School News: Prestwich in the Spotlight on Mandela Day

Absa visited the school for their 67 minutes and produced sandwiches and chips for the learners

Trudy reported that the day was very festive. Each the learner made a card and they were put up in the corridors and classrooms creating a party atmosphere. The Grade 2A class made sandwiches for some of the other classes. Absa came to surprise the school by giving all the learners sandwiches chips as part of their CSI initiative. 

The principal addressing the school on Thursday morning

One of the girls reading a poem she had written, and another girl sharing a birthday
card for Madiba  

The school sing Happy Birthday 

Pictures and cards produced by the learners 

The Joy and Laughter of a Shine Session

Christine McPherson and Sibulele at Prestwich

I love this photo that popped into my in-box this morning: the collective joy of both the child and her learning partner is contagious: this photo epitomises the atmosphere and energy that a Shine session creates.

A visit by some of our games funders

We had the first of a series of thank you gatherings yesterday for some of the funders who have supported us with our games development. The whole process took approximately a year, but we are extremely grateful to a small and generous team of people who believed in our vision and have supported us the whole way.

Kathryn and Mike Baker 

Bea between Nat and Bryan, the design team from B designs who came up with the wonderful
Shine 'look.'

Our designers and funders met one another over coffee yesterday

Our Vowel Cards

First Sound Lotto 

Last Sound Safari and Rainbow 

Ones and Twos

A Magic 'E' Game, Cake! 

Cloudy Sky, working on the 'OU' sound

Noisy Toys, working on the 'OI' and 'OY' sound 

Oxford and Cambridge Collaboration with Shine

Back in November 2001we were involved in the Oxford and Cambridge Dragon Boat Race, and we invited some of the key members of both organisations to come to one of our centres yesterday. We visited Prestwich, where Wonder Chabalala from Cambridge and Amanda Van De Merwe from Oxford came laden with books for the centres. The children were so excited. We demonstrated our group paired reading for them, and we had a shared reading session, reading from the favourites 'Hic Hic Hiccups' and 'The Little Lost Goat.' Amanda and Wonder spent some time in the centre, where we shared the wonderful work our volunteers do with their learning partners. The session was a very busy and engaged one, and it was so encouraging to see all the new games being used and enjoyed! Thank you to Trudy who helped ensure that the visit ran smoothly and a huge thank you to all our volunteers who come in every week to make such difference.

A glut of titles.....

Spilling onto the floor!

Shared reading from the BIG BOOKS

Wonder (from Cambridge) and Amanda (Oxford) joined us for a Shared Reading session

Hic.... Hic Hiccups!

Wonder Chabalala from Cambridge Press

Jackie & Lilitha

Diane & Itumeleng

Jackie & Lulutho

Gerhard & Liyema

Mike with Joshua & Aliswa

Marcia & Akhona & Pabatso

Pravina &Awonke

Renate & Simamnkele

Sylvia with Andisiwe andYolwanda

Parent Workshop, Preswich St School, 12th of May 2012

Parent Workshop, 12th of May 2012

Trudy sent me a great account of the latest Parent Workshop which was run on Saturday the 12th of May at Prestwich school: 
'The workshop was awesome. Linda Rutter and the team did an excellent job as the parents participated all the time and were very responsive and vocal about the needs for their child. The parents were very grateful to Linda for giving them the guidance and tools to help them whilst working with their children. The parent interaction was key, and and I am sure that Linda was happy as she felt the response was so positive. We had 63 parents join us, and the deputy principal and all the grade one teachers were amazed of the turnout from parents, as they mentioned that they normally get very little response when it comes to parent meetings....' 

It sounds like a very successful and worthwhile afternoon: thank you to all involved: you all  just seem to get better and better at communicating your message! 

Keen Beans!

After the session.....

Trudy sent us this lovely photo yesterday of the Grade three boys who had just finished their Shine session: they were standing outside the Shine Centre, not wanting to put their books down.... this is our future!