New Hope School - Pretoria

New Hope School – The Key to Success! New Hope School ’s mission is to use technology in educating learners and, in so doing, deliver the best education to benefit the learners. The vision of the school is to equip learners with remedial needs to become self-sufficient and independent when they leave school. What started out as a school for 33 learners, 14 staff members and 2 housemothers in the old St. Peters Hostel in Murray Street, Brooklyn, New Hope School moved into a new school building of R 1,8 million in 1979. The school was built on a farm of which the homestead was called “ New Hope ". Today New Hope School has 410 learners receiving education ranging from preschool to matric, also vocational and life skills. These are learners from diverse cultural backgrounds, each with a disability such as cerebral palsy, physical disability, traumatic head injury or specific learning disability. The learners can make use of the school’s transport system in residential areas in and around Pretoria and Centurion. The school also has hostel facilities for learners not residing in Pretoria. After Care Facilities are offered to learners whose parents are able to fetch them only after work. Educators, psychologists, counselors, physio -, occupational- and speech therapists, class room facilitators and general assistants all from part of the team to help each learner to overcome their specific learning barriers. The school also has a full time nursing sister and social worker. New Hope School is unique in offering three Curricular Streams in order to afford each learner the opportunity to develop optimally. Besides the academic main stream curriculum offering NCS, the school also has a Vocational Skills and a Life Skills Phase. Our learners can attain a mainstream qualification as in any other public school, although with a limited scope of learning areas in FET (Gr. 10 – 12). The focus of the Vocational Skills Phase is entrepreneurship and practical work related skills. Life Skills Phase learners are supported to function independently and to develop appropriate social skills. These two phases host a Tea Garden on most Fridays during the school term from 10 :00 to 12:00. Learners are involved in the preparation of the food, the setting of the table and waiter – all work related skills as part of the school-to-work program offered by the school. Our school is proud of a 100% matric pass rate over the past 5 years. We offer a wide variety of summer and winter sporting activities. Some of our learners have performed at provincial and national level. Learners also participate in cultural activities such as Eisteddfod, Wheel Chair Dances and Drama.