What Makes Dalpark School Unique?
Our family approach encompasses kindness, caring, respect and treating everyone as unique individuals; not only for learners but also extended to their families. We have a strong Christian Ethos, however, we do accept and have learners from other religions.
We expand the CAPS curriculum to extend learning. Extra programmes include, cooking, basic woodwork, dance, drama, music, etc.
Our methodologies within the classroom include:
– The Flipped-classroom system.
– The Harkness-system and all other collaborative methods.
– Differentiated-education.
– Our approach to assessment where the focus is on continuous assessment.
Our use of technology, through streaming lessons online and to multiple classes at once, means that even through lockdowns, we continued with education.
History
The school was founded in 1988 by Mrs D.A. Broderick, our current Executive Head and board member, as Magic Moments Nursery School.
It continued as such until the Department of Education granted permission in 1997 to establish a fully-fledged primary school to meet the needs of the area. This became Dalpark Private School. Initially, there was one class per grade in the Foundation Phase which grew to the Intermediate Phase.
In 2001 the school was re-registered under the banner of Dalpark Independent Educational Centre (DIEC), operating as Dalpark Private School.
At this stage, an independent board of directors was formed which included members from the educational, business, religious and legal sectors. Of the original board, we have our Chairperson Mr A. Davis, who has extensive business, legal and financial expertise, Mr A Webster, who is a well-respected pastor and member of the Christian religious community, and Mrs D. Broderick, the founder and the educational specialist on the board. Since then, Mr L. Naina, the current Brakpan school Principal, Mrs L. van der Spuy, the bursar and most recently, Mr B. Broderick, the Tongaat Principal, have also been added to the board.
DIEC continued to grow incrementally and in 2004 the first Grade 7 class was established. Continued growth meant that the DIEC group brought in a second classroom up to grade 7. Since then Dalpark Private College was established in 2019 and has grown to form our High School in Brakpan. The need for growth into other provinces became evident due to the lack of learners being placed in schools in South Africa. This spurred us on to open Dalpark Private Tongaat on the 1st of January 2022. Our teacher-pupil ratio is in the region of 1:25 and we consistently outperform the Gauteng East average pass rates per grade.