitude towards the matches to come. We were placed in a pool with some tough competition. We lost three matches, won two and drew one match in the pool stages. In our play-off matches, we won two matches, lost two and drew one which meant that we were placed 19

th out of 32 schools. As the tournament

progressed, we built our team spirit, bonded as a team and most importantly had a great time’. Alice Comrie (Captain)

Jamie Rowe U14

Mia van der Westhuizen U14

Funekile Nyathikazi U14

Savannah Lotze U16

Hannah Volker U16

Jemma Fox U17

Natasha Morby-Smith U17

Kayla van der Westhuizen U17

Jade Newman U18

Micaela Abreu U18

Congratulations to the following girls who have been selected for an Umgungundlovu hockey team to partici-pate in the Inter-District Tournaments:

CROSS-COUNTRY The first race of the season took place at Collegians Club hosted by Maritzburg College. Well done to: Junior Girls – 18

th Christie Evans, 23

rd Caitlin Evans.

Senior Girls – 1

st Luzaan de Wit, 10

th Paige MacKenzie,

22nd

Jess Hirschowitz, 23rd

Chelsea Gevers.

Mieka Mohaud U14

Sam Brender-A-Brandis U14

Tando Mahlanza U14

Jade Brender-A-Brandis U16

Georgie Harries U16

Brogan Mitchell-Innes U16

Jessica Behrens U16

Siggi Aadnesgaard U16

Jodie Conolly U18

Rachel Taylor U18

Julia Lawrie U18

Sam Yeats

Jodie Conolly.

Tessa Lategan

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SQUASH The first match of the squash season took place on Mon 24 April at TWC. All 3 teams played against Epworth with the results as follows: TWC 1

st vs Epworth 1

st TWC won 8-4

TWC Social vs Epworth Social TWC won 9-3 TWC Junior 1

st vs

Epworth Junior 1st EPW won 11-1

Linda Royston - Head of Sport

CANOEING The KZN Canoeing Sprints was held during the holidays at Shongweni Dam. Congratulations to the following girls on their achievements: Gemma Lawson: 4

th place, 500m U18 K1

Gaby Campbell & partner: 2

nd place, 200m U18 K2

Gemma Lawson & Erin Schmidt: 3

rd place, 200m U18 K2 & 2

nd place,

500m U18 K2 Gaby Campbell & Partner: 3

rd place, 500m U16 K2

Georgina Howard & Laila Maher: 3

rd place, 200m U14 K2 & 3

rd place,

500m U14 K2.