INQUIRY BASED LEARNING PROJECT

Your sons might have mentioned that Tuesday and Wednesday’s academic programme was very different, largely outside of their normal classrooms and much of it involving the whole grade rather than within one Form class or set.

For the last year, the focus of our academic staff’s professional development has been on Inquiry Based Learning. The various facets of this programme are not fundamentally new to teachers, such as engaging boys on a topic, checking on their prior knowledge and then exploring the topic. But as a “package”, it serves to refresh teaching methodology and provides a process of reflection on the “how” of teaching and learning. The goal is to engage boys actively in their learning, where they seek the answers/solutions to a problem and produce something to illustrate or address the problem. Within the constraints of the timetable and with a number of subjects, it is difficult to provide the full IBL experience in its entirety too often, so we decided to take two days to use this method on one aspect of the curriculum of each grade.

Grades moved to whole grade venues and Grade 7s were fortunate to use the new Ubuntu Learning Centre at College, an ideal venue for this type of project. Collaboration and team teaching were major features of the day for each grade. Grade 3 concentrated on inventions, Grade 4 on “The Cape Town Olympic bid”, the Grade 5s on “What does it mean to be South African?”, Grade 6s on “How various cultures have influenced our rainbow nation” and the Grade 7s on “Gender-Based Violence”. Each grade worked towards a specific outcome, for example, in Grade 7, each group prepared a public service announcement video, each of which were watched by the grade at the end of the day yesterday.

There was certainly a very happy and excited buzz on the campus over the last two days and we will reflect and review the process in each grade with a view to planning and integrating such projects into teaching and learning going forward.

iPAD USAGE – WHAT EACH BOY HAS ON HIS iPAD

As you know, we continue to review our iPad programme in the light of world educational trends, feedback and checking on boys’ individual usage, bearing in mind that each educational setting has its own unique demands and issues. To repeat, the aim of our programme is to enhance teaching and learning, but we do acknowledge that some boys can abuse the programme and the use of the iPad itself, especially at home.

As part of the review, we decided that Grade 4s will only have two days’ usage and no homework that requires any use of the iPad. Grades 1-3 will no longer need to use any device at home to do programmes such as Mathletics and Reading Eggs. The advantages of such programmes will now be included in the school day in other forms.

So, what can boys have/download on their iPads?

Grade 4 – nothing other than the apps required by the school.
Grade 5 – nothing other than the apps required by the school.
Grade 6 – in addition to the required apps, a Games folder, including age appropriate games as approved by you, the parents, if you so wish to allow this.
Grade 7 – a Games folder as per the above and a Social Media folder, consisting of age appropriate platforms, as approved by each boy’s parents and with parental controls.

Each family makes their own decision about whether to allow their son to have age appropriate games and/or social media on their iPad.  They cannot use any of these at school as they will be blocked by our online security system, so they are for home use.

Please check regularly what your boys have on their iPads and how they are using them. The iPad is not a private device, as boys might like to tell us, but a device that you own and your sons need at school as an educational tool. Regular checking and discussions allow us to teach our boys about appropriate usage, screen time, digital citizenship and online behaviour.

CHANGE TO END-OF-TERM DATE
At the end of this term we host the Bishops 175 Cape Schools Cricket Festival, a Festival held alternatively in the Eastern and Western Cape, and traditionally starting on the last day of term.  As this Festival will require a number of our staff to be out of the classroom, we have decided to close school on Thursday, 19th rather than Friday, 20th September. This will only apply to the Prep. We will provide supervised care on Friday, 20th to any family that wishes to use it. I will send out an email regarding this later in the term.

Soccer Matches U9, U10 and U11 vs WPPS

Time: 15h00
Venue: Lutgensvale

GK Quiz

Time: 15h00 to 17h00

U12 Day/Night Hockey Tournament

You are welcome to join us at the U12 Day/Night Hockey Tournament. There will be food on sale all afternoon and refreshments available in the Woodlands Pavilion.

Holiday Clinics

Please click HERE if you are interested in attending the Soccer Clinic.

Please click HERE if you are interested in attending the Water Polo Clinic.

There was a lot of anticipation and excitement on Tuesday and Wednesday this week as the whole school spent these 2 days experiencing an Inquiry Based Learning Project..

The Grade 3s were asked the questions; What makes a good inventor? Can children be inventors? What problems do we face in our lives that we could solve by thinking up a new invention? They engaged on a journey learning about inventions, inventors and all the challenges and struggles that go with thinking outside the box. The boys got to be hands on creating, brainstorming and testing out inventions. It was a busy, science filled two days and the boys learnt a great deal working together as a grade.

The Grade 4s focussed on the Olympic Games. They were posed with the following: The IOC has selected you to be the organising committee to bid to host the 2036 Olympics in Cape Town, South Africa. How will you ensure that it is the best Olympic Games ever? The boys worked in groups and designed and created Mascots, they designed the 2036 logo, created a new sport, built stadiums and wrote a pitch to be presented. They learnt how to collaborate, work in a team and problem solving along with many fine and gross motor skills.

“What does it mean to be South African?” This was the driving question that the shaped the IBL program for the Grade 5s. They completed various activities, both individually as well as collaboratively in groups. They explored, discussed, researched and learnt about the various cultures and heritage within South Africa which enabled them to have a greater grasp of the diversity found within in our country. It started with an “I see, I think, I wonder” where they had to view and discuss various images, then into a research element which focused on all the various heritage sites found within South Africa. They then had an opportunity to looker a little bit closer at their own heritage by creating a coat of arms which reflected their individual heritage, and finally they participated a heritage food market where each Grade 5 was encouraged to provide food from their cultural background, the idea being that food would create discussion and therefore an appreciation an awareness of different cultures.

The question posed to the Grade 6s “How various cultures have influenced our rainbow nation”. They were asked to bring various foods from their own cultures and they had a tasting.  A video was shown highlighting the influence of many cultures on South Africans. The boys formed groups and were allocated countries and groups of people who have influenced South African culture and tradition. The boys also explored dance and performed for the class. Finally, the groups reported back through a presentation showing each groups' influence on us as South Africans through language, music, religion, infrastructure, legal systems, architecture, food and economics.  

The Grade 7s focused on gender-based violence. They discussed the impact of history, culture, religion, race, education and poverty on gender-based violence. They learnt skills around putting together a video and the 2 days culminated in them, working in groups to make and present a Public Service Announcement on gender-based violence. It was a very thought-provoking two days for the Grade 7 boys.

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A message from Mr Siko....."A huge thank you to all VdB families who participated in our 2024 Games Evening! Your involvement made it a resounding success. We're also incredibly grateful to all prize donors for your generous contributions. Special thanks to our VdB Heads and their parents for the brilliant idea of the "Amazing Race" theme. Your hard work in bringing this trendsetting event to life is truly commendable.

We're so proud of our Smurf Family!"

Please visit our Facebook page for more photos.