FLIPPING BOOK CHRONICLE 2024

• 99 bronze certificates: awarded to the top 30% of participants nationally.

The teaching staff of the Computer Studies Department remained deeply engaged in professional development throughout the year, with a strong focus on collaborative curriculum development and assessment refinement. Our educators take immense pride in their work and continually seek to enhance their expertise. In 2024:

• 64 silver certificates: awarded to the top 15% of participants nationally.

• 27 gold certificates: awarded to the top 7% of participants nationally.

• Mr Ian Crawford served as cluster leader of the KwaZulu Natal cluster.

Following this achievement, selected boys progressed to the Applications and Programming Olympiads. Several boys were awarded gold certificates in the first round of these competitions:

• Mr Simphiwe Xulu and Ms Aimee Nell were selected to mark the 2024 NSC IEB examinations in their respective subjects. • Mr Dominic Gruijters commenced a three-year term as the KZN IEB National Subject Forum representative for Information Technology. These leadership roles ensure that our staff remain at the forefront of curriculum advancements and pedagogical best practices. One of the key objectives for 2024 was to equip boys with the knowledge to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools effectively. Rather than discouraging the use of AI, we focused on teaching the boys how to refine their prompts and leverage AI (such as ChatGPT) as a powerful educational tool. When used responsibly, AI can significantly enhance learning and problem-solving skills, preparing boys for a technology driven world. As the department continues to go from strength to strength, we remain steadfast in our mission to inspire, innovate and shape the technological pioneers of tomorrow. • Through smartphones, social media has transformed how adolescents learn to relate, pushing aside real-time, synchronous, high-value interactions and replacing them with fleeting, broadcast, low-commitment, online tribal interactions. As a result, young people lack the stability of social-emotional belonging in which to form stable, healthy identities. Western cultures have dismantled most of the rites of passage which enable adolescents to mark their transitions to adulthood. As a result, adolescence is extended and adulthood postponed. THE EVIDENCE Haidt amasses an impressive suite of evidence to support his claims. But I suspect that most educators don’t need academic papers to sense and feel that Haidt’s dissection of the root causes of the mental health crisis afflicting the children in their schools is, in essence, right.

APPLICATIONS OLYMPIAD:

Griffon Erasmus, Zhengfei Li, Rhys Watson, Josh van Duren, Joshua van Niekerk.

PROGRAMMING OLYMPIAD:

Ross Borley, Makabongwe Mace, Kian Moses, Dylan Noach, Roelof Rossouw.

A special commendation must be given to Roelof Rossouw, who excelled in the Programming Olympiad, advancing through both the second and third rounds. He achieved an outstanding fifth place nationally in the second round and was a runner-up in the final round held in Pretoria in September. Roelof’s excellence in programming has earned him a place in the South African training squad for the International Olympiad of Informatics 2025 in Bolivia – a remarkable achievement that speaks to his dedication and skill.

PASTORAL CARE AND COUNSELLING

Written by Mr Tim Jarvis, Senior Master Pastoral Care

HAS CHILDHOOD BEEN REWIRED? n The Anxious Generation , his profound 2023 analysis of contemporary adolescence, Jonathan Haidt claims that the “great rewiring” of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. Dr Simon Walker, CEO and co-founder of STEER, an evidence-based tool to measure, track and improve how each young person self-regulates well-being and good mental health, asks if Haidt is right, and how we respond. THE CLAIMS Without wanting to diminish the nuance and texture of his argument, Haidt makes a central set of claims which can be distilled into the following: • For the past two decades, a culture of safetyism has grown up in which children’s experience of risk in the real world is denied them. As a result, both genders, but especially boys, lack the opportunities to develop essential self governing skills. I

One statistic and one image illustrate the story more clearly than any others. The image is of a 1970s high-bar playground in

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