The Lost Files

By the Teacher Who Was Supposed to Publish This Months Ago (BO)

Somewhere between Term 1 deadlines, marking, meetings, tests, assemblies, inter-house, and the general chaos of The Settlers High School, an entire edition of The Quarterly Chatman disappeared into the abyss.

Well… “disappeared” may be a little dramatic.

It was there. We knew it was there. We just never actually published it.

Consider it less of a disappearance and more of an extended stay at the bottom of the ocean.

So, welcome to The Lost Files — the first of several forgotten treasures we will be digging out of the archives, dusting off and finally releasing into the wild. Or, since we’ve rebranded, perhaps I should say we’re diving in and bringing them back to the surface.

Before we continue, I should probably introduce myself.

Hi! I’m Miss Botes (BO), the English and LO teacher you’ll usually find up in Room 208, and I am essentially the captain of The Deep Dive — the new and improved (and hopefully slightly more organised) version of what you once knew as The Quarterly Chatman.

The name and publishing platform may have changed, but the heart of what we’re trying to do hasn’t.

We want to create something that actually sounds like and represents YOU — the student body of The Settlers High School. Not a collection of perfectly polished, painfully serious pieces that sound as though they were written by a committee of adults. The articles our learners write are funny, interesting, opinionated, occasionally chaotic and filled with personality.

And that is exactly how we like them.

We want YOUR voices.

The humour. The opinions. The slightly questionable jokes. The observations only learners would make. The stories that capture what it actually feels like to be young, at school and trying to survive whatever the term decides to throw at you.

We’re not interested in staying in the shallow end. The Deep Dive is about going a little deeper — into the stories, opinions, memories and general chaos that make our school our school.

Which brings us to our first Lost File: Term 1.

Think of this edition as a tiny time capsule from a simpler era. A time when the year was still young, everyone had fresh stationery, academic comebacks still seemed entirely possible, and nobody was quite as tired as they are now. You were still trying to find a date to the Valentine’s Dance, and Matric finals felt months away.

Oh, how blissfully unaware we all were.

Take your time with these articles. You don’t have to read everything in one sitting. Find the things that interest you. Read what makes you laugh. Discover whose writing you enjoy. Disagree with someone. Agree with someone else.

Basically, read at your own leisure.

Or, more realistically, consider this your invitation to procrastinate responsibly.

When Mathematics has reduced you to staring blankly at an equation you swear was never taught in class, close the textbook for five minutes and open The Deep Dive instead.

Your marks may be sinking, but at least you can dive into something more entertaining.

(For legal purposes, that was a joke. Please study.)

Travel back with us to Term 1.

Experience the extremely recent nostalgia.

Remember who you were before the year got this serious.

And there is plenty waiting for you beneath the surface.

This edition takes us back to the Valentine’s Dance, when some of you found love, some found courage, and others presumably found a convenient excuse not to attend.

We also introduce our Teacher of the Term — something we’re making a regular feature of The Deep Dive. Another teacher will soon be placed at the mercy of the student body when you get to vote for the next winner, so choose wisely. Teachers have feelings too. Allegedly.

There’s also some much-deserved appreciation for our incredible dance performers who took to the stage at Artscape, because performing on that stage deserves considerably more recognition than we could fit into an assembly announcement.

We dive back into the memories of the One-Act Play House Competition, too.

I personally preferred Bain’s performance. Not because I’m the Bain Housemaster or anything. That would make me biased. And I am obviously a completely impartial journalist.

We also get into some genuinely interesting — and potentially dangerous — debates, including the question: Do prefects have too much power?

There’s a survival playlist for when life at school becomes a little too much, memories worth resurfacing, opinions worth arguing about, photographs worth looking back on, and plenty more waiting for you.

Some pieces will make you laugh. Some might make you think. Some might make you disagree so strongly that you immediately start planning your own response article.

Please do.

That is exactly what we want.

Read an article. Laugh at something. Debate something. Appreciate someone’s talent. Discover a writer whose work you enjoy. And, for a few minutes, enjoy being mentally transported back to Term 1.

Then, unfortunately, go back to studying.

This is only the beginning of The Lost Files. There are more forgotten stories, pictures and memorabilia waiting to escape whatever folder they have been trapped in.

We’ll keep diving into the archives and bringing them back to the surface.

They may be late.

They may have been temporarily lost at sea.

But good writing deserves to be read — even if it washes ashore a few terms behind schedule.

So, Sharks, the archives are officially open.

Take a break from the textbooks.

Take a deep breath.

And dive in. 🦈

Our very first Lost File — The Quarterly Chatman: Term 1 Edition — is waiting for you below.

Happy reading, Sharks!