Private School or Govenment School?

Hi Ladies,

I guess all parents want to send their children to Private Schools from Grade 1 all the way to matric . ohhh if money was not such a huge factor, it would be so wonderful. But these schools can charge such ridiculous amounts.

hi, when my child is turning 3 then i will take her to Eduplex school.

but what i heard they only take kids from 3 to matric. beside no nappies allowed....

but now they are busy discuss to take from 4 or 5 months old baba to matric at Eduplex School. holding thumbs

Because I am hard of hearing and I want to make able to communicate with my kids and make sure we can understand each other and dont make complicate... I want to improve my speech lol... I want to sign and talk same time...
Eduplex is excellent school it mainstream school.

My good friend is deaf and her daughter is hard of hearing and went to this school and she is far happy because speech therapist check up and ask parents to come to school and they want to test how parents and daughter communicate with sign and talk to make sure they understand each other.

Which i like it the most..

phew, thanks Bandile for starting this thread. i have registered my son at Ruimsig Christian Academy. i like the fact that it is set in a quite environment and and is in a farm set up.but i still feel their fees are way too high. They charge R3000 a month and that includes lunch and breakfast at school. Also every child has to have a laptop from grade R. I was impressed though with the grade 3 kid doing a PowerPoint presentation for her class. i got to learn PowerPoint at work. But now am also considering Curro Krugersdorp as it is closer to me than RCA.

Anyone in the West of Joburg, please help with schools for grade R.

Hi Moomies

I wanted to start a new thread about schools but luckily found this one

I wanted to know if anyone has any feedback for CBC Mount Edmund, Pretoria? We are considering putting Dudie there next year for grade RR and if all goes well we can continue until Grade 12...

I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with the school? They house Gr RRR - RR at Little Mount, then its Grade R and then big school.

We like the idea of having him at one school for his entire school career... That way he moves with his friends....

Also, if anyone has any good schools, worth mentioning and visiting, in Pretoria, Hatfield, Brooklyn area....

Thanks

I'm really becoming more fond of Curro Schools, I like all the feedback I'm getting about the schools. like most parents, my issue is number of kids in the classrooms, attention to each child's needs, variety of sports and discipline. Hence I feel private school is the way, as they offer all that I am looking for in a school for my kids.

Clueless u have just nailed it for me: I also love Brescia House, but my concern with it is that its a Catholic School and one of their requirement is that a child must be a Catholic and need to produce a Baptism Certificate for it. I really don't know anything about this religion and don't want to confuse my kids, as we are just plain Christians don't often go to church either. Cooper College is also one of the schools I was interested in. a former colleague of mine daughter goes there, she likes the schools and their fees are not so over the top. I only have 1 and half years to decide on which route to take for both my daughters.

What I really like about Private Schools is that they have the Independent Examinations Board (IEB), which gives the kids an option to study abroad as well. I'm not sure with the government schools if they offer the same.

Hi Ladies,

My daughter is 8 months old and we live in Fourways. I have the exact same questions and are so glad for this thread.

Gloeiwurmpie, I COMPLETELY second your concerns. Especially number 3, that our kids will feel that they have to "keep up" and that they are the "have-nots" (we're just regular people living in a 3 bedroom townhouse, and thats not going to change). This is a VERY big concern for me since I did not enjoy school myself, and I dont want this added pressure for my daughter. Also, I am worried that in certain private schools, the kids who dont come from a very privileged home, will not be able to achieve, since things like private instruction for sports/activities, sport tours overseas etc are the prerogative of the very privileged kids, while normal people like us will battle just to pay the R100,000 per year schooling fees.

We are also Afrikaans, so the language issue is also a question, and I;m worried her language skills will suffer initially, growing up in an Afrikaans home and going to English Creche/Nursery School, but I also agree, the benefits of English school eventually outweigh the possible disadvantages (there are anyway no Afrikaans Nursery schools around us, so its a moot point).

That said, I also want the best for my daughter and I agree the public school system MAY not necessarily provide that. Exactly as you outlined GW, you have put all my feelings into words so nicely. With only one child, we may just be able to go the private school route, but we will have to save carefully.

We live in Fourways, and we have applied at Brescia House, St Stythians, St Peters, and Heron Bridge. Aurora is unfortunately too far for us, and in the wrong direction from our places of work (I work in Germiston and DH in Midrand). My daughter attend Magic Beings Creche in Jukskeipark and is VERY VERY happy there and we are extremely happy with the care. This gives her automatic entrance to Cooper College (its the feeder creche) but I'm not sure about Cooper as a school for her. Anyone heard anything positive/negative about it?

Any other schools in our area we can consider? I must say, at the moment I'm really hoping we get into Brescia, we went to open day and even though it is a very good private school, it seems like there are a lot of "Normal" kids going there. But the fact that it is not co-ed bothers me a bit.

Hi Zelf!!

I totally agree with the size of the classes. Depending on your child's temperament and abilities this might play a big factor. Some children just don't cope well with class sizes of 25 - 30 kids others do. While speaking about this matter (private/government) to other parents as well, the same comment was made: some children due to their personality etc really do better in smaller classes.

I saw that the curro fees for younger grades (pre-school to Grade2) was very competitive. But as the child ages I noted the fees became steeper.

In which Curro may I ask is your son? This was one of the reasons we also looked at the curro - it was dual medium. Unfortunately the curro close to us is only an english school.

About no. 3: I totally agree with you there. It all depends on the specific private school. Some are certainly more known to be more materialistic than others. I have heard really great things about curro in terms of that as well.

I agree with you that the only way to know what school is good is to visit and scrutinise them with millions of questions. In my opinion any school that refuses you to sit in for a while a class is in progress is like a red robot! I find sitting in on a few classes will be the only way to get a real feel for a school. Try and speak to parents who's children attend that school and ask them questions too.