A Constantia Kloof resident, Yvette Thompson, is currently living in a state of despair as she desperately needs help in placing her son in a government school close by.
The distressed mother of 12-year-old Blade Thompson told Northsider that her son had been at home since the beginning of the year after the local government school of her choice allegedly refused to admit him, because of its inability to understand Blade’s report and her failure to produce a referral letter from his previous school – among other issues.
According to Yvette, financial constraints forced her to remove Blade from a private school in 2017 to cut costs. She hoped that he would be able to enrol in a government school close to home. The school in question is Constantia Kloof Primary School (CKPS), which Yvette said is four minutes away from her home and suitable for her son.
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However, her wish remains unfulfilled as her child’s application was marred by uncertainty. “Firstly, I wanted to put my child into another private school up the road but my ex-husband has refused to contribute any monies to his schooling, so I couldn’t place him there. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been calling CKPS to get a place for my son, but they said the school was full. Just before the Easter closure, I phoned them again and they told me to phone them after the Easter holidays to see if they had a spot for him.
I phoned them after the holidays and they told me they had a place in Grade 6, which is exactly where my child needs to be,” she said.
She added that she went to the school to fetch the paperwork, filled in the application form and brought along his two last reports and birth certificate. Yvette claimed that upon applying for Blade to be admitted to the school, a staff member in the reception area pointed out problems with the child’s birth certificate and also allegedly criticised her for homeschooling her son while she couldn’t find a place at a school. She said she couldn’t accept his birth certificate because a birth certificate must have details of both parents, so Yvette told her she would go and get one at Home Affairs. Then she asked where Blade had been in the interim. Yvette told her he’d been at home with her. In response to this, the woman asked,”What do you mean, he’s been at home with you? That’s an offence you can be jailed for.”
“I told her I’d been homeschooling him on an ACE programme because he comes from an ACE school, which uses the same homeschool-based programme. (ACE stands for Accelerated Christian Education, which is a homeschool programme aligned with the South African school curriculum.) I also told her that since my ex-husband hasn’t paid school fees for two-and-a-half years, I could no longer afford the private school. That’s why I wanted him to go to a government school.”
She went on to say that she was told she would have to pay a deposit of R1 000.
But just when Yvette thought there was light at the end of the tunnel, she received a call from the HOD, who said that there was a problem admitting Blade to the school, because they didn’t know how to read the reports that she had given to them, “because it’s a different schooling programme.”
According to Yvette, the reports came from Blade’s previous school, Coram Deo Christian Academy in Florida. She claimed however, that the school refused to send her an email confirming the grade Blade was supposedly in. “I don’t have any other way to confirm Blade’s schooling because the owners of Coram Deo are refusing to provide a confirmation letter,” she claimed.
The Northsider is in possession of all the documents provided by Yvette.
CKPS declined to comment on the allegations as the matter is being handled at district level. Coram Deo Christian Academy was also approached for comment. The school dismissed the claims levelled against them, alleging that they were in talks with CKPS and the Department of Education. Although the school couldn’t divulge much information about Blade and his mother, they did clarify that referral letters were sent to CKPS, but not to the parent.
As Yvette wasn’t happy with report back from CKPS, she proposed that her son be admitted and placed in Grade 6, to see how he coped. She said she was prepared to provide extra tuition if needed and even went as far as requesting an entrance assessment, which the school was allegedly not prepared to do.
She also said she had appealed for assistance from personnel at the Gauteng Education Department (GDE), which has allegedly weighed in on the matter, but not been able to solve the problem. The GDE has also been approached for comment.
“At the moment,” the desperate mother said, “Blade spends his day doing household chores and playing online games, if he’s not following me to the gym.”
This is a developing story as the matter is being discussed at district level. The Northsider will update its readers as and when the matter develops.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at northsider@caxton.co.za (remember to include your contact details) or phone us on 011 955 1130.
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