Dear Parents

Today’s Burger Day was filled with excitement as the children enjoyed creating their very own burgers for lunch. With a variety of toppings to choose from, each child had the opportunity to assemble their burger just the way they liked it. The children thoroughly enjoyed the special treat, and it was lovely to see the excitement and smiles as they enjoyed their delicious creations together.

A very special thank you to Chef Kerry and Rita for preparing such a delicious lunch and making the day so enjoyable for the children.

100 Aker Wood Concert 

We are filled with excitement as we look ahead to our upcoming 100 Aker Wood Concerts on 4 and 5 June in the Junior Preparatory Amphitheatre (outdoor venue).

The children have been working incredibly hard in preparation, and we cannot wait to share these special performances with you.

Concert Dates & Times

Thursday, 4 June | 09:00 – 10:00

• Grade 000 & 00
  (Tiggers, Piglets, Honey Bees, Pooh Bears & Roos)

Friday, 5 June | 09:00 – 10:00

• Grade R
  (Christopher Robins, Edward Bears, Kangas, Owls & Rabbits)

Please note that our Grade R ballerinas will perform on both concert days. However, Grade R ballerina families are kindly requested to purchase tickets for the Friday concert only, allowing all Grade 000 and 00 families the opportunity to attend comfortably within our venue capacity.

Tickets & Seating

Each family will have the opportunity to attend the concert on their child’s grade day. Due to limited space, we are realistically able to accommodate three tickets per family.

Please note:

• Seating is unreserved.

• Doors will open from 08:30 each morning.

• This allows staff time to complete seating arrangements, sound checks and technical preparations before welcoming parents into the venue.

Arrival Time for Children

On concert mornings, we kindly ask that all children arrive at 07:30.

This gives staff enough time to:

• help children dress comfortably;

• settle them before the performance; and

• enjoy a light fruit snack together.

Extra Murals

Please note that there will be no extra murals during concert week, allowing sufficient time for rehearsals and performances.

All eight payable lessons for the quarter will still be completed by the end of the term.

After the Concert

After the concert, staff will assist the children in changing out of their concert attire.

If you would like to congratulate your little one afterwards, we kindly ask for your patience while all children are dressed before joining parents in the garden area.

Parents are welcome to take their child home after the performance, should they wish. Please communicate this with your class teacher beforehand.

Children remaining at school will enjoy a fun and engaging remainder of the day.

Parking

Parking will be available at:

• 91 Raats Drive

• 50 Wood Drive
  (Junior and Senior Preparatory faculty parking areas)

We kindly ask all parents to please refrain from parking on neighbours’ driveways or verges (pavements). Illegally parked vehicles may be clamped or fined and can cause unnecessary frustration for our surrounding community.

Keeping the Children Warm

To ensure the children stay warm and comfortable on concert mornings:

• Children will keep their socks and shoes on until they reach the foyer area just before going on stage.

• Black carpets will be placed alongside the stage so that children do not walk on the cold tiles.

• The stage floor itself is fully carpeted.

• Warm attire will remain on where possible.

Parents are welcome to dress their child in a white long-sleeve vest underneath their concert clothing for extra warmth (excluding Grade R ballerinas).

We also kindly ask that each child bring a zip-up jacket to wear over their concert clothes during the morning.

A Healthy School Environment

With the change in season and colder weather, we see an increase in illnesses. Any child who is unwell or taking antibiotics must stay at home. We appreciate that this can be challenging for working parents, but preventing the spread of infection to other learners and our teachers remains our priority. 

A Peak Into Our Week 

Crackerjacks

The Crackerjacks have been learning all about the wonderful world of birds this week! Our beautiful gardens, as always, have provided a wonderful source of first-hand experience. We have been listening to the birds singing in the early mornings and watching the Hadeda’s searching for food with their long beaks. The little ones have especially loved learning the Hadeda song and have been enthusiastically making the loud and funny calls of this very interesting bird — much to everyone’s amusement!

At the art tables, the children have been strengthening their little hand muscles and practising their fine motor skills as they made their own little birds’ nests and eggs out of clay. There was much excitement as they counted how many eggs were in each nest! Beautiful birds were painted with watercolours and decorated with feathers and tissue paper, creating some very colourful feathered friends.

Sensory play is a wonderful way of engaging the whole child in learning, and this week the children explored a fantastic sensory table filled with shaving cream, bubble wrap, and many other interesting textures. Hidden objects added an extra layer of excitement as the little ones squished, searched, and discovered with delight!

Grade 000

This week in Tigger's House and Piglet's House, our little explorers dove into our exciting “Under the Sea” theme! The children had so much fun learning about sea creatures and ocean life through creative activities and imaginative play.

For art, we made beautiful jellyfish using paper plates. The children painted their jellyfish in ocean colours and decorated them with glitter and sparkly paper, making each one unique and full of shimmer. The classrooms looked magical with all our sparkling sea creations on display!

The children have also been thoroughly enjoying spending time in our lovely 100 Aker Wood garden, especially riding in the wagons with their friends. There has been lots of laughter, teamwork, and imaginative adventures outdoors as the children explored and played together.

We are so proud of all the creativity, excitement, and joy shown by our little learners this week!

Grade 00

We have had an absolutely fly-away week in Grade 00 as all of our classes dived feathers-first into learning about birds! Our little bird experts have loved discovering how our winged friends live, but the true highlight was our creative art time. The classrooms have been buzzing with excitement as the children used bright paints, feathers, and plenty of glitter to create some truly beautiful bird masterpieces. Be sure to ask your little one tonight what a bird uses to build a nest, and have a wonderful, chirpy weekend!

Grade R

This week, our Grade R classes had an exciting adventure exploring the theme of Space! The children learned about astronauts, gravity, planets, galaxies, and life in space, discovering fascinating facts about how astronauts live, work, and travel beyond Earth.

Throughout the week, the children used a variety of creative techniques to make wonderful space-themed artwork, including glitter painting galaxies, blending pastels, toothbrush splatter stars, spindle painting, and creating textured moons with tinfoil. They also designed rockets, shuttles, planets, galaxies, and astronauts using different materials and lots of imagination.

We also focused on developing important skills through six brick activities, where the children practised visual perception, communication, teamwork, and pattern building by copying and describing different creations.

Our little astronauts had a fantastic week filled with creativity, collaboration, exploration, and hands-on learning as they reached for the stars!

Edward Bears Innovation

Space Rovers and Tiny Technicians in Edward Bear’s House!

This week in Edward Bear's House, our classroom transformed into an outer-space engineering lab! To build early critical thinking and logical sequencing skills, the children took on a thrilling new coding challenge: "Mission: Space Rover."

Using a large floor grid, our young explorers learned how to program a real "Space Rover" (played by their classmates) to safely navigate around dangerous asteroids and black holes to collect precious Moon Crystals.

How We Coded Without Screens 🧩

Before stepping onto the launchpad, we gathered at our whiteboard map to trace our flight paths, matching abstract symbols to the real layout on the floor. The children used physical command cards to sequence the Rover’s journey step-by-step:

"Thrust Forward" 🚀 to engage the rocket thrusters.

"Turn" 🔄 to change directions using a clever red-band system to help us practice our left and right skills.

"Grab" 🖐 to activate our mechanical arms and snatch up the treasure!

Engineering for a Fuel Crisis! ️

Once our little commanders mastered the basic flight path, we introduced a real-world problem-solving twist: a Low Fuel Challenge! The children had to completely rethink and "debug" their code to make it shorter and more efficient. By discovering a hidden "Space Wormhole" on the grid, they figured out how to teleport their rovers forward, saving precious energy!

This playful hands-on activity did so much more than ignite their imaginations. While the children thought they were simply saving a cosmic mission, they were deeply engaged in foundational mathematics, practicing spatial orientation, grid coordination, counting, and the logic of algorithmic thinking.

A huge thank you to our brilliant Mission Control crew for an incredible week of innovation, teamwork, and cosmic exploration!

2026 Information 

2026 Dates

Summer Quarter: 20 Jan - 26 March 

Autumn Quarter: 8 April - 24 June 

Winter Quarter: 22 July - 23 Sept 

Spring Quarter: 14 Oct - 4 Dec 

2027 Dates

Provisional 2027 Quarter Dates

Summer - 19 Jan - 18 March

Autumn - 7 April - 23 June

Winter - 21 July - 22 Sept

Spring - 6 Oct - 3 Dec

Autumn Quarter Important Dates

AUTUMN QUARTER:

30 May: Open Day

1 June: International Children's Day- Movie & Pop Corn (Grade 000 - R) in the hall

Crackerjacks Music & Marshmallows in their classes

  Happy Birthday Kerry Kemp

2 June: Happy Birthday Chanay De Klerk

4 June: 09:00 - 10:00 May Play (Grade 000 - 00) 

5 June: 09:00 - 10:00 May Play (Grade R) 

11 June: Individual photographs for Grades 000 & R 

12 June: Individual photographs for Crackerjacks & 00         

15 June: Reports sent to parents 

16 June: Public Holiday: Youth Day 

17-23 June: Report Feedback Meetings Grade 0000 - R

18 June: Bee Keeper Show (Grade 00 - R)

19 June: Cake Sale: Grade 000, Crackerjacks and Grade R (Owls) Cake Sale 

21 June: Father’s Day

22 June: Cultural Assembly (Grade R ballerinas to attend)

24 June: Winter Olympics and R20 ‘entry’ 

24 June: Last day of the quarter  

29 June: Happy Birthday Litho Voxeka

NASA Astronaut Dorothy “Dottie” Metcalf-Lindenburger
Coming to Parklands College

Presented in partnership with Living Maths, the tour will bring world-class STEM inspiration to schools, universities, science centres, and communities nationwide, including underserved and remote areas where learners often lack access to global role models.

Metcalf-Lindenburger flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on the historic STS-131 mission to the International Space Station in 2010, serving as Mission Specialist 2 and robotic arm operator. The mission delivered over 27,000 pounds of equipment to the ISS and travelled 6.2 million miles during 238 Earth orbits. She was also part of the first occasion on which four women were simultaneously in space. A former earth science and astronomy teacher, she was selected by NASA in 2004 through the Educator Astronaut Program and was the first Space Camp alumna to join the Astronaut Corps. She later commanded the NEEMO 16 underwater exploration mission and today champions STEAM education globally through Dottie ML, LLC.

Steve Sherman, Chief Imagination Officer of Living Maths, said the tour is about possibility. “When young people in South Africa meet someone who has travelled beyond Earth, it changes the way they think about their futures. Curiosity and talent are universal, opportunity is not. This tour is designed to help bridge that gap.”

Metcalf-Lindenburger added: “Science and exploration thrive when young people are encouraged to ask questions, solve problems, and imagine boldly. I’m honoured to share experiences from space exploration, teamwork, and discovery with audiences across South Africa.”

Tour Dates: 22 July – 4 August 2026

Public Event: Parklands College, Cape Town, 3 August 2026, 18h00–20h30

Tickets: quicket.co.za

Media & booking enquiries:

Steve Sherman, Living Maths

steve@livingmaths.com  |  +27 83 308 3883

Happy Birthday 🎉

A very happy birthday to four very special members of our team.

Chef Kerry celebrates her birthday on 1 June, Chanay on 2 June, our Junior Preparatory Principal Mrs Lamb on 3 June, and our Head of Libraries, Elise Crouse, on 4 June.

Wishing you all a beautiful year filled with happiness, laughter, love and many special memories.
We hope you all have the most amazing birthdays! 💕