St David's Newsletter 13 May 2016

School Newsletter - 13 May 2016

Highlight of the week
St David's Prep boys play in The Johannesburg Primary Schools' Football 2016 Discovery Festival.
Left to right: Gareth Potts, Joshua Botha, Matthew Cooper, Matthew Rundle, Daniel Ferriman, Angelo De Aguiar, Benjamin Watt

From the Desk of the College Senior Deputy Headmaster
Mr David Smith
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body” - Joseph Addison (1672 – 1719) English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician.
The amount a pupil reads is one of the most accurate predictors of future academic success: it’s very simple – as a general rule the more your son reads, the better his future academic results. In today’s internet-crazed world, daily reading habits often centre around reading tweets, WhatsApp messages, Facebook updates and emails. If your son is not spending enough time on reading quality material, he is missing out. There are huge social and academic benefits to families who encourage one another to read and who make time to read. If your son’s typical evening routine is checking emails, chatting with friends on WhatsApp, looking at Facebook, keeping his eye on twitter, monitoring his smartphone and playing games, then his productivity and academic results will undoubtedly be suffering to a significant degree. Your son needs to spend much more of his time reading; not only on concepts related to his academic subjects, but also quality books, magazines and newspapers.
There are many websites with excellent articles which examine and expand upon the significant benefits of reading. Most of these websites, such as lifehack.org (a website which has great articles on social, productivity, technology and tips for life and daily encounters) list similar benefits from reading. These include:

Mental stimulation and improved creativity.
Stress reduction, improved focus and concentration.
Increased knowledge – you become truly educated in that reading will open your mind and you will realise how little you actually know.
Expanded vocabulary.
Improved spelling, grammatical proficiency and writing skills.
Stronger analytical thinking skills.
enhancing communication across cultures and national boundaries, across social lines and class divisions.
Helping in becoming a more empathetic person – allows us to understand the lives of victims of racism, sexism, abuse and poverty.
Inspiring us, especially when reading how others have succeeded in spite of massive physical, mental and social challenges.

Reading opens your mind – you will start populating your mind with different things: images, conversations, perceptions, data and insights. I encourage all boys studying at St David’s Marist Inanda to spend more time on reading in the future.
The College novel for the term is: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

St David's Sport

DISCOVERY Area Football Festival
St David’s has been the proud host of the Discovery Area Football Festival from 11^th-13^th May. This is a festival organised by the Johannesburg Primary Schools' Football Association and is comprised of 12 area football teams from schools all over the greater Johannesburg Area. At the conclusion of the festival, two provincial teams are selected to go on and represent the Association at the annual Bill Stewart National Tournament. We are very proud to have had 7 of our boys involved in this festival and for our school’s continued involvement as the host of this unbelievable festival.

PREP - RUGBY
Last week saw the beginning of our Prep School’s rugby season with a brilliant fixture against The Ridge. 12 fixtures were played, with St David's winning 7, losing 4 and drawing 1. Congratulations to all the boys and staff involved and we look forward to another great day out against CBC Boksburg tomorrow. A reminder that next week on the 21^st May, we have a home fixture vs King Edward Preparatory School

College Results for the Week

College Week Ahead

Grade 11 Residential Outreach Project in April Holidays

Twenty Grade 11's and six staff members spent five nights at the start of the recent holiday working for the Gift of the Givers Foundation at the Midrand Sathya Sai Centre – the boys helped in the refurbishment of their borehole and replacement of a pump, amongst many other service activities. St David’s ‘Hands of Champagnat Campaign’ raised R80000.00 during 2015, and this money was handed over to the Gift of the Givers Foundation who are using the money, not only in Midrand, but also to co-sponsor a borehole in the drought stricken area of Qwa Qwa in the Free State.
Thanks to Mrs V. Ellis for all the time and effort she puts into making the ‘Hands of Champagnat Campaign’ so practically successful.

ST DAVID’S MARIST INANDA
JUBILEE DINNER DANCE

We look forward to sharing a very special evening
with friends and family of St David’s Marist Inanda in celebration of our 75th Jubilee.
The evening includes a welcome drink, three-course plated dinner, live entertainment and a magnificent evening in the company of those with whom we share a common bond and love for St David’s Marist Inanda.

Date: Saturday, 11 June 2016
Time: 18h30 for 19h00
Venue: Jubilee Marquee, McGregor Oval
Dress: Elegant (Black Tie Optional)
Cost: R750 for a Single Ticket. R1400 per couple.
Cash Bar

Jubilee Dinner -Tickets will go live from this link at 10am Monday morning.

St David's APP
St Davids App

Our exciting St David’s App is finally packaged and ready to deliver! We have done the work, gathered the content, and it has been sent to all staff for review. The link to the App will be sent out this weekend. We are very excited about this as the main purpose for this App is to streamline all current communication platforms that exist into one formal, easily accessible place.

Please note that you will receive an email during the course of this weekend, with all of the downloading instructions, as well as installation information from a lady by the name of Brenda Caplen: Brenda@MyAppZone.co.za
Please read the email and follow instructions, as this will make the whole process more efficient.

If you do not receive an email by Monday 16^th, please email StDavids@myappzone.co.za with your name, son’s grade and preferred email address, and we will send you the information. Sometimes emails end up in junkmail or spam folders, so keep a lookout. Please take some time to play with the app and find your way around it. Feel free to email StDavids@myappzone.co.za for any further assistance.

College Boys on World Challenge Expedition to India in the April Holidays.Thanks to Mr M Schneider and Mrs B Stewart for accompanying the tour.

Champagnat Day is approaching fast, it will be celebrated on Monday 6^th June this year (this is the actual date that Champagnat Day falls on). Champagnat Day means that it is time to start getting ready for the Champagnat Day Challenge. The CDC is the exciting knock-out football tournament for Grade 4-Grade 7 boys, it will be held for the 10^th time this year. All details can be found on the dedicated CDC website, just follow this link: http://eylesbugs.wix.com/cdc2014

Please join us for this term's PT21. The topic is GRIT - a factor that has been researched to predict success and happiness more than IQ or even talent. Tony Williams, the Senior Deputy Headmaster of the Prep School will be giving this talk and it is a fascinating and challenging subject that is important for us as parents and teachers to know more about.

The PT21 talks are designed to discuss areas of interest to parents of children of all ages. The talks aim to assist with unique parenting and teaching issues we may experience - PT21 stands for Parenting and Teaching in the 21st Century. All are welcome and we look forward to seeing you there.

The talk is Wednesday 18th May at 6pm in the Champagnat Hall. It should be finished by 7:30pm.

Please RSVP to me vanderzwanc@stdavids.co.za or 011 215 7662