20 January 2025
Dear Parents
Welcome back to an exciting, action-packed Term 2!
Staff
Ms Nomcebo Ntshangase joins our staff permanently as our IsiZulu teacher for Grades 8 – 12. She is a highly experienced teacher who will also serve the College well on the sports fields when coaching.
Mrs Tanya van der Walt joins our staff as the Grade 10 – 11 Mathematics teacher for Terms 2, 3, and 4. She brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to this department.
Tuckshop
Our service provider at the tuckshop has changed and we look forward to welcoming Mrs Loveshni Naidoo into the Felixton family from this term. She is incredibly passionate about food and we are excited about the menu that she will have on offer, her expertise in the realm of catering, and her drive to ensure that all stakeholders are happy, satisfied customers.
I take this opportunity to thank Mrs Kim van der Merwe for her contribution to the College through her service in the tuckshop, and wish her well in her future endeavours.
High School sports tour to the Western Cape
Our High School First teams for Rugby, Netball, and Hockey (boys and girls) embarked on an expedition of epic proportions to a sports festival in George attended by schools from the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and Gauteng. It was an excellent experience for our pupils who ventured outside of the Zululand bubble to play against top tier schools.
Results and more detailed summaries of the tour will be published in due course.
The responsibilities and logistics for a tour of this magnitude are immense. It would be remiss of me to mention the tour, without acknowledging the key role players:
- Mr Picton spent countless hours organising this tour behind the scenes and also drove the 22 seater. The tour (its planning and success) would not have taken place without his commitment and dedication behind the scenes … and his penchant for the creation of an Excel spreadsheet.
- The coaches (who not only accompanied the pupils and ensured their safety, but also gave up over half of their holiday time with their families).
- The drivers, Mr Biyela and Mr Ndlazi, who carefully navigated our precarious South African roads to get all travellers to and from George, safely.
- The pupils who flew our Felixton College flag high, both on and off the sports fields. On this note, I was stopped by parents from a school in Gauteng, to congratulate me on the behaviour and manners (greeting in particular) of our pupils. Our pupils were also acknowledged by the tournament organiser as the best-behaved and well-mannered school. Our children did their school and families proud!
Update on school building projects
Last year we employed the services of Olivehill Architects to assist with the process of drawing up a master plan for the school, which gives direction to the strategic thinking, planning and building projects at Felixton College 2025 – 2035.
The master plan now provides a point of departure for developments up at our Izingwe sports fields, the high school section of the school (beginning with an administration block that creates a distinct and impressive entrance to the school), and a basic renovation of Dickson Oval.
The tender process is underway to secure the services of a service provider to implement the plans at Izingwe – the first phase being essential infrastructure and earthworks, culminating in the installation of a full size astroturf.
Frustratingly, the pre-building preparation of the landscape poses a far bigger conundrum than initially anticipated and this has stalled the initiation of the project. The scope of implementing infrastructure, installing the astroturf, as well as maintaining the integrity of the sport facility that already exists, is a project that is way beyond the scope of what the school can manage internally and we therefore need the experts to project manage the process from the beginning.
In terms of general timelines, the outcome of the tender process, as well as phasing of building will have run its course by the end of Term 2.
Moving forward, parents will be updated during the course of Term 2 as we move towards finalising the programme of the project and phases of development.
Communications management and logistics Notification has been sent to parents with regard to Felixton College beginning the process of transitioning from the D6 to the Ed-admin Multi-Portal App for communication in the upcoming weeks.
This is an exciting development that will ensure that our parents are not only kept up to date with necessary dates and documents, but there are also additional useful features on this app that will streamline our communication systems.
Parents are therefore reminded to download the Ed-admin Multi-Portal App from the Play Store. Our unique school code is 370449. An email will be sent with a verification code.
Kind regards
Wayne Rademan