Bushwillow School news

Bushwillow students represented United Shotokan Ryu at the 2024 WUKF South African National Championship.

Part of Bushwillow education is to create opportunities to connect with nature in a meaningful way. One of the ways we are doing is this is through the Food Forest and Gardens initiative, led by Bushwillow grandparent Tim Wigley and teacher Yvonne van Breugel....

Since the beginning of October, under guidance of volunteer Anne Keating, our learners have been practising for our school play ‘Lets the Birds Sing.’ While we had to call off performances due to the Covid 19 pandemic last year, thankfully, we were able to regroup...

This year we adapted our Friday schedule to include exciting hands-on activities. Every Friday there are five or six activities organized by the teachers and Bushwillow friends, allowing our children to broaden their skills, follow their interests, and learn...

When we began our Friday activities, a committed group of chess players in the senior class was willing to lead the chess activity. There are children from age six to fourteen who consistently choose chess every Friday, and this group is steadily growing. When...

Rainfall (mm) in 2020 - R343, Kenton on Sea, RSA (Year total: 646 mm) This rain record (scroll to the bottom of the page) was compiled by averaging data gathered from Beehaven cottage, Beehaven farm, Kurmark and Bushwillow (R343, Kenton on Sea; Bushmans-side and...

At the end of April, Bushwillow held its traditional annual Bonfire Night. It rained the day before and it was a windless evening – perfect conditions for a bonfire. The Bushwillow community gathered just before sunset to help set the wood, which was kindly...

Ron and Angie Engert have played a vital role in the story of Bushwillow. In 2016,  a couple of months before Bushwillow opened its doors (in January 2017), Ron and Angie agreed to donate part of their farm, “Birdsong,” to Bushwillow for one Rand, so long as the...

In March we said goodbye to one of our founding families. Anouk Verheijen and Stephen Wigley, along with their four children, Marijke, Thijmen, Luc and Yens, left South Africa in April bound for the Netherlands, and are sorely missed. Anouk Verheijen and Stephen...

On the 26th of February the senior class at Bushwillow School held a long awaited and much belated Valentines Dance. With COVID protocols in place, the children danced, chatted and enjoyed a bring-and-share snack table. The highlight of the evening was a tango...

We are saying goodbye to Damian Tsikos and Naliyah Santos-Osman, who are graduating from Bushwillow and moving to Carriage Rock High School next year. Congratulations! We will miss you both and wish you well in the next big step in your school journey. Bon voyage...

During these Covid times we have been blessed with so much on distance and on site support from our volunteers. Without them it would not have been possible to run our school so smoothly! Jasna, Katryn, Marcela and Peter, you all have been stars in the classroom....

Thanks to the Municipality of Tilburg, we are extending our outreach to our community through a food gardening programme. This programme kick started on 17 August with natural farming training in the Ekuphumleni township by permaculture specialist Tim Wigley. For...

Fortunately, due to our low numbers of students per class and our spacious set-up, we have been able to re-open our school in full on 8 June. After such a long break, our teachers and learners were very pleased to be reunited again in the classroom. In the first...

Together with our teachers, the Bushwillow Board has prepared for school re-opening by putting in place a comprehensive Covid-19 plan. Our board member and General Practitioner, Eleanor Galpin, has been crucial in ensuring this plan took into consideration the...

The hard lockdown in our country means a loss of income for many people, putting many members of our community in a vulnerable position. We have been proud on the ways in which our school family has been supportive in various ways: Supporting the local soup...

Like everywhere in the world, so far this year has been an unprecedented one for Bushwillow School. Due to Covid-19 restrictions in place, our school has been closed from 18 March. This has challenged us to change our way of operating to ensure the safety of our...

Thanks to the generous support of the Dutch ZIJN Foundation, we were able to install 10 new water tanks at the school, which now supply all our drinking water. The ZIJN Foundation grant also helped us to create a separate beautiful playground for the pre-school...

From the beginning of this year we started to roll-out explorative learning project modules in our Grade 3-4 and Grade 5-7 class. The first modules were a big success with exciting snorkelling and fishing excursions to discover our ocean ecosystem. As part of each...

Every year we celebrate the school’s Birthday with a talent show. At this show, children of each class share their talents on stage. Our fourth birthday was again a true celebration with various dance drama and singing performances. Our teachers finished the show...

Teacher Xabsi, who started as a co-teacher at our school, has been promoted to a lead teacher position in the Grade R- 2 class this year. While she was a little nervous to step up, she has risen to the challenge! We are very proud to be able to support teachers in...

Our pre-school class is exploring the ocean this term. They drew the land and the ocean, designed their own boats and ships, built their class boat together out of card box and sailed around the world with it in one day! During this ocean adventure they explored...

In July 2019, we started the Ubuntu Skills Programme, providing sewing lessons to teachers, parents and women and men from our local community. A group of 10 people have enthusiastically started two-hour lessons twice a week and will continue till the end of the...

In the week 20-27 September millions of people took to the streets all over the world to call attention to the urgency of climate change. The children of Bushwillow School decided to join these people and try to raise awareness in our own town Kenton on Sea by...

We attended the annual invitational athletics in PE on the 15th of August.  Well done to all our students who attended this fun and eventful day!

To meet our future growth needs we are already preparing for our next development phase, which consists of building two new classrooms and a reception / kitchen area by the end of 2020. Together with New Earth Architecture we came up with initial designs for these...

During the July holidays, whilst our children and teachers were enjoying a well-deserved break, we started development on our new classroom building! We are so excited to see the completion of this project (due end August) as our senior learners will benefit from...

Edu-change: bringing together teachers from across the country for educational change From 1-3 July 2019 Bushwillow school hosted the edu-change workshop in which we bought together Bushwillow teachers and other change-makers in the South African educational field....

Another Bushwillow School tradition!  This year we had our well supported and very popular bonfire evening on the night of the winter solstice - 21 June. Teachers, parents and children enjoyed the warmth of the fire and washed boerie rolls down with hot chocolate. ...

On Friday 3 May Bushwillow performed its first ever musical production! There was a lot of roaring, singing and great humour. All the children from the school were involved in the production either through acting, singing, dancing or creating the stage, masks and...

During the school holidays, a team lead and managed by Stephen cleared a section in and around the circular drive and parking area of the school and erected a fence around it. The result is a beautiful extended playground for the children with many more trees and...

Our theme for term two follows on from term 1's "Rights and Responsibilities", but shift to different theme projects: Rights and responsibilities with regard to our body (body systems, human skeleton compared to other animals, evolution) our ecosystems (estuarine...

Thank you to all the teachers, staff, parents and children who got involved during their free time to help us beautify our school. Time was spent on erecting a new climbing structure called "the shipwreck", tidying gardens and making a banana circle!

We spent the last day of the term at the beach! What better way to celebrate the end of a fantastic school term and the start of our first holiday . In true Bushwillow style we walked along the Kariega River all the way to Kenton Middle Beach where the children and...

Our first cricket match!  Coach Moses and our Bushwillow cricket team were invited to a mini match in Ekuphumleni, sponsored by KFC.  Much fun was had by all. 

Steve Sherman from Living Maths in Cape Town was so impressed by our children and our school that he made a special detour on his way to the airport back from the Makhanda Science Festival to come and see us. The kids feel the same way about him and great fun was...

On Sunday 10 March our Grade R-7 learners piled into cars and headed off to the Makhanda Science Festival. Both adults and children had a wonderful time exploring what was on offer. Below are but a few pictures of our fun day out.

To mark the occasion of our 2nd birthday, our children organized a Talent show for the Bushwillow community. It is always so inspiring to watch our kids in action as they emerge themselves into creating something special. It provides them with the opportunity to...

Both children and grown-ups had such good experiences on our camping trip to Assegaai in November last year that we all jumped at the opportunity to add the same weekend trip to our learning project about the Khoisan rock art. The hike to the sacred place with the...

A warm welcome to coach Moses! Moses was born in Port Alfred and an avid soccer player from a young age. Moses is passionate about teaching and coaching children in sports so 10 years ago he quit playing and his coaching career started. He was recently invited to a...

We were joined by Dutch volunteers on the 25th on January this year. Both children and teachers had a wonderful time. Ntsiki Anderson will be volunteering every Thursday for first term. She's worked in play services and sharing her expertise with us here at...

On 6 December we visited the ‘Helping Handing Soup Kitchen’ to hand-over Christmas presents that our learners collected and wrapped. The children supported by the Soup Kitchen were very grateful for the presents we delivered. Thanks everyone for the generous...

On 18 November 2017 we walked to Shelley beach with parents, learners and siblings for a picnic. We had a great turn-out and thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful morning filled with swimming, castle building and fun conversations. It was great to all get to know each...

During this day we will be building climbing and balancing structures at the natural playground. Beforehand we will make an inventory of what material can be supplied and the tools that need bringing. Children are encouraged to come with and be part of this...

We have launched our website. Our thanks go to to Tessa Mac Taggart and Kristie Botha from littlefishagency.co.za for all their hard work and creative skills. We really appreciate all their time and input. Anouk Verheijen (Chair Person), right, presented Tessa...