Junior Newsletter – N23 29 July22 JNR
This week in Assembly Miss Rossouw spoke about Self-Discipline. This is a difficult concept for many people to achieve. Most of us cannot control our emotions in difficult situations or control our impulsive nature, but our learners understood that we all must try. That we should have the self-discipline to finish a task so that we can achieve our goals, that obtaining high marks or sports trophies involves hard work and dedication and without self-discipline this will be hard to achieve. [read more]
Senior Newsletter – N23 29 July22 SNR
I have recently rediscovered the history of the Spartans. The Spartans are well remembered for a battle that took place about 480 BC where 300 men held back a Persian army of over 100 000 for three days. This was known as The battle of Thermopylae.
A closer look at Spartan society teaches us valuable life lessons.
1. Not into riches
Spartans were not particularly interested in riches. They believed that a rich and flamboyant lifestyle did not necessarily lead to a good life. Laws were introduced to limit the gathering of wealth at the expense of others. The lesson learnt is that there is no connection between buying things and happiness. Happiness comes from inside.
2. Learn one thing and learn it well
Spartans spent all day training to be the best soldiers they could possibly be. We do that in education when we learn something in high school, continue at university and fine tune it with a master’s degree. Social media has however filled us with bits and pieces of information that results in us loosing focus on the goals we want to achieve.
3. Live with honor
For a Spartan, shame was one of the worse punishments one could suffer. To dishonor your family name was a humiliation. These days we live in a society that does not value honor as it should. We actually expect people not to do the right thing.
4. Spartans ate together
In Ancient Greece, there was a tradition know as Syssitia. Men both young and old trained together, fought together and ate together. This helped build strong bonds amongst them. In modern society, families have become more disconnected. Cellphones have replaced face to face conversation around a dinner table. The Spartans teach us to disconnect from technology and reconnect with each other.
5. Never give up
The Spartans had a never give up never surrender attitude. There are times in our lives when things get difficult and giving up could be the easy way out. Many of us don’t like the pains of failure or rejection, which is a common reason not to see things through. Like the Spartans, we should always try our best. Achieving our goals despite the many obstacles is much more rewarding than just to give up. l.Ortell
SPORT
We are pleased to announce that football will be coming to Riverside College. There is a lot of excitement in the air regarding the up-and-coming events regarding football. We will be introducing the sport on Mondays as an official school sport in PE, where practice will be taking place for now. We will be playing a few friendlies this year, but the aim is to enter a team into league to play weekly and represent RSC. This only concerns the high school for now while we iron out a few of the details regarding coaches, practice, equipment and infrastructure. We will also be introducing an internal in-house league to start competing against each other and improve match fitness. [read more]