NEWSLETTER
MICHAELMAS TERM
No 5/2014
Dear Parents
On Tuesday 14 October, I experienced a very moving farewell from the boys
and girls of St John’s College. The whole school was there, from The Bridge
Nursery School to the Matrics and 6th Form. It was delightful to hear from a
little Grade 1 boy that I “deserved a gold medal for my time as Headmaster of
St John’s College”! All the boys spoke honestly and sincerely about my
“watch” as Headmaster and I enjoyed listening to their tributes.
It has been a wonderful experience to lead St John’s College, and although
headmastering is a relentless task, and despite always carrying a certain
level of anxiety as to the next crisis, I can say that I have loved my time as
Headmaster of this outstanding school.
One of the most important tasks any headmaster has, is the selection of new staff. We have been
fortunate over the years to have been able to select excellent teachers. In South Africa there is a dearth of
excellent teachers but fortunately a school like St John’s is able to attract the best. In the Chapel there is a
panel on which are carved the names of teachers who have served the school for 20 years or longer. Their
names appear under the heading “Their achievements are built into the lives of other men”. The value of
teaching lies in the extraordinary influence we have on the lives of young people. We are able to share
their thinking and their character. When I look back on 40 years of teaching, I look back on a wonderful,
purposeful career, and I thank God for the opportunity to shape the lives of young men and women, as well
as the institutions that have educated them. One such wonderful teacher is Mrs Joy de Souza, to whom I
paid tribute in my address at Speech Night.
This last week I was privileged to meet a number of Old Johannians in London. It was good to see them
making their mark in the financial world, in construction, in the media, on the sports field and even as
teachers! They spoke about their own teachers and the influence they have had on them. They enjoyed
meeting up with each other and shared many stories of their time at St John’s. These stories highlight how
teachers’ interactions with the boys are built into the boys’ lives, and many of the teachers were fondly
remembered, and recalled with affection and appreciation. I was delighted to meet with such a large group
of OJs in London, ranging from recent graduates to several retirees. Their support for St John’s is important
for the future of this school.
To all the Matrics, I wish you all the best in your exams and thank you for your leadership role in the school.
At the valedictory service you received the blessing of St John’s College. May you see much success and
happiness in your future. May the hard times shape your character and the good times grow you in
compassion and service.
I also congratulate the new Prefects under the leadership of Tom Montgomery as they take on the mantle
left by the Matrics.
Roger Cameron
Headmaster
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2014 PREFECTS
Head of School:
Marthinus Strydom
Second Prefect:
Dylan Testa
NASH
HILL
CLAYTON
THOMSON
Head of House
Head of House
Head of House
Head of House
Nicholas Cowen
Jason Chemaly
Conor Moses
Itote Rubombora
Tye Clarke
Michael Davies
Oliver Gnodde
Adam Harvey
Kopano Headbush
Devon Henson
Mikhail Kolabhai
Gareth Kunz
Jason McNeil
Li-zen Pan
Jonathan Plaistowe
Alessandro Teixeira
James Allsop
Ahmed Jada
Simbai Kanjere
Callum Leesam
Daven Mauff
Tinotenda Mudiwa
Michael Scott
Robert Sullivan
Rowan Batzofin
Joshua Buchel
Ayrton da Silva
Alastair Fletcher
Neo Kebinelang
Ryan Mackell
Hamish Mollett
Hemal Prag
Prashant Venkatakrishnan
Umar Farooq
David Gundelfinger
Thami May
Duncan Stead
ALSTON
CLARKE
HODGSON
FLEMING
Head of House
Head of House
Head of House
Head of House
Simon Greeff
Tafadzwa Sanyika
Robert Brinkmann
Kgosietsile Motsepe
Zayan Daya
Stephen de Souza
Edward Kerr-Phillips
Nisheel Nagar
Michael Reed
Joseph Savenye-Terblanche
Etienne Smit
Abraham Varghese
Jordan Wheeler
Matthew Behrens
Max Carter
Lyndon Crouch
Nikita Dartchiev
Aashish Diayar
Alexander Korsten
Angus Mackenzie
Eric McLaughlin
Kabir Prema
Nicholas Barker
Taariq Mohammed
Lebo Mota
Ndumi Mvelase
Jason O’Connor
Kemeel Pillay
Kyle Whitfield
Sebastian
Bielderman
Zaid Bhayat
Christoff du Plessis
Wesley Köhler
Chris Maree
Johann Muller
Nicholas Papas
Matthew Taylor
RUNGE
Head of House
Roy Muasya
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ST JOHN’S COLLEGE - 2015 PREFECTS
Head of School:
Second Prefect:
Tom Montgomery
Emilio Ziniades
NASH
HILL
CLAYTON
THOMSON
Head of House
Head of House
Head of House
Head of House
Dean Medcalf
Michael Siebert
Luca Cioffi
Vukosi Nkuna
ALSTON
CLARKE
HODGSON
FLEMING
Head of House
Head of House
Head of House
Head of House
Liam Peters
Nicholas Rowe
Nicholas Zille
Pierre Joubert
RUNGE
Head of House
Dimitri Barbaressos
Academic Awards
Honours
UV - Luc Feldner – Busztin
LV – Logan Geldenhuys Thomas Montgomery Emilio Ziniades
Colours
UV – Daniel Hafner Travis Hornsby Michael Reed
LV – Daniel Arnot Hinal Bhana Liam Collins Pierre Joubert Ayrton Kapp
Tariq Koor Tamlin Love Stephen Maycock Hiren Mistry Raees Patel,
Matthew Peterson Daniel Slater Nicholas Zille
First Aid
Due to the increase in sport over the years it has been decided to have joint Heads of First Aid and San and
Joint First Aid and San Co-ordinators
Heads of First Aid and San
Kiran Govinda and William Young
First Aid and San Co-ordinators
Giggs Kgole and Tristan Malkin
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Sports Colours Awards – Michaelmas Term
Athletics:
Team Blazer:
Thomas Kirk
Daniel Arnot
Dillon Petyt
Dorio Venter
Team Blazer:
Daniel Slater
Luca Cioffi
Thato Molotsi
Nicholas Zille
Vukosi Nkuna
Emilio Ziniades
Colours:
Zaid Bhayat
Matt Hayward
Honours:
Lyndon Crouch
Soccer:
Dillon Petyt
Etienne Frei
Malcolm Masvikwa
The Matthew Bekker Captain’s Trophy is awarded to Lyndon Crouch
The following awards are being presented subsequent to the awarding of summer sports awards in
March this year:
Rowing Awards:
Honours:
Daniel Carter
James Mitchell
They were selected for the SA Junior Rowing team and competed in the Men’s pair in Hamburg
(Germany) at the Junior Rowing World Champs. Made the A-Final and finished 5th
Science Expo 2014 – National Finals
Two projects form St John’s College were selected to participate in the Eskom International Science Fair
for Young Scientists from 7-10 October 2014 at The Birchwood Conference Centre. The boys were great
ambassadors for St John’s College and did well.
Silver medals were awarded to:
Matthew Irvine and Riaghan Davies-Webb (LV) for their project “Escherichia Coli” . They also received a
special award from The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Gold medals were awarded to:
Graeme Betty, Simon Jones and Matthew Roos (LV) for their project “Allyl Isothiocyanate”
The project won the Plant Sciences category and was also awarded prizes for the best Plant Science
Project by The University of Pretoria and the University of Stellenbosch. The boys were awarded first year
bursaries to The University of the Witwatersrand, Stellenbosch University and Rhodes University for “their
excellent achievement as researchers and scientists.”
Congratulations to all these young men on an excellent achievement.
Thank you to Mrs Gower-Winter for judging at the Finals and supporting these boys with their projects.
C A Henning
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President’s Award
The President’s Award for Youth Empowerment aims to empower young people by enabling them to
become responsible active citizens within their communities. These boys had to complete the five
components: skill development, physical recreation, 72 hours of community service, adventurous journey
and a 5-day residential project. They are to be congratulated for putting in an enormous amount of effort
over the last 18 months and this is a tremendous achievement.
Barker
Batchelor
Behrens
Bhayat
Boyce
Brinkmann
Burnett
Carroll
Carter
Chemaly
Clarke
Cowen
Davies
Daya
De Souza
Devonport
Diayar
Du Plessis
Dunne
Farooq
FeldnerBusztin
Fletcher
Gnodde
Nicholas
Jamie
Matthew
Zaid
Justin
Robert
John-Mark
Grant
Max
Jason
Tye
Nicholas
Michael
Zayan
Stephen
Nicholas
Aashish
Christoff
Benedict
Umar
Luc
Alastair
Oliver
Greeff
Gundelfinger
Hafner
Harvey
Henson
Jada
Kathawaroo
Katrakilis
Kerr-Phillips
Kohler
Korsten
Leesam
Leonard
Mackell
Maree
Mohamed
Mollett
Mota
Muller
Nagar
Pan
Papas
Peers
Simon
David
Daniel
Adam
Devon
Ahmed
Chiraag
Stamo
Edward
Wesley
Alexander
Callum
Liam
Ryan
Chris
Taariq
Hamish
Lebo
Johann
Nisheel
Li-zen
Nicholas
Chase
Pillay
Plaistowe
Prag
Prema
Quinn
Reed
Rubombora
Sanyika
SavenyeTerblanche
Stanchev
Stead
Strong
Strydom
Stucke
Teixeira
Terblanche
Testa
Thurling
Varghese
Venkatakrishnan
Wheeler
Whitfield
Kemeel
Jonathan
Hemal
Kabir
Angelo
Michael
Itote
Tafadzwa
Joseph
George
Duncan
Christopher
Marthinus
Guy
Alessandro
Mitchell
Dylan
Christopher
Abraham
Prashant
Jordan
Kyle
AFRIKAANS OLYMPIAD - 2014
The Afrikaans First Additional Language Olympiad was written on 20 May 2014 by 3533 pupils throughout
South Africa. St. John’s College entered 44 pupils and the school is proud of their achievements. The
national average for this Olympiad was 61%.
We congratulate Daniel Erasmus (UV)-88% and Quintus Kilbourn (UIV)-88% who were placed in the
top 20 in Gauteng, and in the top 100 in South Africa. Logan Geldenhuys (LV)-84% was also placed
in the top 100 in South Africa.
ENGLISH OLYMPIAD - 2014
Gold Awards
Daniel Erasmus
Mikhail Kolabhai
Keegan Leech
Tamlin Love
Silver Awards
Jamie Batchelor
Robert Brinkmann
Sebastian Da Silva
Zayan Daya
Aashish Diayar
Thulani Dlamini
Benedict Dunne
Logan Geldenhuys
Oliver Gnodde
Stephen Havenga
Alexander Korsten
Stefan Massyn
Mpilo Mseleku
Angus Paterson
Kyllian Pather
Matthew Rosin
George Stanchev
Jesse Stevens
Emilio Ziniades
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Debating
The College junior debating team participated in the final rounds of the Gauteng provincial debating
championships at the end of September. The team comprised Stefan van Niekerk, Delela Ndlela, Carl
Belger and Ernst Hechter. They won the quarter-finals and the semi-finals. As a result, they proceeded to
the final, in which they came up against the top-ranked team, King David Victory Park. Speaking in a full
auditorium in front of a panel of seven adjudicators, the team produced an impressive performance to
defeat the favourites. As such, St John’s won the final and we were crowned the Gauteng champions.
Music
Alexander Whitehead participated in the Samro National Music competition in
Cape Town recently. The competition is played over four rounds and around 60
children were selected nationally to compete.
Twenty-five advanced to the third round and 8 (7 pianos and 1 cellist) competed in
the finals. Alexander was the cellist competing in the finals. He won the prize for
best baroque piece and for the best South African piece as well as the prize for
best string player and first prize for the competition overall.
As part of the prize he will open next year’s competition with a solo performance
with orchestra and has been invited to participate in the concerto festival in Cape
Town next year.
CERN Beam Line Competition
CERN is famous for the Large Hadron Collider and finding the Higgs Boson, but there is much more to
CERN. A large part of CERN’s research and development is carried out using fixed target beams. This
year, to coincide with its 60th anniversary, CERN made a fully equipped beam line available for a team of
school students to run an experiment of their own design. The beam time was allocated by scientific
competition, just as it is allocated for all CERN experiments.
St John’s College entered a team consisting of Logan Geldenhuys, Keegan Leech, Matthew Davies, Jesse
Stevens, Zachary Bowditch, Tamlin Love, Andrew Fletcher, Mohamed Dasoo, Hiren Mistry, Tariq Koor,
Raees Patel, Hinal Bhana and Nastassja Philippou.
The team went through a very long and challenging process. The team first worked through a course in
particle physics and then researched various ideas in order to develop a design. The team is grateful for
the guidance and teaching received from Prof Simon Connell from The University of Johannesburg. The
final 1000 word proposal and a one-minute video were submitted on 31 March 2014.
Proposals were pre-selected by a committee of CERN scientists based on creativity, motivation, feasibility
and demonstration of the ability to follow the scientific method. Shortlisted proposals were then sent to the
SPSC, the committee that validates all proposals for experiments at the laboratory’s Super Proton
Synchrotron and Proton Synchrotron.
292 schools from around the world entered the competition. After two rounds of evaluation, 16 teams were
put forward for final selection. Eventually, 2 teams were selected to carry out their experiments on a beam
line at CERN. The winners were a team from Varvakios Pilot School in Athens, Greece and a team from
Dominicus College in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
The team from St John’s College proposed an experiment to create a gamma ray laser using crystals. We
were placed in the final 16 and given the status of highly commended. This is a remarkable achievement.
Congratulations to the winning teams and to the team from St John’s College.
C A Henning
HOD: Science
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MARETLWANE RENAISSANCE MAN AWARDS – TRINITY WILDERNESS SCHOOL
Top three positions:
Special Mentions:
Irwin, Peter
1
Trengove, Daniel
Malindi, Lebo
Love, Merlin
1
2
3
Vosloo, Joshua
3
Mparutsa, Phillip
Chipu, Tshepo
Ter Mors, Yanick
Boshoff, Peter
Channon, James
Ndlela, Delela
Tindle, Chris
Jeffrey, Nic
Stevens, Daniel
Hamer, Julian
SPORTS NEWS
Rowing
James Mitchell (L5) and Daniel Carter (L5) competed at the World Rowing Junior Championship Regatta
from the 6th of August to the 10th of August in Hamburg, Germany in the junior men's pair. They finished in
5th position overall out of 27 countries that entered the event and it is the best position any South African
Junior pair has ever achieved.
This is a fantastic achievement for two boys of St Johns and for the rowing club. They still have another
year at this level. The pair was coached by Grant Dodds. The crew and coach must be commended for
this excellent achievement.
Judo
Tiaan Giliomee won the South African School’s championship- Advanced section in the Group 3 66+kg
(open weight) category that took place today, Sunday 5 October, at the Turffontein Portugese Hall in
Johannesburg. He beat the current South-African champion in this weight and age division, and the silver
and bronze medallists were between 25 and 30 kgs heavier than he is. He represented both his school, St.
John’s College, and Central Gauteng Province at this event.
Lead Climbing
Matthew Robinson and Neil Gultig (both in Lower IV) successfully competed in
the SA National Lead Sport Climbing Championships in Cape Town over the
weekend 4 and 5 October. The National competition on at the City Rock
Climbing Gym consisted of two qualifying climbs, a semi-final and a final.
The qualifying rounds took place on Saturday with a number of climbers
topping both qualifying rounds, resulting in eleven climbers going through to the
semi-finals. Neil and Matt both “flashed ”(i.e. topped without falling) both of their
qualifying rounds which meant that they both qualified for the semi-finals on
Sunday.
On Sunday the climbs were substantially more difficult and Matt and Neil
excelled and qualified in the top two positions in the semi-finals.
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The final was a tightly contested event with Matt flashing the route and winning the Gold medal on a countback. The Gauteng team won the overall team trophy by a substantial margin.
All medalists, and other selected climbers, will be invited to a qualifying competition in 2015 where the
National Team to represent South Africa in the 2015 World Youth Sport Climbing Championships in Italy in
2015.
Matthew Robinson (Lower IV) was selected to represent South Africa at the World
Youth Sport Climbing Championships in Noumea, New Caledonia from 19 to 24
September 2014. SASCOC awarded Matt and ten other climbers their Protea
colours for Sport Climbing for their achievements.
The registration and opening ceremony took place with a total of 26 countries
represented. There were strong teams from Austria, Russia and the USA present.
Matt competed in two qualifying rounds of lead climbing but unfortunately he did
not qualify for the semi-finals. He also competed in the speed competition where
he ended in a credible twelfth position in his age category.
Inter-House Cross Country – 2014
First Ten Placings
Seniors
1. Gareth Harvett
2. Graeme Betty
3. Tye Clarke
4. Colby Clarke
5. Brett le Roux
6. Nicholas Rowe
7. Alessandro Teixeira
8. Rowan Batzofin
9. Robin Lavers
10. Alastair Fletcher
16:22
16:32
16:50
16:56
17:05
17:18
17:20
17:30
17:32
18:10
Nash (U5)
Thomson (L5)
Nash (U5)
Nash (U4)
Hodgson (L5)
Clarke (L5)
Nash (U5)
Clayton (U5)
Runge (U6)
Clayton (U5)
Juniors
1. Joshua Harrison
2. Eric Geldenhuys
3. Ross Morshead
4. Thebe Sithole
5. Tšhego Motau
6. Alexander Worsdale
7. Garyn Berry
8. Robin Swartz
9. Robert Bromley
10. Takalani Madima
18:20
18:58
19:18
19:23
19:28
19:45
20:00
20:05
20:20
20:24
Hodgson (L4)
Fleming (L4)
Nash (Re)
Clarke (L4)
Nash (L4)
Clarke (L4)
Hodgson (Re)
Nash (Re)
Hodgson (L4)
Hodgson (L4)
Junior
1 Nash
2 Clarke
3 Hill
4 Clayton
5 Hodgson
6 Alston
7 Fleming
8 Thomson
Senior
1 Nash
2 Hill
3 Clayton
4 Hodgson
5 Alston
6 Runge
7 Clarke
8 Thomson
9 Fleming
Overall
1 Nash
2 Hill
3 Clarke
4 Clayton
5 Hodgson
6 Alston
7 Thomson
8 Fleming
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Cricket
The following Cricket boys have been selected to represent the respective Gauteng cricket teams.
U19A
Ndumiso Mvelase
Connor McKerr
U19B
Morgan Fairbairn
U17A
Lorenzo Masselli
Farhaan Sayanvala
U17B
Liam Peters
U15A
Murray Blair
U15B
Robert Bromley
Swimming
Congratulations to the following three U/16 boys who
participated in the Sun City Dischem Open Water Swim over
half-term.
Mitchel Sinclair swam in the 3km and 1.5km swim events came 6th in the boys 1.5km in a time of 18.35 and finished his
3km in a time of - 40.08
Justin Beswick knocked off 2 mins from last year and did a
25:08 for the 1.5km. Matthew Collins did his first ever open
water swim and did a 36.33 for the 1.5km
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