1

In This Issue

Welcome back!

Brand new building

Boarding House

Sport’s desk

Bursar’s desk

School times 2020

General notices

AGM & Parent Braai

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL! We’ve had a cracking start to the school year and everything seems to be going smoothly so far. We hope you and your children had a good break and that you are ready for the year ahead.

As I’m sitting at my desk typing this newsletter, I can hear the sound of lawnmowers outside in our garden. What a fantastic sound and one I haven’t heard for a long time! After the much needed rain we received over the last few weeks, we are grateful that we could start the new year with green lawns.

A very warm welcome to our new parents and children. We hope that your time here at BCS will be a long and happy one. We are like family here at school so please feel free at all times to discuss worries or share ideas with me. As is tradition, we will welcome our old and new families in the appropriate manner when we have our AGM and Parent braai on Friday, the 31st of January.

Welcome back to all our teachers and support staff! I hope that 2020 will be a year of many blessings—not only here at school, but also in your personal lives.

Our new Intermediate and Senior Phase teacher, Robynne Macfarlane, settled in very quickly and we are lucky to have this passionate teacher on our team. Her partner, Justin Dewing, has been appointed as our sports coach. We hope that BCS will exceed all your expectations and that you will be very happy and fulfilled here.

We also have a few other new faces: Micaela Heukelman is an old hand at the Boarding House and helps with the children in the afternoons, but she has also been appointed as classroom assistant in the Busy Bees class.

Annari Oosthuyzen is our new Art teacher. Many of you will know Annari from the wonderful art workshops she presented during the Garden Festival. We are so excited to have her on board!

Berdine Lombard will be our new private piano teacher in the place of Michaela van Blerk.

We also welcome 3 teacher moms to the Intermediate and Senior Phase classrooms: Christine King and Leanne Williams will be teaching on a part time basis. These 2 ladies are fully qualified teachers and will most certainly add to our academic curriculum. Cindy Wienand has also kindly offered to get involved in our Grade 7 Maths programme.

BEDFORD COUNTRY SCHOOL

Newsletter: Beginning Term 1 January 2020

and

Grade 5’s with Teacher

Robynne in their brand-

new classroom

Teacher Lilian and her

Grade 1’s

2

NEW BUILDING (23 GRAHAM STREET)

With the help of Piet du Toit and Richard Aucamp, we managed to purchase the house in between the main building and the pre-school for out Intermediate and Senior Phases.

This was part of the Governing Body’s new strategic plan which was finalized in June 2019.

Charles Brett took it upon himself to supervise the changes needed at the new building and worked tirelessly throughout the whole of December with his team of builders. The result is an open, friendly and modern space with an old world charm and lots of space. Thank you, Charles for all your hard work and for sacrificing your holiday to get everything ready!

We are terribly excited and teaching has been an absolute pleasure so far!

Although a lot of tidying up has already happened, more work needs to go into the playground to make it into an outdoor space where our children can flourish. We have many plans and also asked the children for some ideas. Please let me know if there are any of you who would like to get involved or who have things lying around at home that might be useful!

BOARDING HOUSE (THE NG CHURCH PASTORIE)

Our boarding house opened its doors this year with 9 permanent (4 nights per week) children and 6 part time boarders. Gail Stone is still at the helm with Micaela Heukelman helping her with the smaller children. Mechele Cawcutt, who was our homework tutor last year, is unfortunately not coming back to Bedford this year because of personal circumstances. We have been fortunate to find a new and capable tutor who will start at the end of January. I will send out a letter regarding this to our boarding house parents.

FROM THE SPORT’S DESK

We have a full and comprehensive sport’s programme planned for the year. Please take note of the sport days:

Grade 4—7: Mondays and Wednesdays (Term 1: Tennis and Cricket)

Grade 1—3: Tuesdays and Thursdays (Term 1: Tennis and Cricket)

Sport slots will be during the school day.

We will also resume our Cross Country running at 7:30 on a Wednesday and Friday for all children from Grade 1—7. We do have brand new BCS running vests available @ R150. Please enquire at the office.

We have decided to move our customary athletics meeting which was scheduled for the end of this week to term 4. This will enable our children to get fitter and also prepare them better for some field items.

Sim and Justin have sorted out the swimming squads and we will get started as soon as the indemnity forms with the Duke of Bedford Inn have been signed.

It is compulsory for all swimmers to wear swimming caps. The new regulation BCS swimming cap is available @ R50 from the office.

We have also ordered draw string dry bags which should arrive by the end of the week. These lovely bags will be ideal for wet swimming costumes and towels, takkies, socks, etc. Available @ R30 per bag.

3

VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Please take note of the following school times for different grades FOR THE WHOLE YEAR:

Note: Sim King will let you know about the Grade 1 & 2 swimming times for Term 1. This will be

between 1pm and 2pm on certain days.

Hockey has been scheduled for Term 2. Pre-season hockey practices will take place at the school during this term (see notice). These will be non-compulsory but we highly recommend it for your children.

Please make sure that your children come to school with white socks and white takkies on the sport days (they may come to school barefoot and put on their shoes before sport). All children must also have caps and a water bottle.

For any queries, contact Sim King on 071 365 2064

PRIVATE EXTRA-MURALS

Please contact the following people if you would like your child to participate in private extra-murals:

Berdine Lombard: Piano lessons (082 886 8890)

Berna van Niekerk: Guitar & Violin (082 501 1187)

Emile Bernard: Tennis (072 211 4366)

Darlene Theron: Gymnastics (079 774 5666)

Expenses for private extra-murals will be for your own pocket.

GRADE DAYS TIMES

PRE-SCHOOL & GRADE R MONDAYS—THURSDAYS 8AM—12:45PM

GRADE 1 & 2 MONDAYS-THURSDAYS 8AM-1PM

GRADE 3 MONDAYS-THURSDAYS 8AM-2PM

GRADE 4-7 MONDAYS-THURSDAYS 8AM-2PM

ALL GRADES FRIDAYS 8AM—12:30PM

4

FROM THE BURSAR’S DESK

Thank you to all our parents who pay timeously and diligently! Reminder that school fees are payable over

11 months before or on the 7th of each month. No school fees payable in December.

Please remember to put your initials and surname as reference when you make a payment. It is very

difficult to trace a payment without the necessary information.

Charles Brett has kindly agreed to return as our bursar for 2020 until such time as we find a suitable

replacement. We are so grateful to have such a competent person who can take over the reigns. For any

account queries, please contact Charles on admin.bcs@r63.co.za

REMINDER THAT BOOK FEES ARE PAYABLE BY THE END OF THIS TERM. We try our utmost to keep costs to

an absolute minimum every year and we will endeavour to do the same in 2020. Charles and I will be

reconciling our numbers this week and send info regarding costs to you as soon as possible.

FUNDRAISING

As you know, fundraising plays a very important role at BCS and will have to continue to do so if we want our

school to have the necessary resources needed. One of our main fundraisers is the Family Fun Weekend

which will take place on the weekend of the 13th and 14th of March 2020. This is always a fantastic

weekend full of entertainment for the whole family. We would like all our parents to participate in some

way in this weekend—whether it is participating in the running/cycling events or helping at the food and

entertainment or both. Parents who are unable to help on the day, will receive a raffle form to complete.

Please see the SAVE THE DATE attached at the end of this newsletter.

AFTERCARE

Our boarding house has a lot of children this year and we won’t be able to offer aftercare to non-boarding

house children at this facility. It was also used very seldom in the past for this purpose so we’ve moved all

aftercare to the main school building between 1 and 2 pm for pre-school and Grade R—2 children who are

on the bus to Adelaide or who are waiting for older siblings. This is free of charge and is a service offered by

the school. All other children must please be collected at the correct time. Obviously if there is a crisis, we

would try to help where we can. Children who take part in school extra-murals between 1 and 2 pm and

who need to be transported to, for instance the swimming pool, will be taken in the school bus.

SPEED LIMIT AND PARKING

We implore you, as parents, to please stick to the speed limit of DEAD SLOW, when driving in any of the

streets surrounding the 3 schools. Not only do we risk a child or teacher being run over, but the dust

resulting from speeding vehicles, settles on all the surrounding properties.

Please also heed our call to park in the side streets. We need to keep the front of the 3 buildings clear for

teachers’ parking and for movement of children and the school bus. There is ample space for parking in the

side streets.

Please inform all the people on your collection register of this new arrangement too.

SEE ATTACHED THE NEW COLLECTION REGISTER FOR 2020. Please return to school asap.

5

AGM AND PARENT BRAAI

Lastly, our AGM and Parent braai will take place on Friday, the 31st of January at school. The afternoon will kick

off with classroom visits from 17:00—17:45. Parents are welcome to visit their children’s classrooms and look

through their books, but please note that there won’t be time to discuss your child in detail with the teacher.

The AGM will start at 18:00 and Barend Meyer (Chairman of the Governing Body) and myself endeavour to keep

it short and to the point. While the meeting is in process, we will arrange for supervision for your children at

school.

After the meeting, our Governing Body members will serve you a delicious meal and a cash bar will also be avail-

able. The supper should start at around 18:45.

We would like as many parents as possible to join us for the evening as this is an opportunity to meet our new

parents and teachers. As always we will keep it affordable so that you can bring your whole family. To book for

supper, please fill in the tear-off slip at the bottom of this page and send back to school on or before Monday,

the 27th of January.

Thank you for entrusting your precious children into our care this year. I am personally very excited about the

year ahead and I want to assure you that my teachers and I will give it our all to provide your children with a

well-planned, fun-filled curriculum.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me at any time should you have any queries, concerns or suggestions.

Warmest wishes

Ammie Pringle

————————————————————————————————————————————————

20 January 2020

AGM and Parent supper on Friday, 31 January 2020

I, _______________________________________________, would like to book for the AGM Parent braai on

Friday, the 31st of January 2020.

MENU:

ADULTS: GOURMET HAMBURGER + FRENCH FRIES R70

CHLDREN: BOERIE ROLL, JUICE & ICE CREAM R30

Please indicate booking for adults and children. The correct amount of money must accompany this tear off

slip.

Number of adults: ___________

Number of children: ___________

TOTAL AMOUNT: ______________

6