Bridge House School

Bridge House covers the journey from Playschool to Matric on a single campus, in three phases. The Pre-Primary phase, which includes Playschool, blends play, discovery and hands-on problem-solving to lay the foundations of early learning. The Preparatory school then takes children through Junior Primary and Senior Primary, combining small classes with personalised academic extension and educational support. The College covers the senior years up to the Independent Examinations Board matriculation and offers its own sport, creativity and support provisions. Boarding runs from Grade 6 upwards.

Bridge House describes itself as a sustainable South African learning community whose mission is to deliver a globally relevant education that helps each student realise their potential to lead, innovate and serve with confidence. Its "ends" values are integrity, love and compassion, health and vitality, a positive attitude and learning for life; its "means" values, how the community should act, are honesty, forgiveness, knowing oneself, setting others free and openness to new ideas. Leadership is treated as a skill to be learned rather than a status.

The campus covers 28 hectares of farmland. Academic spaces include a Maths and Science Centre, an Innovation Hub and Learning Commons for collaborative work, and three Information Technology Centres shared by the Prep school and the College. For the arts there is a theatre, opened in 2003, which stages school plays and hosts visiting choirs and professional productions, an art centre and music and drama classrooms. Sport is served by an indoor gymnasium, a hockey astroturf, two cricket ovals with turf wicket and nets, hockey and football fields, tennis and netball courts and two swimming pools, one for beginners and one for swimming and water polo.

Bridge House runs a bus transport service for students and publishes its arrangements along with uniform, stationery and term-date information. Meals are served in two dining rooms used by boarders and day students, with tuckshops on campus. Learning support is organised by phase, with Preparatory and College Educational Support teams working alongside small classes to give personalised help and academic extension. The fee schedule is published each year on the school website, and the Bursary Foundation provides assisted places.

Boarding is open to girls and boys from Grade 6 through to Matric. The boarding houses are on campus and accommodate about 175 boarders in what the school calls modern, family-style accommodation, so that boarders can make full use of the academic, cultural and sporting programme outside lesson hours. Day scholars and boarders share the same campus life, and the school presents boarding as a safe home away from home in the Cape countryside near Franschhoek, Stellenbosch and Paarl. Boarders eat in the two dining rooms used by the whole school, and some of the produce comes from the campus garden farm worked by students.

Sport makes full use of the campus: hockey on the astroturf, cricket on the school's two ovals, soccer, netball, tennis, and swimming and water polo in the pools, with an indoor gymnasium for year-round play. The school says its facilities have nurtured national champions and that it works to build a lasting interest in wellness and fitness as well as team skills. On the cultural side students choose from visual art, drama, music, dance, public speaking and debating. College students take part in the President's Award Programme and Prep students in the Learning for Life Leadership Programme, while Round Square membership opens international conferences and exchanges.