St. Cyprian’s School Front Entrance

I really enjoyed spending the day at St. Cyprian’s School. They’re a private girls’ school in Cape Town. That’s right, ALL of the students are GIRLS! I know that will seem very strange to Cottage Lane students, but most of the private schools in the area are either boys’ schools or girls’ schools. What do you think are the advantages or disadvantages?

Inner courtyard of school

I had visited this school once before, when Ms. Wallace, one of the high school science teachers, kindly gave me a tour and introduced me to some of the staff. The campus is beautiful – an inspiring place to learn. They have students from pre-school all the way up through high school in different buildings on their grounds.

Grade 4’s show their answers to the math problems.

This time I was visiting the school to shadow the Grade 4 students. Ms. Clarke and her learners made me feel right at home. School begins at 7:45am and gets out at 2:30pm, with a 20-minute break in the morning, and a 30-minute break in the afternoon. Are the children at school more hours or fewer than the Cottage Lane students who go to school from 9:10am to 3:30pm?

At the beginning of the day, the girls all stand, greet their teacher, and curtsy. Then they get down to work! They were a bit nervous the day I visited because they were having a science test that morning. You’ll be interested to hear that the test was on Ecosystems! They had learned much of the same information as Cottage Lane 4th graders when they study ecosystems.

One of the girls takes her work to Ms. Clarke for inspection.

The children also had lessons in Reading, Writing, Maths (Yes, they say Maths here, not Math), Music, and Social Studies during the day. A class that was very different from those at Cottage Lane, was the class in Afrikaans. Afrikaans is a language spoken by many people here in South Africa. Some of the girls come from families who speak Afrikaans as their first language, and English as their second language. But for most, English is their first language. They must then learn Afrikaans. Listen carefully to the girl in this video. She has memorized her speech in Afrikaans. It has similar sounds to German and Dutch.

The “Star Student” is a good model for others. She gets right to work.

You’ll notice that one of the girls has a trophy on her desk. She is the “Star of the Week” for good behavior. In addition to the trophy, she gets a special cushion for her chair for the week. On Friday afternoon, she gets to choose the class activity for the last period of the day. Do you like this idea?

Grade 4’s walk past their giant chess set.

Click here to visit their school website. I liked their school motto: St. Cyprian’s – a vibrant learning environment with a strong sense of purpose. That certainly seemed to be true when I visited.

There are 25 students in Ms. Clarke’s class.

Watch the video below to see the Grade 4’s in action during Music class!