What. A. Week.
What a week. No seriously. This week was a long month. February has been quite the year. But fortunately, at BESA, we do not concern ourselves with ‘months that feel like years’. Nope. We’re not that...
What a week. No seriously. This week was a long month. February has been quite the year. But fortunately, at BESA, we do not concern ourselves with ‘months that feel like years’. Nope. We’re not that guy. We’re the guy who says, “Yo month, come at me bro”. And when it does, we run!
We run onto bigger and better things. Like the Inter-house Swimming Gala (which can be checked out here). And the Puma school of speed (where we do some more running, ironically). And into classroom N9 where our matrics have founded an e-sports (electronic sports) league. The idea behind the league is fourfold. One, get to play Xbox at school. Two, raise some funds for the matric farewell by charging each player R10 to participate. Three, get to spend some bonding time with each other that would not otherwise be afforded. (Side note: there’s something strangely unifying in having a bunch of random people from different grades sitting in a room watching other people play games; the camaraderie it creates is priceless.). Four, get to play Xbox at school. So, the first game of choice was Forza Horizon 4. The goal, to race a Toyota Supra as fast as possible around a predetermined track. Get the fastest lap time. Win. Win bragging rights. Win 1kg of biltong. Win at life. (Another side note: Matthew “Big Vokes” Vokes did a quite splendid BESA design on said Toyota Supra.) More winning.
Also in classroom N9 this week, (it’s a great classroom by the way, I mean, have you seen the posters?) the first round of Grade 8 Entrance Exams was held. This session featured 20 awesome Grade 7 learners from many different primary schools and is the highest number we’ve had for the first round for quite some time. Let’s hope this becomes a trend.
We furthermore had the opportunity to speak to the Grade 7s at both Glenanda Primary and Aloe Ridge Primary this week. It’s quite a tough task to be given the platform to try and convince a hall-full of children to make one of the most difficult decisions of their lives based solely on half an hour’s worth of interaction, that will effectively impact them for the next five years of their lives. No pressure. (One more side note: a big thank you to Theo, Laken, Daniella Hunter, Cameron Yeo, Ipeleng, Dakota, Naledi, and Dreyden for assisting us with these talks).
There was also, of course, the mundane side of school that happened; you know, the part where we all go into classrooms and pretend to be busy doing stuff. But, how mundane was it actually? The matric Business Studies learners listened to Tito Mboweni’s budget speech on the radio in Mr J’s class. The Life Sciences learners were inspecting the DNA of bananas and comparing it to human DNA, while also building cell models out of ‘lekker goed’. The Grade 10 EGD students threw a boomerang. Wait, what? Yes, they found a boomerang. They threw a boomerang. They failed (the boomerang didn’t even come close to returning). The Visual Arts students pulled a mannequin apart. Why you ask? We don’t know. We don’t ask questions. And finally, the Geography people did some map work. Scintillating stuff.
We look forward to whatever March has in store for us and we’re excited to be hosting arguably the biggest event of the year this month, our Open Day on the 7th! We’ll also be hosting one of the other big events on the calendar, the CANSA Shavathon on the 6th. BESA Bears!
Mr C Preddy