The St Christopher’s Private School and the Walmer Country Club are excited to announce that the two organisations have entered into an agreement for St Christopher’s School to purchase six hectares of land from the Walmer Country Club so as to establish an affordable high quality independent school. The portion of land purchased includes the existing clubhouse buildings, bowls club, bowling greens as well as the squash courts. The deal will enhance the clubs intended move of the Club House and access to the Club.
According to St Christopher’s Director, Dr H.J. van Daalen, the school has been at the forefront of quality, affordable private education for 30 years. With the main campus based in King Williams Town they again achieved a 90%-plus pass mark for the matric examinations of 2015. “Our modern, purpose-built campus hosts 850 learners ranging from Grade R to Grade 12 and our plan is to develop the Walmer campus into a similar institution of high quality, low-fee education to serve this community,” he explains.
The Principal, who is already appointed to drive the establishment of the new school, Mr Laurie Beadon, is well-seasoned and highly experienced in both the public and private sectors of education.
The Walmer Country Club will however continue to exist as golf and squash club, but will be developing a new club house and squash courts for its members on another section of the course. According to Club Captain, Mike Creighton, the members of Walmer Country Club are very excited about the new development about to happen. “Indeed, at the Special General Meeting held in December, members gave a unanimous vote in favour of the motion to sell to St Christopher’s,” he said.
Old Mutual and GEPF/PIC Involvement
The expansion of St Christophers to Port Elizabeth (PE) has been made possible by an investment from the Schools Investment Fund, which was established to address infrastructure backlogs and support improvement of education in SA. Funded by Old Mutual and Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), through the PIC, the Fund has R1.2-billion committed to the funding of independent affordable schools in South Africa.
Lala Steyn of Old Mutual Alternative Investments, manager of the Fund, says she is very excited about the opening of a school of this calibre to serve the Walmer and broader PE community. “The 2015 overall matric pass rate of the schools we support was 97.6%, with 57.7% achieving a university exemption and we believe that St Christopher’s will bring the same level of quality education to PE”.
St Christopher’s Walmer Campus will open its doors in 2017 enrolling learners from Grade R to Grade 7. However, more classes will be added each year up to and including Grade 12. The office will be opening on the 15th of April 2016 and will be ready to start processing applications.
