Online Schooling in South Africa
With a population of 60 million people, South Africa is recognised for its tremendous natural beauty, varied topography, friendly locals, multicultural diversity, art, history, and wildlife. Owing to its diversity, South Africa is often called the “rainbow nation.”
In recent years, the South African education industry has evolved tremendously. While traditional (in-person) schooling has always been immensely popular across the nation, online schooling is quickly emerging as an excellent alternative to the former.
By sending their children to a reputable, experienced, and trusted online school, parents can eliminate the risk of:
- School bullying and/or harassment
- Virus contraction from unvaccinated children (especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic)
- A high student-teacher ratio
- Ineffective teaching from inexperienced teachers
- In-class favouritism
- Emotional and/or physical abuse by teachers
- Emotional and/or physical abuse by fellow students
In addition to providing children a safe, wholesome, supportive, and enriching online learning environment, parents can also reduce the risk of student burnout. This generally occurs when students are required to spend between 7 and 8 hours shuffling in and out of classes.
Towards the end of the day, many students lose focus and struggle to absorb and retain the knowledge that is being provided. They may feel too exhausted and overworked to learn as attentively, rigorously, and keenly as they should.
When students return home, they feel too tired to play skill-building activities and sports, enjoy their favourite hobbies, take up new interests, and grow in a personal and social capacity. Not only is their academic growth affected, but their non-academic development is also slowed down.
At Cambridge Home School, we have been providing a quality British online education to students across South Africa since 2002. With over 19 years of experience, we’re committed to making learning fun, engaging, effective, and retentive again.
Our students benefit from a healthy school-life balance. This balance plays a big role in helping them feel active, alert, and focused during their lessons and throughout the day. As a result, students learn better.
They also benefit from being taught in a healthy online learning atmosphere with zero risks of class bullying, harassment, racial microaggressions, or taunts. Our MA/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers work assiduously to control the learning environment, keep students on track, and promote respect for each and every student in the classroom.
By continually encouraging students to accept, respect, and build each other up, we ensure that the learning environment brings out the best in them. They grow personally, socially, and academically. We cover all the bases.
As a parent, you can choose from four different online schools for your child: Primary Prep/Key Stage 2 (ages 8 to 10), Lower School/Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 13), Upper School/IGCSEs (ages 14 to 16), and Sixth Form/AS &A Levels (ages 17 to 19).
The Benefits of Choosing Cambridge Home School
1. Quality of Education
As stated earlier, we have a razor-sharp focus on maintaining an exceptionally high quality of education. Cambridge Home School’s MA/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers are committed to ensuring that every lesson is interactive, engaging, and retentive.
By leveraging their extensive teaching experience, audio-visual elements, easy-to-understand examples, advanced resources, and expertise, our teachers help students grasp and retain concepts exceptionally well.
Cambridge Home School’s students are recognised for securing top grades in their mid-terms and finals, IGCSEs, and A Levels exams. By providing each student with the tools, support, and guidance they need to succeed, we ensure that they’re on track to actualise impressive academic growth.
By keeping the classroom size small (8 to 10 students per group), we ensure that each student receives ample individualised attention from their teacher. Since each classroom comprises a handful of students, our teachers gain insight into every student’s learning habits, weaknesses, and strengths.
It’s possible that a certain student continually gets distracted during class. Similarly, another student may have trouble with a certain subtopic. By understanding each student’s learning persona and creating an individualised teaching style accordingly, our teachers maximise knowledge absorption and retention. This strategy has helped our South African students secure top grades.
A low student-teacher ratio goes a long way in helping students learn more effectively. Students don’t have to compete with each other for their teacher’s time, attention, and guidance. By teaching as few as 8 to 10 students, our teachers are able to give one-on-one time to all of them. As a result, students get a better grasp of critical concepts. There’s no risk of a student potentially being left behind.
While the group is taught collectively, each individual is also provided the personalised assistance they need to understand the lesson better. At the end of the day, our students progress extremely well. As a parent, you don’t have to worry about your child struggling to pay attention, understand lessons, participate in class, or stay on track. Our teachers will take care of it all.
2. Focus on Academic & Non-Academic Growth
While we have a very strong focus on academic growth, we’re also committed to helping children develop in various non-academic facets of their life. For instance, we encourage our students to explore their interests outside of class. Our students play competitive sports, go on family vacations to have diverse experiences, partake in new and exciting activities, work on their self-development journey, and socialise with friends. These are a handful of the activities, games, skills, interests, and explorations they’re encouraged to pursue.
By building each student’s non-academic strengths, we help them become well-rounded individuals. At Cambridge Home School, we strongly believe that students require more than just academic support to excel at school. Students who feel stressed, anxious, or depressed for any academic or non-academic reason struggle to actualise their true potential and perform to the best of their ability.
We provide one-on-one success coaching and pastoral support to every student. This approach helps us ensure that students get the emotional support they need to navigate their schooling experience with ease and adroitness. Teenagers, in particular, struggle with several issues that can affect their academics if left unaddressed. By focusing on these aspects, we help them get back on track. With their mental health on track, students automatically perform better academically.
3. Provision of Resources & Support
We believe that teaching plays a big role in helping students perform exceptionally well. However, teaching is the first pillar that holds the structure of strong learning. The second pillar is the provision of quality educational resources.
At Cambridge Home School, we have an independent curriculum in place. We believe that the national curriculum is subject to political turbulence. By retaining the best aspects of the national curriculum and introducing new facets, we’ve created an independent curriculum that helps students secure top grades.
Based on this curriculum, we’ve equipped our online library with quality educational resources, including study guides, past papers, notes, videos, audios, presentations, exam tips, and a wide range of other tools. Students can access these resources for better revision leading up to their exams.
We also advise parents to utilise these resources and assist their children with homework and/or revision. While this step isn’t necessary, it often helps younger children progress exceptionally well.
It’s important to mention that parents aren’t required to intervene during the online classes at any point. Our MA/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers structure engaging, interactive, stimulating, and retentive classes to ensure that each student remains engrossed in the lessons through and through. As a parent, you will not be required to “check in” at any point; that’s our job, and it’s a job we take very seriously.
Our definition of “academic performance” covers more than just academic components. We also build essential soft skills in students to help them develop a strong interest in their studies. For instance, students are taught the importance of teamwork for better performance during projects.
We also plan activities that teach students the importance of time management, especially since their exams are time-bound. In addition, soft skills like empathy, respect, self-discipline, and honesty are prioritised. This approach helps our students commit to their studies and become well-rounded individuals.
How Can I Get Started?
If you’re considering making the switch from conventional schooling to online schooling for your child, start by doing your research. Presently, there are hundreds of online schools to choose from. As a parent, you should select a prestigious institution that has extensive experience.
We have been providing quality online education to students living in South Africa for over 19 years. At Cambridge Home School, we prioritise transparency. Parents are provided 24/7 access to their children’s coursework. In addition, we hold 3 parent-teacher consultations per year (one in each term).
We focus on helping our students secure top grades, develop critical soft and hard skills, and become well-rounded individuals. Our students are recognised for securing admissions to some of the leading universities across the globe, especially in the UK and the US.
If you want your child to progress exceptionally well in every facet of life, choose Cambridge Home School. Our teachers develop an individualised approach to help students living in South Africa meticulously cover the curriculum and gain an edge.
Oftentimes, parents worry that their children lack the head start that British students living in the UK are granted. We cover this gap and ensure that your child receives the guidance, resources, and support they need to achieve impressive academic growth from South Africa.
Utilise the following resources to make an informed decision for your child’s future:
- Admissions Process
- Term Dates
- Application Form
- Scholarships & Bursaries
- Grades & Fees
- Online Reviews
We’re excited to have you on board! Presently, we provide online British education to students living in different cities of South Africa, including Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Gqeberha, Bloemfontein, Soweto, East London, Mbombela, Pietermaritzburg, Polokwane, Kimberly, Mahikend, Vereeniging, Newcastle, Roodepoort, and Randburg, among other notable cities and towns.
If you live in one of the aforementioned cities or any other city in South Africa, contact us today. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have. You can also keep up with our blog for more insight into online schooling in South Africa.