UJ Career festival 2021- Empowering and enabling the youth

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High school learners are often not sure about where to start when it comes to choosing the right option for their futures. To make the choice a little easier for them, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the Northcliff Rotary Club, in partnership with the Canon Collins Trust and BTS Army South Africa, invited all Grade 8 – Grade 12 learners to attend the online Career Fest on Saturday August 21, 2021. Hendrik Kanise Combined School was part of that virtual fest. The career fest closed off with a message from the BTS Army of South Africa and prize giveaways to learners.

Thank you to Mrs Dyasi for organising this wonderful event.

Donation to our library by broubart security and the Wood family

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The Broubart Security group together with the Wood family decided to land a helping hand to the school’s new library project where they purchased over 2000 books for the school from the St Bernard’s 2nd hand shop. The Library project is still a work in progress and it will be a huge help for the reading club as the club not only now has a new venue but also a huge amount of books that will also be an asset the club members.

A big thank you to the Wood family for the willingness to help.

Principal note October 2021

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Greetings to all of you,

Whew! the term which has been chequered by uncertain, polysemous bigotry has finally come to an end. The infrequent academic year has caused more harm than good to many of our schools. Learners drop-outs, inadequate curriculum coverage and corrosion in discipline to mention, but a few has plagued our schools.

We have been living under the shadow of the pandemic for more than 574 days counting. We have experienced much hardship, and the most difficult of these has been the innumerable relatives, colleagues, and friends we have lost to this pandemic. We mourn every one of them.

Naturally, we cannot wait to resume many activities that we have been unable to do for

much of the past two years. We want to attend tradition rituals, birthday parties and other

social functions freely with our friends and family. Enough about my ramblings.

ACADEMICS

As the saying goes, every dark  cloud has a silver lining. Our  school has been spared of the

sorrow the pandemic has brought and we were in full throttle as far as academics are

concerned. Allow me to welcome new additions to our staff: Mr Vayo, Melikaya and

Miss Ntozini,Zimkhitha  who are both teaching in the Intermediate and Foundation phase

respectively. Spring classes will continue for the Matrics and the Last Push is in progress.

CO-CURRICULA

Born Free Foundation  has been the lodestar to our learners with the edu-environment

programs this term. Also, we had an opportunity to honour the Arbor Day by planting  trees

at the school.

CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Heritage Day was celebrated to the glee of all. Our learners were allowed to showcase their

talent in this very successful event. Music is the food of the soul, the music talent show unearthed the best of the learners.

DONATION

The school is eternally grateful to Mike and Helen Wood of the Broubart Group for the kind donation of library materials, this can only enhance our school and grow the learning nation.

Before I sign off, our thoughts and prayers go to our dear colleague, the industrious Mrs Dyasi who was befallen with a mishap as we wrap up the term. May the Gracious Lord shelter her under His wing.

Till we meet again,    ( Myona, M.P- Principal)

BFF Club

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BFF CLUB

The school recently joined hands with The Shamwari group to form a BFF club (Born Free Foundation) club. The club’s programme is designed to impart knowledge and change attitudes, generally relating to animal welfare and conservation, involving long term engagement with a group of stakeholders and aims to:

  • Increase knowledge about wildlife and biodiversity (threats and benefits)
  • Increase positive attitudes towards wild animal conservation.
  • Increase knowledge of the benefits of practices that promote good animal welfare.
  • Increase the number of people actively engaged in ongoing programmes of work.
  • Decrease in acceptance of practices that result in bad animal welfare or cruelty.
  • Increase in perceived future opportunities/prospects for individuals.

The number of learners that can take part in the activities of the club is limited to between 36 and 50 learners but the school only took 30 participants. Wildlife club places are open to grade 5 to 11 learners and Grade 12 learners are not included in the club due to their workload. There is no limit on how long learners can be part of the wildlife club. However, to remain part of the club learners must:

  • Attend at least 90% of club sessions and have clear reasons for any absences
  • Regularly get involved with activities arranged by the club
  • Conduct themselves in a way that is consistent with Born Free’s and the club’s ethos.
  • If learners fail to achieve the above, they will be given one warming. If no improvement is made, they will forfeit their place.

Places that become available will be allocated based on the strength of the application. Learners can gain points (to be signed off by the club patron) for taking part in activities arranged by the club such as litter picking, school garden and other relevant activities. The group will be divided into 2 or 3 groups when teaching, to compensate for the differences in comprehension.  Theses group can be formed based on schooling level/grade as follows:

  • Low grades (beginner)
  • Middle grades (intermediate)
  • Seniors (advanced).

Learners can move between groups the longer they are in the club, different activities need to be developed per module/topic to accommodate different groups and allow for the advancement of learners. Roles within the club (e.g., captain) will be rotated each year

Digital badges

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The Power of Digital badges

Reports from researchers shows that rewards promotes learning. The rewards seems to have many positive effect not only on learning, but also on the personal development of learners. Through badge rewards they are able to gain confidence and their grades improve entirely. I believe that is why the school decided to adapt and is now starting a new tradition where learners will be rewarded in the form of being given digital badges for a term. The teachers are hoping it will encourage earners to find value and motivation in mastering the steps toward their high school goals. On the 4th of June a badge ceremony was conducted at the assembly and learners were given their badges to appreciate the good work they did in the 1st term.

We are looking forward to many more badge ceremonies.

Library week

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Six learners from our school participated in national library week that was done at a local library on the 24 & 25 of March. The participants were in grade 5 and 6. They took part in an English quiz and book reading in isiXhosa. In the English quiz Vayo Iminathi took first place followed by Aphiwe Tulela on 2nd place then Alupheli Dingaan in 3rd place. In the isiXhosa reading Mbasa Mbilini took first place followed by Likhona Zothe in 2nd place then Onwabe Cummings in 3rd place. It was a fun and educational experience for our learners.

Hopefully next year we will have more participants.

RCL 2021

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On the 10 of March the school held an RCL manifesto where the learner were the learners were selling themselves to be voted to be in the Representative Council of the Learners(RCL). Then on the 11th the learners voted for the learners that felt would represent them very well in the RCL, as their mission is to unify the Hendrik Kanise community by encouraging communication and by serving, supporting and inspiring learners to become active front in all spheres of life.

The learners unanimously voted for Liyema Gcayiya, Liyema Ndzandze, Landiswa Ntamo, Phelisa Madondile, Thembakazi Tsamse, Lindokuhle Matyhumza, Phethuxolo Vayo, Khanyisa Kana, Sinothando Lalela and Siyanda Mpahla.

We wish them a very good luck in making sure the school is a safe environment for all learners including the RCL members.

South African Police services visit

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The South African Police Services together with the members from Makana Rape Victims visited the grade 7s & 8s learners11th of March on the to discuss the issues that learners are facing at school and at home. The topics that they thought were very important to discuss were Bullying, Theft and Rape. As we all know that Rape has escalated together with bullyism in our communities, the purpose wash to teach the learners the importance of not keeping quiet about being bullied at school and the steps one should follow when raped. After the talk hey gave 5 learners toiletries as a token of appreciation for participating in their fun talk.

Thanks giving ceremony 2021

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On the 5th of March we held our annual thanks giving ceremony which is our way of saying thank you to the lord for being with us through the hardships of the year. Especially with how things turned out last year after the whole world was hit by the COVID-19, things have been very weird and worrisome. That was a very good reason to say ‘Thank you’ to the Almighty for making sure that everyone in the school’s faculty was safe from the deadly pandemic we were faced with in the past year.

Greetings from our principal Mr. Myona.

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Greetings to all, it is surreal that this first term is coming to an end. Phew! What an indifferent and onerous term it has been, having to navigate and adjust in the ‘new normal’ caused by the Covid-19 pandemic which has disrupted the verve associated with schooling.

Despite a challenging year, with all odds stacked against them, the Class of 2020 did the school proud, surpassing a benchmark laid by their predecessors with an outstanding 92,8% pass rate, the best in recent past. Fortitude and hard work displayed by both educators and learners can never be discounted.

Cautiously, the school had to adjust and adopt a rotational timetable to maximize contact time with learners. Unfortunately, the Foundation phase classes (Grade 2 &3) were dealt a heavy blow as their teachers did not come back after the heavy lockdown of 2020.

The school was granted 16 appointees through the PEEI (Presidential Education Employment Initiative whose contracts run out by the April, 30.

School safety remains a priority during these trying times and the school has to make better use of the JoJo tanks for storage as water has become a scarce commodity.

We wish all our school community a healthy and safe year ahead.

Till we meet again in the second term which resumes in May, 3 2021. All the best!

Myona, Monde (HKCS-Principal)