Popular Primrose school, Hawk Academy, celebrated its third birthday last Monday.
In 2014, husband and wife Sipho and Agnes Mkhonto had an idea – to open a school catering to children from the Makause, Marathon and Delport informal settlements.
After managing to secure premises, previously owned by a mining company, on Main Road, the hard work began for the now director and principal of Hawk Academy.
“We’re celebrating our third year, which is technically our fourth if you take the challenging 2015 into account,” Agnes joked.
Once the paperwork was done, in 2015, the Mkhonto family spent the year transforming the offices that once stood there into classrooms.
“That year was dedicated to the logistics of getting the school officially off the ground.
“Due to an ever-increasing to-do list, we were sure we’d only open the school in 2017.
“However, when doing marketing in Marathon informal settlement one day, a number of parents told us their children had no space in the other schools in the area and they needed the school to open in January the following year,” Agnes said.
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To ensure their school was able to open its gates to children come the beginning of the first school term in 2016, it was back to the drawing board for the Mkhontos.
Following the community engagement, they resumed their construction plans with their architect and had to add a few more classrooms.
They were initially going to open the school with just the foundation phase, Grade R to Grade Three, but quickly learnt they would have to accommodate senior learners too.
“My family and I had one of our worst Christmases ever that year, we spent the entire festive season getting the school ready, we spent Christmas Day cleaning, packing and sorting,” recalled Sipho, the director of the school.
Once the refurbishing was complete, representatives from the Gauteng Department of Education paid the school a visit for inspection and presented them with their operation certificate upon completion.
When it was back to school on January 13, 2016, certified as a primary education institution, Hawk Academy officially opened its doors to 300 children.
“We were all ecstatic, and I remember we had one teacher, the late Idah Mahloka, who joined the school when we had no money and no school account,” said Agnes.
“As a Christian school, we constantly involve God in all we do. From our humble beginnings to date, we are grateful for how far we have come.
“Our teachers, curriculum and operations are all authentic, we just want children to get the best education, despite their circumstances and where they come from.”
The school has since increased in numbers and classes.
As is stands, Hawk Academy caters to learners in Grade R to the recently introduced Grade Nine class and holds over 1 000 learners.
“I am very proud of how far we have come, this means we are growing,” said Agnes.
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