Newsletter 1/2009 - 2nd April 2009

Dear Parents/Guardians

We have come to the end of a busy first term. Thank you very much to you all, parents, staff and children for all your hard work, support and commitment to our school. I assure you that it is greatly valued and appreciated.

We sincerely hope that all the new children who joined us at the beginning of the year have now settled down happily at Westcott.

Exciting Developments at Westcott

Firstly, I wish to share with you the wonderful results which our 2008 Grade 3 children achieved in the provincial assessment which was conducted towards the end of last year.

One hundred per cent of our Grade 3 children were found to be at the correct, appropriate level for Literacy, while 86,3 % of them were at the appropriate Grade 3 level in Numeracy. In addition, 56,9 % of the children were already at a Grade 4 level for Numeracy. The provincial averages for Numeracy and Literacy were 34,9% and 53,5% respectively.

These were outstanding results and are a testimony to the high scholastic standards which we have at Westcott, to the hard work of the children, the parental support and, last, but not least, to the dedication and hard work of the staff.

Congratulations to Mrs Groenewald, Head of the Foundation Phase, Mrs Marqua and Mrs Thornhill, the Grade 3 teachers of 2008, and to all the teachers in the Foundation Phase.

Secondly, we are very pleased to announce that we have taken delivery of our new computer hardware, which has been kindly provided by Khanya, the technology section of the Western Cape Education Department. We are very grateful to Khanya.

The new computer equipment includes 30 state-of-the art P.C.'s with flat screen L.C.D. monitors, new keyboards, mouses, headphones, a sophisticated server, back-up server, U.P.S., scanner, printer and teacher's workstation.

From next term our computer tuition will involve the teaching of computer skills and curriculum support. Instead of half a class visiting our computer lab at a time, the whole class will be able to, as we now have twelve more computers than we used to have. In addition, each class will now spend twice the amount of time in the computer lab than they used to spend. The class teachers will be more directly involved with our computer tuition than they used to.

We are installing the computers which have been taken out of the computer centre, in our classrooms.

The children are going to benefit immensely from our new Khanya computer lab.

Thirdly, we are hoping to start work on the enlargement and extension of our Aftercare Centre in the near future. As you know, this is currently the main objective of our fundraising activities.

Fourthly, we have been informed that some essential repairs and maintenance will soon be carried out at our school by the Works Department.

Westcott Achievements

* Congratulations to Jessica Kille (Grade 4) who won a national colouring-in competition at the beginning of the year. Jessica won a computer for herself and for the school.

* Well done to Juan Daniels (Grade 5) and Brett Forbes (Grade 7) on having been selected for the Western Province regional cricket trial teams.(under 11 and under 15, respectively)

* Congratulations to Jordan Twiss (Grade 3), who has been awarded his orange belt for karate.

* We congratulate all of our Grade 7s who received monitor badges.

* Well done to the children who were chosen for the inter-schools athletics team. A special congratulations to the following children who made it through to the second round:
Amber Crighton, Jessica de Villiers, Paul Fortune, Jason Vorster, Solomon Mbuthuma,
Chelsea Bennette, Dayna Garcia.

* Congratulations to our House Captains for 2009, namely Shannon Godwin, Jason Anderson(Mars), Brett Forbes, Keenan Buckley(Venus), Samantha Ncula, Danika Vogelpoel(Jupiter).

* Congratulations to the following top ten Grade 7 academic achievers this term.

Mark %
1. Melissa Groenewald 828 82,8
2. Chelsea Bennette 809 80,9
3. Lauren Ball 805 80,5
4. Shannon Godwin 803 80,3
5. Jason Vorster 802 80,2
6. Christin Sands 790 79
7. Adrienne McDermott 775 77,5
8. Darren du Plooy 766 76,6
9. Sherri-Anne Steyn 750 75
10. Dayna Garcia 740 74
Westcott News

* Our Grade 6 and 7 children enjoyed a very successful outdoor educational experience near Villiersdorp for three days. Thanks to Ms Carder, Mr Davids, Mr Nicholson and Mrs Hufkie for giving up their time to be with the children.

* At the beginning of this year, we welcomed some new staff members, namely Mr Davids (Grade 6), Ms Carder(Grade 6) and Mrs Szoke(Grade 1). We hope that they will be very happy at Westcott.

* Thank you to all of our parents, staff and children for supporting all of our fundraising ventures, especially the raffles, the McLaren Circus, the Campout and the Pirates Evening. A special thanks to Mrs Irene Alexander, one of our moms, for organising the Pirates Evening.

* A huge thanks goes to our Fundraising Team for all their hard work this term. The Campout raised over R20 000 profit, while the McLaren Circus venture raised over R13 000. Thank you to you all for your great support!

* We thank Sign-a-Rama(Tokai) and Market Toyota(Diep River) for sponsoring and organising the refurbishment of our events notice-board. A special thanks to Mr Mark Bester of Market Toyota(Diep River), one of our parents, who was instrumental in organising this project.

* Thanks very much to our parents and children for sending so many Easter eggs to school. They have been collected by the Lions(Bergvliet) and the Mother Theresa group, who will distribute them among needy children.

* Thanks to our parents for supporting our cake sales and market days, and to all those who do security duty, help in the library, do car park duty, etc. If you would like to assist in any of these areas, please contact the school.

* A huge thanks to the dads who gave up their Saturday morning on 28 March to varnish the exterior woodwork at school.

* Thanks to our Governing Body for all their hard work and support this term.

* Our prefects enjoyed an afternoon leadership course in February.

* We recently said goodbye to our two Dutch students, Ms Knol and Ms Ruiter, who were at our school for two months.

Westcott Car Park

We appeal to all of our parents to obey traffic rules in our car park and to observe it strictly as a stop and drop/collect zone, in the interests of the safety of the children. Please ensure that you pull off to the side when dropping/collecting children and that you do not spend too much time greeting/saying goodbye to your child. Please obey the instructions of the parents and teachers who are doing duty in the car park.

We fear that a child may be injured in the car park if motorists are not vigilant and considerate to others. If the car park becomes too dangerous for our Westcott children, we shall be forced to close the gate and parents will have to park outside the school grounds.

Clothing Shop

* New items of uniform (jackets, jerseys, badges, sports shirts) are available for purchase from our Bursars' office. (Stocks are currently limited, but we have ordered more stock)

* Our second hand uniform shop is also open from 13:00 to 13:30 on Fridays.

Prayer Group

We had a small group of moms who got together at 08:00 on Fridays for about 25 minutes to pray for our school. At present, we only have one mom who is coming along. We would love to have other moms joining, who would like to pray for Westcott. Please contact the school if you would like to join this group.

Marking of Clothes

Please ensure that all items of your child's school uniform are labelled with your child's name, especially jackets and jerseys.

Extramurals

Our winter extramural programme will commence on Monday, 20 April. Full details will be sent out on Wed 15 April.

Uniform

Please note that either winter or summer uniform will be allowed at the beginning of next term. Winter uniform will be compulsory from Monday, 11 May.

Bacterial Meningitis

Please be aware that bacterial meningitis has occurred in some schools in the Western Cape.
The symptoms are as follows: stiff neck, rash, severe headache, fever, vomiting.

My School

Please support the My School campaign by using your My School card when shopping. Everytime you use your card, Westcott benefits financially.

Please request more My School application forms from Mrs van der Berg, our school secretary, for your family and friends.

Remember, we are having a quarterly competition among our parents to see how many My School applications you can obtain.

This term's competition was won by Mrs Gillian Swart, who will receive a gift voucher. Well done, Mrs Swart!

Thanks to Ms Benjafield for putting so much time and energy into our My School campaign.

Greetings

We wish all of the members of the Westcott Primary community a very good break and our Christian community a very blessed Easter. Please take care and return safely on the first day of the second term (Wednesday, 15 April).

Yours sincerely

J B Robertson
Principal

Westcott Diary for Second Term (2009)

April
15 Second Term starts.
16 Fundraising Team Meeting (19:00).
17 Founders' Day Assembly.
20 School Nurses visit Westcott(until 8 May).
21 Grades 4 - 7 Parent/Teacher Interviews.
22 National General Election.
23 Grade 6 Market Day and Civvies Day (R5-00)(provisional).
27 Public Holiday (Freedom Day).

May
1 Public Holiday (Workers' Day).
8 Pre-Primary Mothers' Day Concert.
11 Car Raffle closes.
Winter uniform compulsory.
14 Westcott Music Concert.
19 Governing Body Elections 19:00.
21 Ascension Day (We are applying for permission to close on this day, but there will be
Aftercare facilities for the whole day).
28 Grade 5 Market Day.
Civvies Day (R5-00).
30 Westcott Fun Run and Food Fair.

June
1 Grade 6 and 7 Exams start.
6 Parents' Work Party (weather permitting).
12 Grade 6 and 7 Exams end.
15 School Holiday.
16 Public Holiday (Youth Day).
22 Early closing starts (12:45).
24 Grades 1, 2, 3 Parent/Teacher Interviews.
25 Grade 2 Cake Sale.
Inter-house General Knowledge Quiz.
26 Second Term ends.

July 20 Third Term starts