Schools

Ma Peggy Motumo glided into the office, adjusting her baby-pink jersey under her denim apron, on which was printed ‘Peggy’. Motumo’s time spent working in Randburg is just two years shy of four decades, and she has seen the suburb’s progression from dusty plots to a myriad of houses and shopping complexes. With a sparkle in her eye, she reflected on the last few years of her life, having spent 18 of those working at Trinityhouse.
“Before I worked at Trinity, I used to work next door [to the school] in 1981 at a house owned by a man called Evan Walker. Where the KFC is now used to be a plot which was something like a caravan park. I worked for their family for 20 years. I grew up in Randburg and have worked here for my entire career.”
Motumo has worked in Randburg since her early twenties and has been doing so for 38 years. Motumo is one of the few who have seen our beloved suburb of Randburg develop in front of her eyes. She loves that the suburb is not a place of too much criminal activity and a place where people can live and wok comfortably. ”From the 80s it’s not a place with too much crime, especially this area Randpark Ridge… When I started working here there was no mall, petrol stations or businesses.”
When she began her employment at Trinity, it was Herbie Staples, the headmaster, who gave her the opportunity after speaking to Walker, who was due to relocate overseas. Motumo emphasised her gratitude to all who had helped her to continue working in the suburb for so long, with specific reference to Staples who has subsequently went on pension, Walker and Hilton Scott, the current headmaster of the Randpark Ridge branch. Having been a part of the school for almost the entire 22 years of its existence, it is clear that Ma Peggy is a beloved part of the school’s essence.

Boskop Primary School is located within a stone’s throw of Beyers Naudé Drive, Honeydew. The primary school is just one year short of gaining its centenarian status which means the school existed 39 years before our favourite northern suburb, Randburg. The school has undergone various transformations through the years. Some of these changes included the journey from a parallel-medium school, where subjects were taught in English and Afrikaans. The school has also grown in its numbers from the early days in 1959.

Blairgowrie Primary School is located in the heart of Blairgowrie and is coincidentally the same age as Randburg itself, 60 years old.
The school has seen a great deal of transformation in the last couple of years, from uniforms to the grounds, to the leadership of the school. Throughout these changes, the primary school has retained the essence of their motto: ‘Be true’.
The school stands out from others for its innovative teaching and caring environment. The intellectual and emotional growth of all children is stimulated in a nurturing, secure and disciplined space.
As a fee-paying public school, continual investment is made in the human and physical resources of the school.
Blairgowrie Primary offers a wide range of sporting and cultural extra-murals aimed at learners who want to excel, as well as those wishing to participate and have fun.
The Scottish background of both the suburb and the school are represented in the three school houses: Atholl, Murray and Dundee.

Dr Mary Reynolds of St Stithians College writes:
St Stithians was founded in 1941 by the St Stithians Trust, formed from the bequests of Albert Charles Collins and William Mountstephens, two Cornishmen who migrated to South Africa in the late 19th century. The two created a successful mining engineering business in early Johannesburg. Both staunch Methodists, they teamed up with their accountant, Gilbert Tucker, himself a graduate of Kingswood, the Methodist School in Grahamstown. The intention was to build a Methodist school and the name commemorates the birth place of Albert Charles Collins, the village of Stithians in Cornwall.
Although the land was purchased in 1943, it took a decade for the school to become a reality, finally opening its doors to the first pupils in January 1953. At that time neither Randburg nor Sandton existed.
The original St Stithians property extended almost to the junction of Jan Smuts Avenue and Bram Fischer Drive. Hugh Huggett, a long-serving head of the English department of the college, describes his arrival at the college for the first time as a student teacher.
He said, “My travels to Saints those years ago on my first teaching practice were similar to travelling to Ultima Thule for it truly seemed as if I was travelling to the end of the world.
“The tar stopped in the Craighall dip and properties on either side of the sandy strip were selling for R400. Travelling further up Jan Smuts, there was a miserable, sad-looking and seemingly abandoned White Pigeon Roadhouse at the top of the hill. This solitary marker had been designated as being of some importance as it was the most obvious route marker signpost to Saints as it was here that I was to turn right and look for the school gates on the right-hand side.
“When I found these sorry looking gates I was surprised as they looked as if they had been hit by a truck of some sort – they lent rakishly to one side as if unable to stand erect. Behind them stood a sign in large bold black letters that declared that this was the site of a school that offered education to boys.
I passed this sign and went on winding down the hill to the school through open but patchy grasslands. I was struck by the heat and the stark brownness everywhere – there were no signs of fields and no obvious sign of school buildings.”
The other local school nearby was the Afrikaans-medium Randburg Primary School on the site. An interesting fact is that when the Afrikaans school closed in 1979, the building became the Randburg Police Station.
The college property retained its rural atmosphere for many years, and even today it is a haven of environmental preservation with the koppie area declared a heritage site, the extensive campus focusing on the preservation of its grasslands, wetlands and a variety of wildlife habitats. Early photographs depict the remnants of orchards and the presence of cattle at least up to 1965.
Many of the names associated with the early years and with the development of Johannesburg have connections to St Stithians. The gates on Bram Fischer Drive were named in honour of the construction engineer of the college buildings: DF Corlett, a former mayor of Johannesburg.
The terraced layout of the grounds was done at cost by Basil Read (of Basil Read Construction, a company extant until only a few months ago). Basil Read’s widow Doreen Read (now a remarkably sprightly 105 years old), recounts standing on the spot in the mid-1940s with her husband and the first groundsman, Lindsay Baytopp deciding where the fields would go. Read was also an alumnus of Kingswood College, keen to see a Methodist school erected on the Reef. Mrs Read, a newly-wed émigré from civilised Cape Town, described Johannesburg at the time as a dusty town with questionable morals. Mr Read’s contribution is commemorated in the Basil Read Pavilion erected on the spot where they stood alongside the two main fields.
The current extent of the grounds is less than the original farm portion. In the late 1970s the portion closest to Randburg was sold off to fund the development of the college. This portion became the suburb of Lyme Park which now separates the college property from its original connection to central Randburg.
A founding member of the college support staff, Elijah Dlembula, described how the cows would often get out onto the surrounding roads and needed to be traced and herded back to school. He also recalled that the nearest shop was in Linden, 8.5km away.’
It is remarkable to think that a marshland with thousands of bluegum trees planted to soak up the water, has now become a green lung in the heart of the financial capital of Africa and has provided an education to over 10 000 South Africans. Like Randburg, St Stithians College has also experienced incredible growth over the past 60 years and is no longer just a boys’ school, but a proud college of seven schools offering a synergy model of boys’ and girls’ schooling on one campus with its Junior Prep, Girls’ Prep, Boys’ Prep, Girls’ College and Boys’ College.
We take pleasure in wishing our Randburg community, one and all, a very happy 60th birthday.

Vanaf 1906 tot 2019 het Laerskool Fontainebleau nog altyd uitgeblink op akademiese-, sport- en kultuurgebiede.
Hulle spog met baie leerders wat na Suid-Afrikaanse of selfs wêreldkampioenskappe uitgenooi word.
“Elke ouer kan trots wees om sy kind in Laerskool Fontainebleau of Fonties Pre-Primêr te plaas, want die personeel is tops en enige kind staan ‘n goeie kans om ‘n Albert Einstein in wording te wees, net met beter hare en ‘n ander naam,” sê die skool se Shani Jansen.
Die skool het natuurlik ook klein begin. In 1906 was dit ‘n klein sinkgeboutjie in Marthastraat.
Skoolbywoning was swak aangesien dit dikwels gereën het en die leerders self by die skool moes uitkom. Eers in 1913 het die leerders na die nuwe skoolgebou geskuif waar die skool tans staan en skoolbywoning het verbeter, want die eerste ‘busdiens’ het uit muilwaens bestaan.
Op 5 Februarie 1947 is die skoolswembad voltooi. Alle kultuuraktiwiteite moes in die buitelug plaasvind, want Fontainebleau het nie ‘n skoolsaal gehad nie tot en met 1 Desember 1954 en wat deur die ouers self gebou is.
“Ons is trots op ons skool, personeel en kinders en sê dankie dat almal die skool so mooi onderhou. Veels geluk met jou verjaarsdag Laerskool Fontainebleau, ons weet daar sal nog vele meer wees,”
sê Jansen.