NEWS

GRADE 6

🌸Spring Has Sprung in Grade 6! 🌸

We welcomed the new season with joyful Spring Day celebrations and the classroom came alive with colour, energy, and creativity. Learners embraced the spirit of spring by dressing up in bright outfits, decorating with flowers and sharing in the excitement of new beginnings. It was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate together as a class community and the cheerful atmosphere carried into all our lessons for the week. 🌸🌞🌼

In Afrikaans, our focus was on Indirekte rede (indirect speech). Learners practised changing sentences from direct speech to indirect speech and explored the little details that make it tricky but fun. 

A few helpful tips we worked with: 

✨ Remove the quotation marks when reporting speech. 

✨ Pay careful attention to the verb, it moves to the end of the sentence. 

✨ Don’t forget that we often use dat to join the two parts of the sentence. 

With these tools in hand, learners are becoming more confident in spotting and applying the differences between direct and indirect speech.

In PSW, we explored the theme of conflict resolution by watching a video that gave learners practical tips for solving disagreements — especially those that come up with siblings or friends. The video reminded us that conflict is normal, but how we respond makes all the difference. Learners discussed the importance of listening carefully, staying calm instead of reacting in anger, and choosing words that build others up rather than break them down. They reflected on their own experiences and shared strategies they could use in real-life situations. These conversations encouraged learners to reflect on kindness, empathy, and how they can contribute to creating a more peaceful environment, both at school and at home. 💚

In English, we worked on understanding the difference between active and passive voice in sentences. Learners discovered that in the active voice, the subject does the action (e.g., The dog chased the cat), while in the passive voice, the subject receives the action (e.g., The cat was chased by the dog). 

Some useful tips included: 

🖊️ If you want your sentence to be more direct and lively, choose active voice. 

🖊️ Passive voice is useful when the doer of the action is unknown or not important (e.g., The window was broken). 

🖊️ Watch out for the verb “to be” (was, were, is) followed by the past participle — that’s often a sign you’re in passive voice. 

Learners practised switching sentences between active and passive, which gave them more flexibility in their writing.

GRADE 4

🌸 Spring Day Celebrations: Our Grade 4s kicked off the week in style by celebrating Spring Day! Learners came dressed in bright colours, flower crowns, and cheerful accessories, turning the school into a festival of colour. The atmosphere was joyful and festive, with laughter, sunshine, and plenty of spring spirit.

📖 English Adventures: In English, our learners became curious interviewers as they asked their classmates all about their thoughts and feelings on our set workbook, James and the Giant Peach. The interviews led to thoughtful reflections, surprising discoveries, and lots of laughter as learners compared their different perspectives on the story’s characters and adventures.

🌍 Life Skills Learning: For Life Skills, the Grade 4s proudly completed their Culture Project, exploring the many unique and diverse cultures found in South Africa. Learners shared their findings on clothing, food, music, traditions, and celebrations, gaining a deeper appreciation of the beauty and richness of our country’s heritage.

🦁 Afrikaans Fun: In Afrikaans, learners studied a real advert and enjoyed exciting class discussions about what makes adverts catchy and effective. Inspired by this, they created their very own adverts in Afrikaans, for their own wildtuin! The results were filled with creativity, humour, and originality!

Growing Minds Shields

The future requires people who are innovative, humanity-centred, relationship-oriented, compassion-focused, values-driven, globally-conscious and planet-sensitive, in order to guarantee that this generation will become REAL agents of change.   The values necessary to sustain life on earth, as humans and environmentalists, are incorporated in five global competencies across our curriculum under our “Growing Minds” banner: Critical Thinkers, Effective Communicators, Purposeful Collaborators, Creative Agents and Responsible Citizens.

In assembly this week we awarded the following learners growing minds shields. Congratulations to each of you and well done on being nominated for this award.  

Art Entries from the Western Cape Virtual Eisteddfod

Robotics

It’s been an exciting week in our robotics spaces! All our robotics teams participated in a workshop on diversity and equity, where they acquired valuable skills through games and discussions led by our school's Diversity and Equity Committee.

Our WRO teams are in full preparation mode for nationals, just one week away, and the excitement (and anticipation!) is definitely building.

In Class Robotics, our Grade 5 and 6 learners have been diving deep into SPIKE robots. They’ve explored how the interface works, learned to use sensor values to improve their code, and discovered what a drive base does—and how to enhance it! They’ve also been learning about pseudocode, commenting, and using sensors like the force, distance, and color sensors. Using repeat blocks and if-then blocks, they’ve been coding the Lego Spike Base robots to complete a variety of tasks - putting their coding skills and problem-solving to the test.

It’s been a week full of teamwork, creativity, and robotics challenges, and we can’t wait to see what the learners come up with next!

SPORT 

Senior Prep Week that was:

It’s been another busy and exciting week of sport at Parklands Prep Senior Prep, with our learners showcasing determination, teamwork, and pride in the Blue and White across hockey, netball, and chess.

🏑 Hockey vs CBC

• U11 Girls: Won 1–0 – A brilliant performance with Rachel leading by example as Player of the Match.

• U13 Girls: Drew 0–0 – A tightly contested game with some fantastic defensive work. Sofia DCS named Player of the Match.

🏐 Netball vs Milnerton

• U10A: Won 6–4 – Unako starred as Player of the Match.

• U10B: Won 9–2 – Great teamwork with Iva named Player of the Match.

• U11A: Lost 2–19 – A strong Milnerton side, but our girls showed resilience. Giovanni named Player of the Match.

• U11B: Lost 1–14 – Tough fixture, but Olu kept fighting until the end.

• U12A: Lost 2–14 – A committed effort, with Christiano showing grit.

• U12B: Lost 1–9 – The team battled hard with Alyssa awarded Player of the Match.

♟️ Chess vs Sophakama Primary (Mixed U13)

• Parklands Prep went down 4–2 in a closely fought contest. Tobi stood out as Player of the Match with a confident display on the board.

💙 Another week of learning, growth, and competitive spirit. Well done to all our Senior Prep learners for showing grit and sportsmanship across every fixture!

Sport Quick Links

Cultural Tour for Juniors to Paris in September 2026

Parklands College is planning a Cultural Tour to Paris in September 2026 for our current Grade 5, 6 & 7 learners. 

Should you be interested in your child participating in the tour, or require further information, please email Mme A Bailly at abailly@parklands.co.za.  A truly memorable cultural experience awaits!

Quick Links

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Here are some important dates for this quarter:

Have a wonderful weekend,

Paul Mayers

Senior Preparatory Principal

pmayers@parklands.co.za 

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Links to other faculty blogs:

Pre-Primary Faculty: https://ppblog.parklands.co.za

Junior Preparatory Faculty: https://jpblog.parklands.co.za 

Secondary Faculty: https://secblog.parklands.co.za