The Brand

Last week, together with Robyn Morgan of our Marketing Department, I attended a seminar at Vega School in Cape Town. The title was ’The School Brand Ecosystem’ which went to the very core of why we exist as a school.

A Brand is something which is unique to an institution and sends a message regarding what a school really stands for. It is the ‘way things are done around here’. Every school, every business, every sports team, every product, is a Brand. Perhaps a more meaningful word for a Brand is ‘reputation’. The root of the word ‘reputation' comes from the Latin word: 'to think'. What do you as parents think of Springfield? What does Joe Public think of the school? That perception which is ‘out there’ about our school is our Brand, our reputation.

No Brand will be meaningful if it is not ‘burnt’ (Afrikaans meaning of the word) into the hearts of all our girls, all our teachers and support staff, all our parents. Every action and every decision which is made, sends out a message of what we stand for. Springfield must never fall for the common trap that matric results are our brand; or our sport results; or our buildings; or our astroturf, or our uniform. Wonderful as these may all be, they do not represent our Brand. The smiles of the girls when they greet visitors is our Brand; the effort they put into the academic work is our Brand; the resilience they show on the sports field is our Brand; the neatness with which they wear their uniform is our Brand; the sincerity and empathy of their relationships with one another is our Brand.

Of course, the best Brands are those which connect with people which is why our girls are the best version of our Brand. When they pull on their blazers every morning, they are ‘blazing’ out the word VERITAS to the world. Appropriately the badge bearing this word sits over their hearts reminding them that TRUTH is what drives them - and that is real pressure. It continually reminds them to be true to themselves. True to their family values. True to their talent. True to their humanity.

Sister Rose Commins is always telling me that our girls should spend more time in the gardens as that is an area where they are imbued with the soul of the school. She maintains it rises out of the very soil and embraces all who sit there. It leads to reflection and contemplation. Perhaps they can reflect on what message their personal brand sends out to the world. I recommend that everyone sits there at least once a week on their own, just thinking.

Our Reputation is important to Springfield. It is why so many parents want to send their daughters to this school knowing that wherever life takes them they will have the confidence and security of being inculcated with something special during their years at the school.

‘Non scholae sed vitae discimus’ says the Latin saying. Quite right too - good teachers teach for life and not only for school. Results are certainly important, but our real aim at school is to turn out confident girls who can face the world with self-belief.

Keith Richardson

“Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.”

As we approach St Dominic’s Day and Women’s Day, the above quote by Maya Angelou resonates, as I am reminded of the six strong Dominican women who left their Irish homeland in 1863 to travel to Cape Town to establish Catholic Dominican schools here in South Africa. Eight years after arriving, having already established St Mary’s and the Dominican School for the Deaf in the city bowl in Cape Town, they travelled to Wynberg in 1871 and bought our beautiful campus, Springfield, and established our school. Since that day in March 148 years ago, strong women have worked here and strong women have completed their schooling here. Each generation of Sisters, teachers and girls has followed in the footsteps of the previous generation, and we today are proud to be standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before us. The strong women who were educated here at Springfield span all corners of the earth today, making a difference in the lives of others and carrying out the mission of our founder, Dominic: to praise… to bless… to preach…, while always serving with the Dominican motto Veritas – Truth.

May we live this tradition and continue to raise strong women, to praise, to bless and to preach.

Lord Jesus,

As once you called St Dominic to preach the gospel,

so now send new preachers into your harvest.

Give them courage, wisdom and grace

to make them witnesses to your death, resurrections and return to glory.

Through your intercession of Mary, patroness of the Order of Preachers,

may we bring true faith and light to brighten the darkness.

Amen.

Alison Dunn

The Carly Ryan Foundation is an Australian online safety program provider founded by Sonia Ryan. Her daughter, Carly, was murdered by an online predator at the age of 15 and the foundation now works to increase the awareness of teens and their parents to the dangers of social media. They have produced a set of factsheets regarding the safety around various social media platforms and over the next few weeks, we will be including a fact sheet each week in the newsletter. Although some of the legal information given is Australian, the rest of the information is incredibly valuable and we encourage you to chat about these with your daughters.

Staff Development

Mr Geoff Quinn, Mrs Kirsty Tromp and Mr David Fick are attending a workshop titled “Breaking Down the Silos.” This full-day process describes itself as ‘an adventure into inquiry-based, cross-curricular learning design’ and aims to equip teachers in Grades 8 and 9 to find connections between subjects in an innovative way, generating questions which cultivate curiosity and drive inquiry. Our teachers hope to bring back to school practical ways to design and plan meaningful integrated pupil-centred learning experiences that are based on the curriculum, but which inspire new ways of thinking about the content we teach and assess at this level.

Olympiads

This start of this week has seen the writing of the Accounting and Computer Programming Olympiads. We wish the girls who participated in these two events well and eagerly await the results. Thanks to Mrs Nanette Gibbon and Mr Robert Henning respectively for their efforts in making these important co-curricular activities available to our pupils.

Ready to work workshop

The ABSA sponsored 'Ready To Work' workshop was held at Springfield on Saturday 3 August, attended by Hlombe Badi, Safiya Moolla, Cara Ronan and Katherine Ward, who participated in the ABSA/Tshimong debating challenge earlier this year. Organised by Afrika Tikkun, this workshop was offered to young adults, high school pupils and recent graduates entering the workplace and focused on career planning, job preparation, workplace skills and personal development.

Debating

Our Springfield Junior Debating team (Morgan Leak, Angelique Cohen, Kate Thomas, Olivia Fuller and Rachael Muller), were drawn to participate in the Rotary Junior Octofinals at UCT, against Rondebosch Boys' High School. The girls had to debate the topic "This House would ban battery farming", They delivered an excellent performance as team proposition, Morgan Leak was nominated as Best Speaker and they have progressed to the next round. Well done, girls - lots of luck!

CROSS COUNTRY

Last Wednesday, 31 July, Erin Polley, Hannah Polley, Julia Marx, Caity O’cunnaigean and Megan Grieveson took part in the cross-country race that took place at Camps Bay High. Erin, Hannah and Megan came first in their respective age groups and Megan came first.

SQUASH

Results vs Herschel B

1. Lizzie Boyes 0-3

2. Emma Neill 3-0

3. Kate Boyes 3-0

4. Tahlia Rassouw 3-0

Our squash teams had an excellent fixture on Friday afternoon, take 3 of the 4 games, beating Herschel. Lizzie had a very challenging match but managed to score some well-deserved points. Emma, Kate and Tahlia dominated, winning all their games.

Woman’s Day

Friday is National Women’s Day and we salute the role of Women in assisting with political change over the last fifty years in South Africa. However, there are now other battles to fight as there is still much to be done with many South African women continuing to face sexual violence, domestic abuse, inequality in the workplace. May this day be used to draw ongoing attention to these issues which so many women still have to face.