For the past thirty years Westerford High School has hosted a quarterly blood clinic.

The programme runs during a school day when learners and staff can donate their blood for a very good cause. Each person donates one pint, about a half a litre, of blood to the Western Province Blood Service. It is important that the participants must be over the age of seventeen and weigh 50 kg or more. This marks the healthy and stable age for youngsters to donate blood as they are mentally and physically mature enough.

With the third term looming like a large object which has a well known tendency to loom (I do apologise, it’s been five weeks – my writing has grown a tad rusty) and the routine Facebook status updates which always accompany such an occasion, it has been exceedingly difficult for me as an individual to deny that the holidays are indeed drawing to a close. Not to mention that I am sitting in the school premises as I write this and there is far too much activity for it to still be the middle of the holidays.

I could join the general tone of the Facebook statuses and add my voice to the hundreds denouncing the 8-3 education regime which shall soon be upon us – but there are enough of those out there, and complaining about it won’t really change much, will it? Rather, I think it would be more fitting to reflect on the unforgettable holiday which we have just found ourselves in the midst of.

Sitting here in front of my keyboard in mine humble abode, with intrusively loud Nickelback music blaring out of speakers I somehow located in the nether depths of my room, wondering what exactly to write to give an adequate reflection of a term as different as this one, I cannot help but think that the most adequate reflection would be to simply dive straight in, and defy my long winded mannerisms. So here goes!

Arriving at school, still somewhat shellshocked at the prospect of… well, school, we as the Westerford student body were immediately thrown into a melee of exam pads, textbooks and other academic paraphernalia. This seemingly vain attempt to pack us with enough knowledge to survive the looming exams (which I was constantly reminded about by that nifty little countdown timer, on the left hand side of your screen, every time I updated something on the site) turned out to be effective in the end, with most students more or less surviving the exam period. Naturally, the only redeeming factor about exams is that they end and there was audible sigh of relief from all Westerford students around the Southern Suburbs when the aforementioned countdown timer changed to signify the end of exams.

The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has issued a letter to parents containing information it believes relevant for them to consider. It outlines how over the extended June/July holiday students will not be engaging in as much academic activity as they would at school, and so are encouraged to continue to read, write and perform basic arithmetic so as not to completely lose their mental momentum over the long holiday period. Click here to view a PDF copy of the letter.