Dear Senior School Parents and Guardians We wish you a warm welcome back to school and a blessed year ahead. We especially welcome our new families to our St Mary’s DSG Community and hope to enjoy a long association with you. Tomorrow is an exciting time and we look forward to seeing your daughters. A full programme has been planned to get them ready for the beginning of the year. As we begin the year, please be advised that we will continue with our Health and Safety protocols of screening all our students before they enter the school and ensuring that social distancing is maintained. We are also pleased to welcome the following new staff members to our team: Rakubu Sokana as the new Learning Area Head for Mathematics and Commerce; David Cloran as a senior teacher in the English department; Jawi Ramahlo as the new Computer Applications Theory and Digital Technologies teacher; Juliet le Fleur will join the Mathematics and Life Sciences Department and Carike Brandt joins us as a part-time teacher in the Economic Management Sciences Department. We are also pleased to introduce our new interns Khutso Letsoalo who will be assisting the English, Life Orientation and Sports Department, and Thabang Seanego who will assist in the Sepedi Department. Our year began with teacher development and this is a fundamental process as it translates to teacher-student interaction in the classrooms. Our teachers have also used their time to plan and prepare for the arrival of their students to ensure that effective teaching and learning takes place. There are many new initiatives that will be implemented this year. One of these new initiatives is the introduction of a Culture Hour at the school. This will bring along many new activities that cater to the diverse needs and interests of our girls. The Culture Hour will run on a Monday afternoon and the expectation is that all girls make use of this wonderful opportunity for creativity. Added to our academic curriculum is our Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) classes, which will focus on character development and growth. The team of teachers who oversee this course have been hard at work developing a curriculum that is tailormade for a St Mary’s DSG girl. In collaboration with the Allan Gray Foundation, a new Entrepreneurship Curriculum will be introduced for our Grade 9s. This is an essential skill to develop for the emerging generation. This is another exciting initiative of 2022. An extra enrichment offering comes in the form of the revised Clubs Portfolios. These Clubs will be linked to our academic learning programme and serve as further enrichment by bringing an element of fun into learning. Our Sports Programmes were uploaded last year on our D6 Communicator and sports registration will take place tomorrow. All girls are required to sign up for a sport of their choice. Our sports programme will begin on 17 January 2022. The Inter-House swimming gala will take place on Friday 14 January and we wish our girls the best in this event. The Transformation Diversity and Inclusion office will become more accessible and available for any transformation and diversity issues that parents would like to raise with the school. The key objective this year is focusing on rebuilding relationships between learners, staff, management, and the parent body. Humanism is the chosen philosophical pathway to navigate through our collective relationships as the DSG community. Putting people first, celebrating and validating their humanity is what our Transformation Diversity and Inclusion portfolio will enforce this year. Discipline will be our foundation for getting learners back to good intellectual shape, creativity, excellence and overall maintenance of the St Mary’s DSG values and academic standards. The Code of Conduct and Anti-Bullying Policy have been reviewed and the latest versions placed on the D6 Communicator. Please diarise the following upcoming events for January: 14 January New Girls’ Chapel Service 19 January Grade 12 2021 results are released 20 January Leaders Induction Chapel Service 24 January Academic Awards Assembly (7:30) 28 January Meet the teacher (16:00 -18:30) followed by Parents’ Association Cocktail Function (18:30) We look forward to connecting with both you and your daughters and hope that 2022 will be a year of connection and engagement within the St Mary’s DSG Community. We thank you for your continued support of the school and look forward to what the year ahead brings. With best wishes. Mrs Odelle Howard Head of School

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