Moving down to the last of the twenties with ‘21’ school days left to celebrate for the remainder of the third quarter. We have all enjoyed a busy term which has seen this quarter fly past with no slowing down in the remaining days ahead.
SCHOOL HOLIDAYS
You may have heard that there had been discussion at higher levels in education to amend the school holiday period which was down to starting on Friday 1 October for a week, to return for term 4 on Monday 11 October.
Please note that the Minister of Education has officially announced that there will be no change to the holiday period date. This is wonderful news for staff, boys and families who have all worked around these dates ie. – break-up day remains Friday 1 October.
I also draw your attention to the Public Holiday of Heritage Day which will be celebrated on Friday 24 September thus creating a long weekend. I call on all Prep partners to remain focussed on these 21 days left by ensuring that we continue to maintain this positive synergy on a daily basis right through until our holiday period.
COVID UPDATE
Thank you to the entire Prep community for the teamwork noted with regards to maintaining our health and safety standards. I would like to share with you some actual facts based on statistics up until today checked and monitored with each class educator. Although we are all consciously aware of the Covid concerns at present, the entire school from Grade R to Grade 7 this week have only 1 Prep Boy who has tested positive and is away from school. There are only 4 boys who are away in isolation because of “a family member” having tested positive with these boys expected to return soon.
We will not relax our monitoring and practising of our health and safety standards and our communicating with the respective family of a Covid concern. As soon as we hear of a positive Covid case of a boy at Prep then we will inform the entire grade as soon as possible.
You did receive our latest Covid Protocols guidelines sent home via email etc. last Friday which clearly explained the various scenarios. Please keep these guidelines close by so that we as staff and parents can work together from this document.
You will also see a “Timeline Form” attached – please complete if ever needed for positive cases, isolating purposes and for recording of names of Prep boys as close contact if any. This form as stated must be immediately filled in and returned directly to the class educator who will forward it onto me as well so that we all remain informed.
Congratulations and thank you DPHS for our combined achievements during these challenging times. We take this opportunity to wish all our partners a healthy and extremely safe period throughout the rest of the term.
I do hope that by sharing such statistics it does bring peace of mind for all Prep families. I plan to share such statistics on a regular basis even if our numbers did happen to increase so that you are aware of the actual facts.
EXTRA MURALS
Once again I highlight how heart-warming it has been to see staff, coaches, boys and parents actively involved in assisting/ensuring that our boys in all age groups are attending their respective programmes. This also includes our Grade R Ball skills/Garv progammes. It was so encouraging to see so many Grade 1 boys and staff out at hockey skills last Saturday morning at 7h30 at Riverside Astroturf – even though it had been raining and was icy cold. Prep was there and making it happen.
The delight continues to now see some new codes in action with a full programme to choose from and commit to as advertised namely: choir, cross-country, touch rugby, art club, cricket, hockey, marimba band, tennis, computer club, hockey, hip hop dance club, gumboot club, music theory in no particular order.
Thank you to all Prep partners for making this happen.
SPRING CELEBRATION
We welcomed Spring into school on Wednesday 1 September this week but we also celebrated our Secretaries/Administration Staff on this day as well. I would like to highlight these staff members as a team for their professional expertise and outstanding service that they provide sometimes in the front line or behind the scenes in their roles and offices.
Thank you in abundance to our Secretaries/Administration staff for your loyal service always being there for our DPHS community.
CONGRATULATIONS MR PREP
Congratulations to the following boys:
JP – Tyler Hardwick – Grade 3 Veerasamy
SP – Raees Jhazbhay – Grade 4 Schamotta
HEADMASTERS QUOTE FOR THE WEEK
“If everyone is moving forward together
then success takes care of itself”
B WILSON
Headmaster
