Cannons Creek Independent School

The Cape Town Regional Science Fair was held at the University of Cape Town from 11-13 August 2026. Cannons Creek proudly entered five Grade 9 projects, with every pupil performing exceptionally well. Overall we achieved one Bronze medal, one Silver medal, and three Highly Commended awards. Additionally, we also received two Special Awards. Well done to all our pupils! Thank you to Mrs Oliphant for her guidance and support.

*Oratile Tlale and Rofhiwa Tshikudo: Effectiveness of Hand Hygiene Techniques in Reducing Bacterial Load (Biomedical and Medical Sciences category) - HIGHLY COMMENDED
*Riley Moores: The Use of Lasers in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer (Engineering category) - SILVER & Living Maths Special Award.
*Haneen Adams: The effect of Different Colours of Visible Light on Yoghurt Bacteria with Added Fluorescent Dye (Biomedical and Medical Sciences category) - HIGHLY COMMENDED
*Amaar Ebrahim: Designing an Accessible 'Smart Home' (Computer Science and software development category) - BRONZE & Special Award - Best in Computer Science Category - Junior
*Jude Williams: Development of a Handheld Raspberry Pi 3 Gaming Console (Computer Science and software development category) - HIGHLY COMMENDED

On the first day, participants set up their projects and completed the project approval process. The second day was devoted to interviews with at least two judges, providing pupils with the opportunity to present their research and respond to questions. The final day was open to the public, allowing visitors to view the projects on display and concluded with the award ceremony.

Eskom Expo for Young Scientists

Listen to Grade 10 pupil Qaylah Omar being interviewed on Smile 90.4FM this morning, chatting about her experience being part of TeamZA who won NASA's International Space Settlement Design Competition.

https://soundcloud.com/user-943400606/qaylah-omar-smilefm-interview

Our Grade 6s have been hard at work developing valuable entrepreneurship skills, and we are so proud of their efforts in hosting a successful Market Day on Friday 7 August! From planning and budgeting to setting up and cleaning up, each group showed dedication and teamwork.

A heartfelt thank you to all the parents for their generous donations and support - your contributions helped make this a memorable fundraiser for the Grade 6 gift to the school. Thank you also to all our money spenders and sugar-hyped buyers!

Congratulations to the following pupils who participated in the Visual Arts (Painting and Drawing) Category of the JanArte Eisteddfod Festival. The Diploma and Gold+ artworks were on display at Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck over the past week.

Diploma (90%+): Saieshh Ramsaroop and Shura Naidoo
Gold+ (85%-89%): Bella Mays, Emma Shepherd, Olivia Middleton, and Sarah van Aarde
Gold: Grace Clarke, Leah Kooyman, and Rofhiwa Tshikhudo

“This was our first year of entry so I am incredibly proud of the high quality of work, creativity and dedication of the students. Well done, you thoroughly deserve to be honoured." - Mrs Malan

On Saturday 1 August, we hosted our Pre-Primary Fun Morning for 3-5 year olds where they suited up in their best Pirates and Princesses finery and enjoyed a day of magic, cup-cake icing, sandart, making crowns, having a story read to them in the Library, assembling a pirate using Bee-bots; and of course finding the treasure and jumping on the pirate ship jumping castle! Thank you to our amazing staff for making the day a memorable one!

It's not too late to get your application in for Grade RR or Grade R for 2027 - we would love you to find more treasures by joining the Cannons family (rather than walking the plank!)

Congratulations to two Cannons Creek Independent High School pupils, Qaylah Omar (Grade 10) and Alaya Kaplen (Grade 11) who were part of the group to recently win the International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC) held at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. The two Cannons Creek pupils; along with pupils from Westerford High School, Bishops Diocesan College, Fairmont High School, and Mondale High School; made up the seven-strong South African team. Countries are allowed to send teams of up to 12 people, so this was record-breaking that this South African team was the only one from the continent, and for the first time ever. The South African team merged with other teams from around the world, to form their company Rockdonnell (approximately 60 people per company) which had various roles in its structure such as the CEO, President, HR, and Operations. The actual competition consisted of 15-hour long days where the groups needed to design every possible aspect of a space settlement that is permanently in space and engages in inter-planetary travel, as well as designing the rockets and shuttles that go back and forth. They needed to ensure that the city had everything a normal city would have such as sewage, roads and so forth; as well as being sustainable and profitable.

A highlight for Qaylah was visiting the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit. She said, "The experience was so immersive and the way NASA presented it is truly indescribable. At that specific exhibit, I not only got to see the Atlantis orbiter, which travelled 33 missions, but I also got to experience a space shuttle launch simulator, which was INCREDIBLE! You feel the vibrations, hear the rumbles and experience the G-force of a real rocket launch!" A surprising moment for Alaya was experienced when she was taking a well-deserved break next to a river when she witnessed a real-life alligator surfacing out the water (which was not fenced in).

Some of the biggest challenges they faced were the long days ensuring they managed their time and met deadlines. Since it was a multinational competition, language barriers were also another challenge. However, there were translators and this allowed for lots of cultural learning to take place. "This taught me to slow down and find new ways of communicating," said Qaylah. Qaylah summarised the experience well, saying: "Even though we all came from different cultures and places, we were able to bond over science as well as form lifelong friendships". She added that the biggest challenge for her was that she was one of eight pupils chosen to present their project to the judges - "Since I was presenting last, I had to quickly cut out parts of what I planned as we were running overtime. At least it was short and sweet...just like me!" Alaya shared that she found the food to be an issue as "Everything is soaked in preservatives and corn syrup!"

Speaking about the experience overall, Alaya said: "It was maybe the most intense week of my life - everything is bigger. It was overwhelmingly incredible". Alaya also spoke fondly of everyone bringing little pins from their countries to add to others' lanyards, adding that she especially liked the Brazilians as there are several commonalities between the two countries. Qaylah said, "Representing South Africa at ISSDC was already an incredible honour but knowing we were also representing Africa for the first time made the experience even more meaningful. Then to win the competition while being the first South African team is something I will be proud of for the rest of my life". Alaya added that they were surrounded by incredible people - not only the participants, but also the astronauts, astrophysicists, plane pilots, and engineers; and so several connections were made. Qaylah added that visiting NASA was a dream come true - "This competition has opened my eyes to the possibility of exploring opportunities in aerospace. I am fascinated by the industry as it is characterised by constant discovery and I truly believe that space represents the future for our generation".

We are excited to announce the results we've just received! Congratulations to all our Grade 4-7 pupils who wrote the second round of the South African Mathematics Challenge 2026, in May. This is a national competition for primary school pupils in Grades 4 to 7, organized by the South African Mathematics Foundation (SAMF).

GOLD (more than 80%): Adam Parkar, Atiya Kaplan
SILVER (more than 60%, less than 80%):
Grade 7: Thayer Ramlal and Saieshh Ramsaroop
Grade 4-6: Suri Naidoo, Thaakir Parker, Liam Bester, Amy Hoflinger, Scarlett Kooyman
BRONZE (more than 50%, less than 60%):
Grade 7: Zivai Hove
Grade 4-6: William Gilchrist, Alec Pienaar, Jonny Baker, Katie Roets, Liliana Louw, Eli Naidoo, Ismah Parker, Emily Gardiner-Atkinson

Well done to all our other pupils who participated and qualified for Round 2. A special shoutout to Atiya and Adam who will write the Final Round in September. We are also so proud of Aitya for achieveing 100% - no simple feat!

Cannons Creek Independent High School's Netball teams took on Rallim Secondary School on Thursday 30 July, at Rallim. Whilst both the U14 and 1st teams lost, the U16s won 13-7. The U16 player of the match was awarded to Madison Beck.