Dear Parents
Welcome back to Bishops and the 2020 school year. The boys seem refreshed and ready to go. A particular welcome to the Prep to all Grade 3s and new boys in other grades and their families. I hope their experience is going to be an exciting and stimulating one.
Staff
Welcome too to a number of new staff:
- Karen Dallas – our new Deputy Head with responsibility for Academics (please note that Chris Groom now heads Sport and Extra-Murals)
- Yi-Yi Lin – Grade 3 Intern
- Storm Philips – Stooge
- Axola Diniso – Stooge
- Melody Green – Part-time Music School Administrator
- Jeremy Smith – Youth Pastor (this is a part-time role as Mr Smith is also part-time pastor at St Thomas’ Church)
Murray Anderson is undergoing a major back operation today and will be away until next term. We pray for a successful operation and a speedy recovery. One of our past staff members and former Head of Maths, Sue Burgess, will substitute for him.
Sadly, Steve Mendes has decided to leave teaching for commerce and he finishes at Bishops at the end of the month. He has held a number of responsibilities over and above class teaching: Bramley Assistant Housemaster, Head of Swimming and English as well as 1st team Hockey coach. He is extremely competent and an organiser of note. We are grateful for his contribution and wish him well as he starts this new chapter in his working life. Former English teacher and Head of English at the Prep, Lynne Adelbert, will substitute until the end of term.
Counselling / Academic Support
Marileen Harrod, our Academic Support Co-ordinator across the Prep and Pre-Prep, has moved to the College and will be the full-time Educational Psychologist at the Bishops Support Unit after nine years in her position at the Prep. She has taken learning support, monitoring of boys with learning difficulties, co-ordinating classroom strategies and liaising with parents to a completely new level. As a result, we have an extremely effective and streamlined system, one that really ensures a safety net for our boys and the best chance for each boy to reach his maximum potential. We will certainly miss her but she is not lost to Bishops.
As a result, we have decided to make some structural changes and have one psychologist at each of the Prep and Pre-Prep who will be both Counsellor and Learning Support Co-Ordinator. They will work closely together but it means that the psychologist is always on the one campus. Juanté Di Tripani, our new Counsellor last year, will take over the joint role at the Pre-Prep.
Please be assured that the handovers, with boys, staff and parents, will be very carefully managed to make them as seamless as possible. We have appointed Laura Cook, a psychologist working at two schools in Gauteng, to the Prep. As she can only assume the position in April, Anne McDonald, our former Counsellor, will substitute until the end of the term.
Thank you for reading this – I know it is a lot of information.
Best wishes for 2020.
Kind regards
GREG BROWN
HEADMASTER |
