The 12th edition of the White Horse Herald
STORIES
Dear Parents- Have we lost the art of storytelling? On Tuesday the Foundation Phase learners were treated with the stories of author and storyteller Wendy Maartens. Her stories took me back to my childhood. My dad loved to tell us stories. Especially when we were travelling on holiday. Many of these stories I have been trying to relate to my own children, sometimes less successfully because I did not always listen attentively.
Humanity has used stories for as long as we have been walking this earth. We use stories to keep history alive, to help form communities and culture, to entertain and relax, to deal with trauma, fear and sadness, to celebrate victories, achievements and joy and to teach and form the social conscience.
The way we tell stories evolved from only verbal storytelling to books and stage productions to radio stories to movies and television series and now-adays Youtube videos and shorts.
My question is if we have moved so far away from the original ways of storytelling that we have lost some of the character and value in our stories. Many of our adults do not read books anymore. Our children prefer 15 second shorts or Tiktok content. Yes, the acceleration in information production has 10-fold over the last few years, but do we really need to only “summarise” messages, information and stories as bits of fast food info?
My concern lies in the impact this has on our children’s ability to learn, concentrate and retain information. It is as if information is received, consumed and then forgotten. It is time that we return to reading books and telling stories the “old fashioned” way. Let us, as adults, take our time to spend with our children in reading and storytelling. Let them read, sit with them and tell them stories (we are all writing
our own story day-by-day, share it with them) instead of spending all their free time with screens.
May we all keep on working towards making this the Best Year in the life of every child, up to now, story by story.
Louwrens Strydom
In other news
The School Governing Body met during the past week. A number of matters were discussed. It is important that parents / guardians take note of the following:
1. The fundraiser to support some of the rugby players has been a success. The school will be able to support the players going to Italy, financially. There will also be some funds going to the sport field project. It is important to note that this is a “sponsorship” to these families. Even though the learners play the sport at the
school the trip is not a school event. therefore the school can only assist / sponsor from project funds, and not from school fees. We would like to thank all the parents who participated in this project.
2. The SGB took note of the school fees that has been paid by parents and would like to thank all who do their part to ensure that Brandwag can deliver the education services that the children deserve.
3. The school will have to ensure that we source other forms of income to ensure that we can do what needs to be done. One of the ways would be by using our space for advertisements and more detail will follow soon.
4. The SGB is excited to inform parents and learners that the blazers for the learner would be ready for January 2027. Initially the Grades 1 – 3 will be compelled to wear the blazers, but there will also be blazers available to older learners.
5. The building project at the preprimary is still moving forward. The Traffic Impact Study is currently taking place. In the meantime the school needed more space and a property was secured across from the school to assist.
