Dear Parents

We managed to hold a very special event to acknowledge our departing Grade 12s. The Prizegiving was held on Piley Rees, very well attended by just under 500 people and suitably distanced! The boys then went into the Chapel as a group on their own for a moving and meaningful ending to their College careers. Our very grateful thanks go to Mr Peter Westwood and Mrs Michelle van Schalkwyk for their organization, Mr Mark Mitchell and the Music Dept for their support and Father Monwabisi Peter for his beautiful homily and farewell message in the Chapel.

At the Prizegiving, we announced the names of the boys who will head up the eight Houses in 2021 and wished them well for their term of office. A special congratulation goes to Nassar de Kock and Liam Harrison who will be the Deputy Head Boys and to Jonathan Roche who will be the new Head Boy and Head of School. I have no doubt that these young men will do us proud.

The event was preceded by a Matric Final Assembly the previous day at which representatives from the OD Union spoke and presented the boys with their OD ties to welcome them to the OD community. Add to these events the House Dinners (small events, suitably distanced!) and our Grade 12s have certainly had a special ending to what was a tough year for them. They were described many times as a remarkable group and words such as “resilient” and “adaptable” being used over and over by each speaker in these two days. I have no doubt that the lessons they, and indeed all of us, have learned this year will help us be better people and be better in what we do going forward, thinking differently about what we usually took for granted.

Our Grade 10s have started writing exams to enable them to take part in what is for many the highlight of the year, the annual Epic. The other Grades will begin shortly thereafter and I wish all our boys the very best for these exams.

Our Covid Committee reports a quiet past fortnight but reminds us all to remain vigilant and keep on wearing masks, keeping our distance and practicing good hygiene. We cannot stop emphasizing these messages and while social events, going to restaurants and being outdoors is very important for us all and our mental health, we must follow all established and accepted protocols when doing so.

It is our intention to return to full operation next year and to return to the pre-Covid daily times with school starting at 8:00 and including an open period, which allows our cultural programme to recommence. This is such a vital part of Bishops life and we have missed so much in this regard this past year. Our sports programme is slowly returning and some of our cricketers were permitted by regulations to play matches again last weekend. It was wonderful to see them in action.

As we approach the end of the year, a year we will never forget, I thank you all for your support. Our community has gone through so much yet has remained positive and supportive and we can look back on a successful year. My assembly message to the boys appears below in which I have tried to give our boys some advice on setting goals for themselves as the Grade 12s leave and they look ahead to the next year. This advice is equally applicable to us as adults and you may enjoy a conversation with your son on his goals as a result of this message. That is the purpose of publishing these assemblies – to allow you to engage with your son and to talk about matters I feel are relevant to him and which he hears about at school.

I wish you well for the next few weeks.

Tony Reeler
Principal

Assembly

On Tuesday, we said our goodbyes to our Matric class of 2020 and acknowledged them for all they had dealt with in this past year. They were remarkably positive and “resilient” was a word used often to describe one of their special qualities. In thinking ahead to 2021, which many of us are doing now, if you are honest with yourselves you are fervently hoping for a year that is different – a year that allows you to do the things you want to do – play your sport, take part in Eisteddfod, attend functions and events that allow for mass participation and physical togetherness. And I don’t blame you because you have suffered too but you want your next year to be different to this one!

And so we set ourselves goals for the year – things we want to achieve. I came across a definition for goals that I want to share with you today. Diana Hunt coined the phrase that “Goals are dreams with deadlines.” I use this as the basis of my message to you today.

Dreams are great. We escape from reality into the wonderful world of imagination. When the Lotto first started in SA I took a ticket because I dreamed of winning millions that would solve all my woes – or so I thought. Dreaming about holidays and cars and houses and giving money to my family kept me going for hours. But these were dreams. It didn’t help that I sometimes had these dreams without buying a ticket which had a serious influence on my dreams becoming reality!

But we have to find a way of making dreams a reality – actually buying that lotto ticket for the game in which we want to take part. And so goals are defined as dreams with deadlines, dreams that have real, achievable outcomes.

Today I give you some ideas that may help you in achieving these goals:

1. Keep it personal. They must be your goals, no-one else’s. There is no point your parents or friends having an outcome they want for you if you don’t share that desire. Parents usually want the best for their children and that is good, but what they want and what you want may differ. Discuss your goals with your parents and settle on ones that you really want because then you are motivated to try to achieve them.

2. Be realistic. There is no point having a dream of doing something that is clearly out of your reach and out of your ability. I wanted to be of professional golf standard but sadly lacked the talent and the drive to practice so have settled for a more achievable goal of small improvements which is something I can easily do.

3. Control the goal. There are certain things that are out of your control and are in the hands of someone else. Such as being Head Boy or playing for your first team. Someone else makes that call and you do not really control the goal. So – set goals you do have control over. Getting better marks, playing a difficult piece of music or writing that book. And if you do have a goal over which you have little or no control, at least give yourself a chance for someone to make the decision you want. Work hard, treat people with respect, prepare for the chance that it may happen. If you can’t control the goal, at least give it a chance to happen.

4. Deadlines matter. There is little point in having goals that come from dreams if you don’t set yourself time frames. And make those time frames small, manageable and realistic. I want to be a better golfer so I put a plan in place to go for lessons – and set those lessons up. I need to practice, so I find the time to do so. Just wanting something is not enough.

With these four brief ideas, keeping it personal, being realistic, controlling that you can control and having timelines, you too can convert dreams into goals, imagination into reality. We are often told to dream big and that is wonderful. But dreaming on its own doesn’t do anything except stimulate imagination. Dreams need to be accompanied with plans, Plans become goals and goals can be achieved if you follow this simple advice.

Inter-House Surfing

On Friday 16 October, sixteen surfers, two staff members and four OD judges headed up the West Coast to a spot called 'Horse Trails' to participate in the 2020 inter-house surfing competition. In pleasant 2/3 ft conditions, we saw some excellent performances in the Heats - with Ogilvie and Kidd reaching the Finals. In a rather one-sided finale, Kidd were dominant and proved to be worthy winners with commanding rides by Jono Bateman and Luke van Wyk. This was Gerry Noel's final outing with the Club. Many thanks to him for his contribution over the years.

Bishops School Magazine 2020 Orders

In keeping with our sustainability vision, the Bishops School Magazine 2020 will be available online early next year. Printed copies will also be available, though only by order.
To order a print copy of the Bishops 2020 magazine, please click here: Order here

Simply Blue 2021

Congratulations to the following new members of Simply Blue for 2021:
Jesse Barth, Michael Beaumont, Gray Fogarty, Kwonhee Kim, Thando Kumalo, Nimba Mahlati, Keenan Mills, Manga Nogantshi and Ben Reid.

The 2020 members who remain in the group are:
James Griffiths, Paul Malherbe, John Smith, Ethan Topat and Schyler van der Westhuizen.

Golf

Congratulations to Christopher Gutuza who has been appointed the captain of Golf for 2021. Daniel Davidson has been appointed as vice-captain.

On Tuesday the 27th October, the Matric Prizegiving and Valedictory was held on the Piley Rees due to social distancing. We have added a link below for you to enjoy the memories of the days festivities, as the entire school was not able to attend as they normally do.

Please click here to view the rest of the Prizegiving and Valedictory photos.

Grade 12 Academic Awards

Academic Ties:
Joseph Pepler
Francis Bayly
Oliver Diggle
Matt Dinan
Milan Dixon
Steven Du
Joshua Lapid 
Will Makin
Nicholas Powell
Sameer Shaboodien
Liam van Schalkwyk
Gareth Watson 
Robert Butler
Gabriel de Graaf
Connor Dempers
Chad Francis
Dylan Howard
Andrew Koen
Adam Morkel
Uzayr Sonday
Ross Vintcent

Academic Jerseys:
David Allardice 
Seb Allison 
Dylan Barow 
Cameron Clark
Milan Dixon
Stephen du Preez
Neil du Toit 
Andrew Geerdts 
Sam Hardie
William Morley
Luke Rissik
Sameer Shaboodien
Jay Sinha 
Jan Smuts 
Alexander van der Leek 
Jordan Welsh 
Maximillian Wolfson
Jonty Wright
Troy Bisnath

Public Speaking Awards

The following boys need to be congratulated on achieving the following awards for Public Speaking:

Distinction Ties:
Luke Rissik
William Makin

Full Colours:
William Makin

The following boys need to be congratulated on achieving the following awards / trophies in the World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships which took place in August this year.

Trophies for World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships 2020

Rohan Naidoo:
World Champion Public Speaker and Debater
First Place Debating
Second Place Interpretive Reading
Second Place Persuasive Speech

Luke Rissik:
14th Place Overall

Leadership Positions for Interact 2020-2021

I have pleasure in announcing the Interact committee members for the period October 2020 to September 2021 as follows: Lukas Oelz (president), Gus Farara, Suhayl Khalfey, Liam Petersen and Adam Clarke.

Cricket - 100 1st XI Caps

This has been a tough year for all the Matrics but there are two cricketers that we would specially like to acknowledge. 
At the end of the first part of the 1st XI season Travis Norris (captain of cricket) and Ethan Kieffer were extremely close to a milestone that very few Bishops cricketers ever reach.  Travis had played 96 games for the 1st XI and Ethan, 98.  Fittingly, their last game, as it has turns out was an emphatic win over the old rival RBHS.  We had hoped that they would be able to grace the Frank Reid at some stage this term but, due to Civid-19, this now seems most unlikely.  Had we had our usual fixtures in this fourth term they would both surely have earned their 100th cap for the school, and so it seems appropriate, in this extraordinary year, to award them their “100th Cap” which each of them thoroughly deserves.
Congratulations.

We congratulate and wish our new heads a successful and memorable year leading our school in 2021.

Head Boy: Jonathan Roche
Deputy Head Boy: Nassar de Kock
Deputy Head Boy: Liam Harrison

Founders
Head of House: Samuel Aitken
Deputy: Bruce Campbell

School
Head of House: Joshua Michau
Deputy: Imad Khan

White
Head of House: Nassar de Kock
Deputy: Dylan Wood

Gray
Head of House: James Mason
Deputy: Cameron Parker-Forsyth

Ogilvie
Head of House: Alec Rippon
Deputy: Matthew Reid

Kidd
Head of House: Luke Parker
Deputy: Paul Malherbe

Birt
Head of House: Liam Harrison
Deputy: Chris Scheepers

Mallett
Head of House: Abdul Maalik Kerbelker
Deputy: Thomas Buckham