College Newsletter - 15 June 2012

12/06/2012

Dear Boys, Parents and Staff

Builders of Peace

On the eve of celebrating Youth Day in South Africa, we need to recall Pope Benedict's words in his New Year’s sermon in Vatican City on 2 January 2012. In his sermon, Pope Benedict called today’s young people essential to a hopeful future in the face of "shadows on the horizon of today's world."

"I would like to underline the fact that, in the face of the shadows that obscure the horizon of today's world, to assume responsibility for educating young people in knowledge of the truth, in fundamental values and virtues, is to look to the future with hope," the Pontiff said. Pope Benedict XVI did not disclose the specific social issues that contribute to society’s “shadows,” - there are so many - but expressed his belief that young people were the key to fighting them.

According to the Pope, today’s youth must "learn the importance and the art of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect, dialogue and understanding. Young people by their nature are open to these attitudes, but the social reality in which they grow up can lead them to think and act in the opposite way, even to be intolerant and violent," Pope Benedict said. Let us pray that the Pope's wish that young people will become "builders of peace" will soon become a reality. Let us pray too, that we, as parents and teachers, will have the wisdom and strength to guide them along their path.

St Benedict's Day Mass - Invitation to Parents, old boys and friends

Exam Timetables

The Grade 8 to 11 Midyear Exam Timetable and the Grade 12 Prelim Exam timetable are available for download at the following links:

• August Examinations 2012 Grade 8-11
• Gr 12 Preliminary Exam Timetable 2012

The exam session will be preceded by a week of practical assessments. The schedule is available for download here:  Practical Exam Schedule

Old Boys' Platform

We are very excited about the new old boys’ social networking platform that we have incorporated into our website. In its first 4 days, 100 old boys joined the site! Be sure to continue emailing the link to all your old boy contacts! http://www.stbenedicts.co.za/oldboys

Online Credit Card Payments

St Benedict's parents can now enjoy the convenience of making online credit card payments to the school. The facility does not only apply to the payment of school fees but can be used to pay for tours, dinners etc.

Payments using the St Benedict's payment facility are processed through Paygate. PayGate processes each transaction using the latest Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption, to ensure that all data sent from your browser to PayGate can only be read by the PayGate servers. The SSL encryption, is the world standard for secure data transmission over the Internet and is supported by all mainstream browsers. Because the information is encrypted while in transit, even if it is intercepted it is useless to anyone.

The online payment facility has been thoroughly tested  - from payment through to reconciliation by the bursar - by our website development team. Please visit the Payments page at the following link: Online Payments.

Grade 9 IT Programming Workshop

This year is an important year for Grade 9 boys with regard to subject choice.  To help your son decide whether he is capable of programming and will enjoy IT, we have designed a camp that will expose your son to the basics of programming.  We will be using Robomind, a free open source program.  The lessons will be available on the moodle web site.

If your son intends taking IT as a senior subject, he must attend the workshop.  Should he decide he is not interested in IT, then he does not need to write the exam.

The camp will take place  on Wednesday, 11 July (after school) and on Friday, 13 July after St Benedict’s Day.

During the July examination the boys will be required to write a 1 hour practical exam using Robomind. The camp will presented by Mrs Kench and Mr Gill.  It will take place in two of the high school computer centres.  Each class can take a maximum of 26 students so booking is essential.  Please remember that in order to do IT, boys need to achieve a minimum of 60% for Maths. 

Please would boys reply if they will be attending the workshop as soon as possible, as the classes are filling up.  Some parents have indicated that their son’s will be away at sporting fixtures.  The notes are available on the moodle: workshop notes.

Please note that your son will have to write the July exam to qualify, but they are welcome to see Mrs Kench at any time before the exam if they need help. 

Grade 8 IT/Geography Project - Survey

Our Grade 8 boys are currently completing a carbon footprint project for Geography and IT.  We have created a survey for each household to fill in.  The Grade 8 boys will analyse the data using a spreadsheet and then draw conclusions using their summarised data.  Please would you be so kind as to complete the questionnaire. It has 10 very easy questions and should take no more than 2 minutes.  The survey is anonymous.

Click on the link to access the survey: Carbon Footprint Survey.

IT Showcase

In the wake of an extremely successful launch last year, we have decided to once again host an IT Showcase at St Benedict's. We are hoping that the showcase will continue to grow and attract top IT candidates from all around Johannesburg.  The showcase will take place on 27 September and we are looking for sponsors for prizes and small items for goodie bags.

Last year, the St Benedict's parents were most generous with their prizes and they were most appreciated by our IT department and the recipients.

Grade 12 IT Assessment dates

Grade 12 boys and parents are reminded of the following important dates for IT assessments:

• Wednesday, 27 June 2012: SBA – Standardised SQL Test
• Wednesday, 11 July 2012: SBA – Standardised Normalisation Test

As these tests are set and written across the cluster, boys who are absent on this day will need to provide a doctor's certificate.

Matric Winter School

As is customary at St Benedict's, we will be running a Grade 12 Winter school during the mid-term term. Although the Winter school is not compulsory, it is recommended that the grade 12 boys made full use of this opportunity. The following subjects will be offered (subject to change): Afrikaans; Physical Science;  IT/CAT; Accounting; History; Life Sciences; Art and Drama.

Additional support in Maths will be provided on the Maths camps which are being organised.

The Winter School schedule is available for download at the following link: Timetable for Winter School.  Parents who have any queries are welcome to email Mrs Mogg at moggj@stbenedicts.co.za.

Matric Dance - Photographs

Grade 12 boys who wish to place orders and pay for matric dance photos should see Mrs Dubrovo the in front office of the College Admin block.  The photographer is Richard O’Donoghue and he is selling photos at R85 per set (one x A4 and 2 x A5).  Any additional photos that boys might want taken shoule be arranged directly between the boys/families and Mr O’Donoghue himself.

A Disappointing Drive

The response to our second blood drive of the year which took place on Monday was very slow. For whatever reason… colds, the cold. work, fear…? Only 56 units were donated. So no record-breaking drive this time, but 56 units will still save a LOT of lives. Thank you to all - boys, staff and parents - who supported the drive.

Carpe Diem!

On Saturday, 9 June 2012 St Benedict’s College performed their production of Carpe Diem! in the finals of the 43rd RAPS Schools’ One-Act Play Festival and were placed third overall. They also won Best Ensemble and Most Promising Actor for Ricardo Cruz as Mr Keating. At the finals, Carpe Diem! competed against Randfontein High’s production of The Youth League, which was placed second, and King Edward VII School’s production of Blackout, which won the festival.

The cast and crew of Carpe Diem! gave of their absolute best in all three of their performances and received a standing ovation at the finals. The adjudicators commended them on taking on such an ambitious project and succeeding in adapting a screenplay to stage.  Carpe Diem! was also nominated for Best Written Director’s Motivation, Best Decor and Set, and Best Cameo for Rorisang Moseli as Mr Nolan.

A Big Thank You!

Pictured from left to right are Benedict’s College boys Kudakwashe Mundove, Nyasha Tarusenga and Shingari Mureirwa. Accompanying them is Mr Gregg Bissict of Bain and Company.

Gregg is an old boy of St Benedict’s who now works for Bain who donated 3 laptop computers to sufficiently motivated boys. The motivations included things such as “ … I would use it for research purposes, especially for the Future Problem Solving Group” and “…. at the end of grade 9, I achieved 5 distinctions and an average of 82% and qualified for academics colours” as well as “ … I am an IT student and would use it to run Java and NetBeans.”

Results of Grade 12 Raffle

Scrap Booking Weekend at Parnassus

Fixtures versus St Stithians

Last Saturday, St Benedict’s travelled to Saints on one of the coldest Saturday’s of the season.

The First XI Hockey game started well for St Stithians who forced a short corner in the 3rd minute. A well worked set piece saw the hosts take an early lead. Continued pressure by the Saints team resulted in a second goal inside the first ten minutes. The Bennies boys tried extremely hard to get themselves back into the game but came up against a very resilient Saints goalkeeper who pulled off numerous saves. The end result being 2-0 to St Stithians.

Rugby matches across the board  - as expected - were HOTLY contested affairs. The u/14 A team maintained their unbeaten record, in all full fixtures against local schools, beating Saints 41-3. The U/15 team, under the new captaincy of Ross Rugheimer won 22-0.  The u/16 team has gone from strength to strength and won 30-15. The second team beat Saints 16-6, a huge effort was put in by this team, led by their “never say die” captain Keegan Van Der Linde. The first team suffered a 12 – 14 loss in the dying minutes of the game. Both teams played hard, uncompromising rugby. Tries were scored by Sipshile Hlomza and Ra-Iq Ploker while M Smit managed one conversion.

Rugby Fun Day

Rugby Golf Day

Cricket Quiz Evening

We are so proud of...

Congratulations to the following boys who have been selected to represent the Easterns Provincial  hockey teams who will participate in the various Inter Provincial Tournaments in July.

Eastern U18A Team

• Tyler Cleeve
• Lorenzo Visentin
• Guy Adam
• Marco De Castro
• Warren Prospero
• Matthew Ford
• Ciaran Burkes
• James Whitehead
• Christopher De Freitas

Easterns U18B Team

• Steven Cox

Easterns U16A Team

• Keegan McCullough
• Tyrone van der Walt
• Dean Metcalfe
• Norman Hankey
• Timothy Whitehead
• Steven Paulo
• Brandon Joseph

Easterns U16B Team

• Kyle Norrie
• Chad Futcher
• Liam Burks
• Gianluca Patrizi
• Vineeth Vijayakumar
• Grant Cunningham
• Mohammed Saloojee

Easterns U14A Team

• Brenton Stroberg
• Damian Tamine
• Ross Capazorro
• James Marais
• Glenn Muller

Easterns U14B Team

• Jason Randall
• Thabang Mnisi
• Matthew Jackson

Winter Sports Dinner

In recent years, our annual Sports Dinners have become increasing "problematic". The most frustrating problem for the organisers - in terms of set up and catering - has always been parents' tardiness in paying for tickets or arriving at the dinner without having paid at all.  This year, we have decided to experiment with a different format. We will be hosting a combined Sports Dinner with Hockey and Rugby players and parents coming together on the same evening at the same function. Attendance will be by invitation only and will be restricted to 1st team / matric players and prizewinners in other age groups.

The date which has been set aside for the Winter Sports Dinner is 26 June 2012.6 June 2012.

Sports Results

Hockey vs St Stithian’s College

• SBC 14C  1-0
• SBC 14B  2-1
• SBC 14A  2-4
• SBC 15C  2-2
• SBC 15B  3-0
• SBC 15A  2-0
• SBC 3RD  1-2
• SBC 2ND  2-2
• SBC 1ST  0-2

Rugby vs St Stithian’s

• SBC 14C 5-52
• SBC 14B 22-19
• SBC 14A 41-3
• SBC 15C 10-24
• SBC 15B 20-14
• SBC 15A 22-0
• SBC 16C 5-10
• SBC 16B 10-17
• SBC 16A 30-15
• SBC 5TH 5-70
• SBC 4TH 18-26
• SBC 3RD 12-48
• SBC 2ND 16-6
• SBC 1ST 12-14

Tennis

• SBC 1ST  9-0  Parktown Boys

Sports Week Ahead

To God be the Glory

A C Oosthuysen