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Message from the Head of School
Message from the Head of School
The end is in sight
The end is in sight
An article entitled How Pandemics End was published on Sunday in the New York Times. It goes on to say that “pandemics typically have two types of endings: the medical, which occurs when the incidence and death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes.”
The reopening of society sees a myriad responses. There is the excitement at being able to get outside for brief periods of exercise. For some it is about being able to get back to the workplace or perhaps even the prospect of satisfying your craving for that take-away that you have not tasted for weeks. Despite these glimpses of life beyond lockdown, we are still fearful of what lies outside the safety of our homes.
Fear is a powerful emotion and it is a natural way of responding to perceived threat. Mixed with the eagerness to return to the school environment, is a concern for the safety of all. I believe that one way to manage fear is by providing relevant information and with this, I would like to share an update of details currently known to me.
To initiate the school readiness protocols, School Management teams and non-teaching staff have been allowed to return to school this week. ISASA has written to the Director General (DG) of Education requesting clarification on matters relating to the return of teaching staff and pupils to schools. In addition the National Alliance of Independent School Associations (NAISA) was scheduled to hold a briefing with the DG this past Monday, but this has been postponed until today. In their letter, ISASA reiterated their request that independent schools be permitted to re-open for pupils as and when the schools can comply with the applicable protocols and operating procedures. Springfield has secured all necessary equipment and materials and is now able to finalise the requisite COVID-19 compliance documentation and procedures. While we await a response from the DG, ISASA advises that we rely on the guidance given by the Western Cape Education Department who, in addition to the above mentioned return of School Management teams and non-teaching staff, have suggested the following tentative dates:
- 25 May 2020 Return of all teachers and learning support staff
- 1 June 2020 First phased intake of pupils
COVID-19 presents very real concerns for many who have no choice but to continue to self-isolate. For others, I hope that the sensibilities shared in the poem As You Go Through Life will go some way in allowing fear to wane and seeing us re-enter society, and our children return to school, with our lives filled with more peace.
As You Go Through Life
(by Ella Wheeler Wilcox)
Don't look for the flaws as you go through life;
And even when you find them,
It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind
And look for the virtue behind them.
For the cloudiest night has a hint of light
Somewhere in its shadows hiding;
It is better by far to hunt for a star,
Than the spots on the sun abiding.
The current of life runs ever away
To the bosom of God's great ocean.
Don't set your force 'gainst the river's course
And think to alter its motion.
Don't waste a curse on the universe--
Remember it lived before you.
Don't butt at the storm with your puny form,
But bend and let it go o'er you.
The world will never adjust itself
To suit your whims to the letter.
Some things must go wrong your whole life long,
And the sooner you know it the better.
It is folly to fight with the Infinite,
And go under at last in the wrestle;
The wiser man shapes into God's plan
As water shapes into a vessel.
PENNY MULLAN
Head of School
Message from the Head of the Junior School
Message from the Head of the Junior School
Dear Parents
The wisdom – and resilience - of Grade Seven girls
At the beginning of the third week in lockdown, I wrote to the Grade Seven girls asking them to write me an email containing the following: either tell me how you are coping during lockdown, or write me a poem about lockdown. I have had an enormous amount of pleasure reading and responding to these emails, and thought some quotes from them would lighten your day as they have mine.
The girls have written such wise words (the comments in italics are from me):
- I'm getting kind of bored of lockdown (I agree wholeheartedly!)
- I am learning how to cook with time now on my hands, I never realized how much I enjoy it and found another hobby for me to do. So far I have baked cupcakes, cake, cookies, ice cream and the best tasting apple cake in the whole world (I want to taste that!)
- Thank the Lord for the Internet so that I can facetime my friends (the need for the Internet for work is incidental!)
- I miss being at our beautiful school with the most wonderful teachers that I am fortunate to have (we are missing you all dreadfully, too)
- Lockdown tests me in many ways like trying not to eat a whole bunch of junk food and trying to stay active (join the club!).
- I have learnt to enjoy the time by relaxing and laughing with my brother. We have had a lot of fun together and I will remember this time well (precious time)
- We have been replanting and splitting the Agapanthus outside of our house! My dad digs them out, my sister and mum split and trim them and I help plant them! (I can just visualize this family working together)
- As much as I was excited about trying out 'homeschooling', I have realised that coming to school is so much more than just coming to learn. It's about your friends, your teachers, your little grade 1's that you monitor, your sport and music, learning with amazing teachers and so much more (wise words indeed).
- One thing that is now different in my life, is that I am living through history!! How many people actually get to live through a global pandemic? (The story will be passed down for generations)
- I feel like this is God's plan to help us to become closer to our family and this is all happening for a reason because He has everything under control (beautifully said and so very true)
- I am missing my Springfield family so much. I wish that person never ate that bat or snake or whatever it was (we all so agree with you!)
- Now with lockdown, I feel like a part of my life is missing. School is such a big part of my life and once things go back to "normal" I will appreciate every single thing. Lockdown has taught me how to work independently and I have gained so much confidence in my ability. I have learned to not take the little things for granted. Things such as waking up, putting on my uniform, packing my bags, getting my blazer off the hook and listening to KFM in the traffic while on the way to school (you have indeed found a silver lining)
- This is a very interesting time of our lives right now, and I am super curious to see what is going to happen next! (The resilience of youth!)
For the next few weeks, I will add in some of the poems written. I have told the girls that in this year’s school magazine we will have a whole COVID LOCKDOWN section, and these poems will be printed there.
COVID-19, you’re oh so mean COVID-19, you’re oh so mean The scientists are trying to find a vaccine,People everywhere are passing on, Oh what a shame they’re gone Thousands are dying everyday,Why, oh why won’t you just go away. COVID-19, you’re oh so mean The scientists are trying to find a vaccine,Everyone is telling me to be happy,But at this point that just sounds sappy,I’m bored and tired and stuck at homeAt least here it’s not as bad as in Rome COVID-19, you’re oh so mean The scientists are trying to find a vaccine,Online school is keeping me sane,At least that is something to distract my brainThe only thing I have to ask is,Please, oh please just wear your mask. COVID-19, you’re oh so mean The scientists are trying to find a vaccine,People everywhere are passing on, Oh what a shame they’re gone Thousands are dying everyday,Why, oh why won’t you just go away. -Nicola Mehl
Thank you, Grade Seven girls – our thoughts are with you
Alison Dunn
A message from the Head of RE
A message from the Head of RE
JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
One of the qualities that you can develop, particularly in your older years, is a sense of great compassion for yourself. When you visit the wounds within the temple of memory, you should not blame yourself for making bad mistakes that you greatly regret. Sometimes you have grown unexpectedly through these mistakes. Frequently, in a journey of the soul, the most precious moments are the mistakes. They have brought you to a place that you would otherwise have always avoided. You should bring a compassionate mindfulness to your mistakes and wounds. Endeavor to inhabit the rhythm you were in at that time. If you visit this configuration of your soul with forgiveness in your heart, it will fall into place itself. When you forgive yourself, the inner wounds begin to heal. You come in out of the exile of hurt into the joy of inner belonging.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara
I was gifted with this book, Anam Cara by John O Donohue, about twenty years ago. The book had such a compelling effect on my life, my thoughts and my interactions with people, that I have since given the book to many special family members and friends. It is one of those books that you don’t devour in haste but rather a book that you savour page by page and pause in between as there is such absolute richness to the tapestry of wisdom and insight. You need time to digest and internalise. I’m sure there are many books which have influenced your life in a meaningful way. During this time of lockdown, take the time to reread a special book. May your favourite book allow scope for you to rekindle that special memory.
“Let there be an opening into the quiet that lies beneath the chaos, where you find the peace you did not think possible and see what shimmers within the storm.”
This song is in tribute to all our Essential workers in the field. We honour you and ask for God’s blessing on your lives.
"You'll Never Walk Alone" Virtual Choir/Orchestra 15 Countries: 300 People
On the 13th May 1917, Our Lady appeared to these three children in Fatima.
These two little saints also died in a pandemic. They are showing us the way to live through this one.
These two little saints also died in a pandemic. They are showing us the way to live through this one.
Jacinta Marto died alone. Her family and well-wishers couldn’t be with her because a pandemic was imposing restrictions worldwide. The one thing she wanted before she died was the Eucharist, but even that was denied her.
If that sounds familiar, it should.
In February of 2020, exactly 100 years after Jacinta’s death in February of 1920 in the Spanish Flu pandemic, the coronavirus pandemic started to hit the news in the West with a vengeance, and would soon be too big to ignore.
Sts. Jacinta and Francisco Marto, patrons of the sick, helped prepare the world for both pandemics.
From 1916-1917, three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, began to see visitors from heaven, first an angel and then Our Lady of Fatima. The visions culminated in a Miracle of the Sun when Francisco was 9 and Jacinta was 7, which was witnessed by thousands and attested to by believers and nonbelievers alike.
Our Lady asked the children to tell the world: “They must not offend the Lord any more, for he is already too much offended!” and she predicted a terrible war would follow if people did not repent. World War I was still raging, and World War II followed, but also the Spanish Flu pandemic that would take the lives of Francisco and Jacinta Marto.
Pope Francis canonized the two siblings in 2017 on the 100th anniversary of that message — after the Year of Mercy, and before the pandemic locked the world out of the sacraments on the 100th anniversary of their death — proposing them as “models of Christian life” for our own time.
“With the canonization of Francisco and Jacinta, I wanted to propose to the entire Church their example,” said Pope Francis in 2017. “After the encounter with the ‘Beautiful Lady,’ as they called her, they frequently recited the Rosary, they did penance and offered sacrifices to bring about the end of the War, and for the souls most in need of divine mercy.”
As we long for the Eucharist, we can look to Francisco and Jacinta as models.
In 2017, I wrote a Fatima Family Handbook that, providentially, is being reprinted right now. It gives practical ways to follow the two children in consoling Jesus, converting sinners and committing to Jesus through Mary. One was visiting the Blessed Sacrament.
In the year and a half he lived after the visions, Francisco’s life was marked by longing for the Eucharist. He liked to squirrel himself away in the church, praying very close to the “hidden Jesus” in the tabernacle.
He died on April 4, 1919, at age 10. Jacinta would linger on, as Our Lady warned her she would do. She suffered greatly in her sickness, becoming separated from her family to go to a hospital in a Lisbon orphanage. She had one enormous consolation: She could see the tabernacle from a chair in a passageway outside her room, gazing as long as she was able.
This is what we do, exiled by pandemic from Communion, and only able to perhaps visit the tabernacle or see it through the “window” of our screens.
We can also follow their example by offering our sufferings for the conversion of sinners.
In canonizing the two children, Pope Francis said, “Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures. Such a life — frequently proposed and imposed — risks leading to hell.”
Francisco and Jacinta were models of doing penance so that sinners could be saved from that fate worse than death.
When his father asked him one night why he was crying, Francisco said: “I was thinking of Jesus who is so sad because of the sins that are committed against him.”
The sins the children were worried about seem to fit our time even better than their own.
Jacinta, warned her mother after Our Lady showed the children a vision of hell: “Mother, fly from riches and luxury.”
She also said, “To be pure in body means to be chaste, and to be pure in mind means not to commit sins; not to look at what one should not see, not to steal or lie, and always to speak the truth, even if it is hard.”
Commenting on Jacinta’s concern for sin, “today too, there is much need of prayer and penitence to implore the grace of conversion,” Pope Francis said.
In his Urbi et Orbi prayer for the pandemic, Pope Francis listed the ways we have fooled ourselves in following false promises. “This Lent your call reverberates urgently: ‘Be converted!,’ ‘Return to me with all your heart.’ You are calling on us to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing,” he prayed, and told us all: “Faith begins when we realize we are in need of salvation.”
If he is right and sickness and suffering is a call to repent and return to God, then God is calling to repentance as never before. Francisco and Jacinta show the way.
https://aleteia.org/2020/04/13/fatimas-shepherd-children-versus-the-coronavirus/
Dear Springfield Family
We request that you keep Gemma and Kaelyn Mills in your prayers.
We’d also like you to keep Mr Keith Richardson in prayer. He recently underwent major surgery and is in need of all our prayers for a full recovery.
With deep gratitude
Ms Stubbs
The Shop @Springfield
The Shop @Springfield
Until further notice, pupils who are attending school, may wear civvies. However, should you wish to purchase any uniform items, the procedure below is to be followed.
Please note that when school reopens on 1 June, the Shop @Springfield will not operate in the usual manner. School uniform items may be ordered via email and once processed they will be ready for collection. Orders will be taken from today for Grade 7 and Grade 12 only. Orders for other grades will be taken once those grades return to school.
Please send your order to schoolshop@springfieldconvent.co.za Please be as specific as possible regarding the sizes as returns/exchanges will be difficult during this time. Please include your daughter's grade and your cell number in the email. Once email orders are received they will be processed and you will be advised via email or phone on the amount to be paid. Please remember to bring along confirmation of payment when collecting items.
Snapscan and EFT payment will be accepted for orders. For EFT payments please use the following bank details:
Springfield Convent PTA
First National Bank
Acc 50192029088
Branch 250655
ref: name & clothing shop
Thank you for your understanding during these difficult times.
Shirley Woodward
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