The children and staff returned from the Easter holiday refreshed and we have enjoyed a few weeks of lovely autumn sunshine; the colder nights have started and children are coming to school in their winter woollies!

Onam in his woolly hat.

Visits from Friends:

The lovely Glass Family came for a visit to Emyezweni in April; Nikki, Anna and Rachel all worked at the school last year during their extended stay in South Africa and Tata Charles gave us advice and help with school management strategies. It was great to catch up with them and the children and staff were so pleased to see their friends again.

Members of The Glass Family in their Emyezweni T-shirts!

Fundraising:

In April we were given a beautiful doll complete with knitted clothing and a mini electric guitar by friends of Emyezweni; we decided to raffle them within school so that two of our children would have the chance to own them! The children saved up some of their snack money each day and each paid R1 to buy a raffle ticket either for the doll or the guitar, some of them did jobs at home for friends and family members and earned money to buy more than 1 ticket. Staff members also bought tickets and we raised R400 in total. The two winners were so pleased with their prizes and the rest of the school were consoled by marshmallows and fruit sweets!

Sinalo and Ayabonga with their raffle prizes.

We have received two very generous donations from friends of Emyezweni, Adrian Smith completed the Cape Argus cycle race and raised £900 for us and Charlotte Shepherd held a mammoth cake sale at her place of work after a visit to the school and raised £600 . We are so grateful to these people and others like them who continue to support us with donations and gifts.

Staff:

Exciting news for our Toddler Class, Mama Gloria is expecting a baby in July and will go on maternity leave at the end of May. Mama Zandile, an Emyezweni volunteer will take over the running of the class until she returns.

Mama Gloria with some of the children from her class.

Beth Rudge, our sports coach, and founder of The Helderberg Academy, has been busy working with the Primary school children during the first half of this year. Beth is a qualified PE teacher from the UK, she has a sports ministry combining sport with life skills coaching and our Grade 2 and 3 classes have benefitted enormously from their sessions with her.

 Later this Term:

We have a series of four Literacy workshops happening this term we will be concentrating on reading skills and offering parents the chance to develop practical skills to use with their children in order to improve reading throughout our school community. This will continue throughout the year with sessions on writing and speaking and listening. Our Community Development worker, Blossom Raphoto will be running these with input from the School teaching team.
Grade R will be visiting our local museum later this term in order to learn about the history of the Lwandle Community and then return to school for an indoor picnic and games session.

Deborah Gregory.

Emyezweni Principal.