Academic, Bulletin

Coping With Grief And Loss

During their Creative Arts lesson on Tuesday, 18 May, Union’s Grade 9s were fortunate to be gifted a workshop by drama therapist Paula Kingwill.
The workshop, titled “Arts for Hope”, deals with grief and loss – poignant at a time when Covid has forced us to get personal with the loss of so much.
Paula taught the Grade 9s about the way they can deal with grief – by flocking together in support of one another.
Using hands as a symbol of unity and comfort, the class was guided into creating art that would assist them in this process.
It was a joy to see our learners absorbed in this valuable workshop and, upon the conclusion of the workshop, they expressed their gratitude to Paula for guiding and teaching them.
Academic, Bulletin

Top 10 Academic Achievers, Term 1 2021

Grade 12 Top 10

  1. James Rose-Innes
  2. Kyle-Luke du Preez
  3. Melissa Swart; Hannah Watermeyer
  4. Amozolele Relu
  5. Mekisha Manzana
  6. Petra Japhta; Catelyn Anthony
  7. Jarrod Naude
  8. Shayna Japhta; Lungile Netnou

Grade 11 Top 10

  1. Kendall Krige
  2. Grace Merifield; Kathryn Odendaal
  3. Matthew Basson
  4. Amber Binney
  5. Hannah Bodenstein
  6. Marli Brummer; Daniel Nell; Jamie Japhta
  7. Chloe Shires

Grade 10 Top 10

  1. Caitrin Spence
  2. Siphosethu Malotana
  3. Cadee Arends
  4. Gemma Naude
  5. Brigette Oelofsen; Trinity West
  6. Anna Pringle; Siyamthanda Desha
  7. Andrue Victor
  8. Sinazo Soyana

Grade 9 Top 10

  1. Na’eem Mahomed; Caytah-Leigh Koeberg
  2. Joy Merifield
  3. Charlize Vorster
  4. Sade May
  5. Joshua Neill; Jayden Swart;  Tyra Binney
  6. Johannes du Plessie; Ethan Linch

Grade 8 Top 10

  1. Erin Gedult
  2. Tara Ferreira
  3. Megan Nortje; Kenza Neill
  4. Sasha Cochrane; Sarah Jacobs
  5. Aaminah Steele
  6. Kananelo Kometsi; Jayden Eiman; Muhammad Ahmed

Grade 7 Top 10

  1. Katelyn Trollip
  2. Ciara Kivedo
  3. Samantha Charles
  4. Amber Bezuidenhout
  5. Josh Arends
  6. Taegan Hamid; Anebel Norval
  7. Jade Palmer
  8. Xarah Hoffman
  9. Lisa Vutula

Grade 6  Top 10

  1. Anna Stocks; Aimee Short
  2. Tara Piercey
  3. Amber Slater
  4. Zack Verwey
  5. Kirsten Collet
  6. Sixolile Singeni; Emma Gibbons
  7. Richard Murray; Nasreen Foster; Jennavieve Woods
Academic, Bulletin

Gr 12 Career Evening

On Wednesday evening, 5 May, Union High School hosted a career evening in the Tony Burrell Union for the 2021 Grade 12s to help them get a better understanding of their future.
With so many study directions and careers to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to start! The event, therefore, aimed to bring together a diverse group of professionals to share their respective stories and career pathways pursued with our Grade 12s for their consideration.
Union High School extends its grateful thanks to the respective speakers and representatives of Varsity College, First National Bank, CTU Training Solutions and the Pearson Institute of Higher Education (some of whom met with the matrics on Thursday morning, 6 May) for sharing their stories and so eloquently discussing the various opportunities within their career fields and/or organisations with the learners.
It was a wonderful introduction for our learners to the breadth of career opportunities available to them and proved an ideal opportunity for the Grade 12s to consider their future.
It was also very encouraging to see the matrics engaging with the speakers with great enthusiasm throughout the evening with many commenting afterward that it provided them with a lot of valuable insights about life after high school that isn’t obvious from a university prospectus or a course syllabus.
Union’s head prefects Kyle-Luke du Preez and Hannah Watermeyer with Wednesday evening’s speakers.
• Union extends a special word of thanks to Mrs Bronwen Langmead for organising the event, as well as to our head prefects Kyle-Luke du Preez and Hannah Watermeyer for their contribution to the evening.
Academic, Bulletin

UHS Library Open Again

𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻’𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗿𝘆
Libraries are an open door for every child to countless opportunities – to have fun, to learn, to discover and to share.

On Monday morning, 15 March, Union High School’s Grade 5 learners were introduced to the school’s well-stocked library.
The orientation session, which will be presented to the second group of Grade 5s tomorrow, was presented by Mrs Lizet Crankshaw and was a wonderful opportunity for the learners to discover how to they can harness the potential that libraries offer them, by being given the opportunity to explore, to choose, and to develop their own preferences and interests in books.
To complement the library’s services, the Grade 5s were also introduced to the school’s fully-equipped media centre, where they can utilise the state-of-the-art facilities for computer-based learning.
As of Tuesday, 16 March, Union’s library will once again be open to learners every day, with Grade 5 to 10 learners having weekly library periods.
Academic, Bulletin

Whiteboard Technology

𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺
Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) were introduced at Union several years ago to replace the traditional chalkboard in classrooms and from the beginning, were destined to make a great impact on teaching at the school.
The projector-based IWBs, which were set to not only enhance the way our teachers teach but also enhance the way our learners learn, let teachers display anything on a computer to the entire classroom, ushering in a new world of educational possibility.
Teachers were empowered with an exciting new tool. Learner engagement increased. And classroom collaboration was set to skyrocket.
Today, interactive whiteboards are firmly established as a teaching tool at Union.
Given the many benefits IWBs bring to the classroom, Union recently acquired its first IWB with a large-format touchscreen display.
This particular interactive whiteboard delivers the benefits of original projector-based IWB systems, plus added functionality.
The uses for these IWBs are virtually endless. Among their many features and benefits, they offer the following:
▶ Teacher-directed viewing of any website, app, video or document to support learning objectives
▶ The dramatic emphasis of key learning points with on-screen highlighting and annotation
▶ Save and print capability, for instant handouts, supplementary notes and absent students
▶ Facilitation of group projects and individual presentations
▶ The ability to collaborate on text documents, spreadsheets, design projects, etc.
▶ Video conferencing connectivity for virtual field trips, international sister classrooms and more
▶ Text/data entry via floating on-screen keyboard
▶ On-screen editing and recording of changes or additions
▶ Support for effective special needs education
▶ Learner feedback and assessment with optional audience response accessories
Additionally, you can add and work on images within the classroom. It allows you to add lines, shapes, and more for a variety of subjects such as Mathematics and Physical Science. It also allows you to go back and work on previous work that, in the past, would have long been erased on a chalkboard.
Never before have there been so many tech tools at our teachers’ disposal for educating in entirely new, exciting, and promising ways! We look forward to introducing these new IWBs to our other classrooms in the near future!
Academic, Awards, Bulletin

Academic Awards

We would like to take this opportunity to honour learners in each respective grade who had attained high academic successes during the course of last year.
We would like to congratulate these learners – not simply on their high achievement in academics, as important as that is – but on their deep and genuine engagement in learning and an eagerness to stretch and challenge themselves to get the most out of their education at Union.
• These awards are calculated on learners’ November 2020 results.
• These Grade 6 to 8 learners identified here, will be awarded academic bars, the Grade 9 and 10 learners academic ties and the Grade 11 and 12 learners Half and Full Colours.

Grade 6
Kirsten Collett
Nasreen Foster
Tara Piercy
Aimee Short
Amber Slater

Grade 7
Josh Arends
Amber Bezuidenhout
Samantha Charles
Taegen Hamid
Ciara Kivedo
Jade Palmer
Katelyn Trollip

Grade 8
Muhammad Ahmed
Sasha Cochrane
Zara Deysel-Douman
Tara Ferreira
Erin Gedult
Kenza Neill
Megan Nortje

Grade 9
Caytah-Leigh Koeberg
Na’eem Mahomed
Sade May
Joy Merifield
Joshua Neill
Charlize Vorster

Grade 10
Cadee Arends
Lana Bouwer
Siyamthanda Desha
Jenna-Lee Jansen
Tayla Kingwill
Siphosethu Malontana
Gemma Naude
Brigette Oelofsen
Anna Pringle
Simone Prinsloo
Caitrin Spence
David Venter
Andrue Victor
Trinity West

Grade 11 Half Colours
Amber Binney
Alexandra Imrie
Chloe Shires

Grade 11 Full Colours
Matthew Basson
Kendall Krige
Matthew McNaughton
Grace Merifield
Kathryn Odendaal

Grade 12 Half Colours
Catelyn Anthony
Kyle-Luke du Preez
Petra Japhta
Litha Mngoma
James Pringle

Grade 12 Full Colours
Mekisha Manzana
Amzolele Relu
James Rose-Innes
Melissa Swart
Hanna Watermeyer

Academic, Bulletin

Matriculant Receives Best Achiever Award

Union High School is proud to announce that Katherine Imrie has been awarded the Rupert Achievement Award for being the highest achieving 2020 matric candidate in Graaff-Reinet.
The Rupert Achievement Award consists of a cash prize that will be paid towards her studies.
Katherine has just arrived at the University of Cape Town where she has been accepted to study towards a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree.
Congratulations Katherine! Best of luck in your studies!
Academic, Bulletin

Congratulations Class Of 2020

2020 was an extremely challenging year, but, despite the extraordinary circumstances, the grit and resilience demonstrated by Union High School’s Class of 2020 have been remarkable.
Our sincerest thanks go to a very dedicated team of educators as well as to our Union families who supported the learners during this time.
The matrics of 2020, who achieved a 96,5% pass rate, gathered a total of 61 subject distinctions amongst themselves in the recent National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations.
Of the 57 candidates, 80% achieved Bachelor passes.
Pass rate: 96,5%
Diploma pass: 18%
Number of candidates: 57
Number of distinctions: 61
Number of candidates with ‘A’ aggregates: 4
The Class of 2020’s Top 3 candidates, Sara Kingwill, Katherine Imrie and Laetitia Theron. Between them, they managed to collect 19 subject distinctions.
We heartily congratulate Katherine Imrie, Union High School’s top candidate, who achieved the highest average (87,43%) and a full house of seven (7) subject distinctions.
Sara Kingwill achieved the second-highest average (85,57%) and six (6) subject distinctions.
Laetitia Theron achieved the third-highest average (85,29%) and six (6) subject distinctions.
Bowen Langmead placed fourth with his average of 80,71% and three (3) subject distinctions.
Rounding out our top 5 is Erin Mitchell with an average of 77,57% and four (4) subject distinctions.
While we highlight the top achievers, we also acknowledge the hard work and personal accomplishments of each learner and appreciate the dedication and commitment to their learning.
Your achievements, despite the unprecedented circumstances you faced, are truly exceptional. Some lovely personal bests, a few superb distinctions and all-round pleasing results have been reported.
We’re so proud of you all and wish you every success as you embark on a new chapter of your lives.
Academic, Bulletin

Reimagining Education

The Union Schools are proud to announce our exciting new partnership with KELLER EDUCATION.
Keller Education is a collaboration of education leaders driven to reimagine schooling and committed to improving the school experience for modern children while specifically focusing on the quality of teaching and thinking in schools.
Driven by recent neuroscience research, they will be sharing decades of experience with our educators, while providing them with exceptional training, a variety of support strategies, ideas and toolboxes to navigate seamlessly through 21st-century schooling.
We are super excited about this new development and the benefits our learners are sure to reap from it! We hope you are too!
Have a look at the accompanying video or visit their website at http://www.keller.education/ to find out more.
Academic, Bulletin

Developing Young, Bright, Mathematical Minds

Union High School was recently presented with a 𝟮𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 by the South African Mathematics Foundation. This award acknowledges the school’s annual participation in the SA Mathematics Olympiad for the past 20 years.
Union congratulates all our current and past math educators for ensuring that our young math enthusiasts participate in this event!
Union High School is proud of our long-standing association with this national Olympiad and look forward to participating again in future.
The South African Mathematics Olympiad (SAMO) is South Africa’s biggest Olympiad. Approximately 100 000 high school learners from Grade 8 to Grade 12 participate annually. Through participation in this event, Union hopes to generate enthusiasm and curiosity for the subject in our learners. Mathematics competitions are becoming more and more important as it emphasizes that the school subject called “Mathematics” isn’t just about mechanical calculations or numeracy, but about thinking and the discovery, and validation, of problem-solving methods.