School History

HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL

Walmer Estate Primary School opened its doors for the first time in January 1957, as Walmer Preparatory School, with Miss Trim as the principal.  The school had dual-medium classes ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 4 only.  After Miss Trim emigrated to Canada in 1960, Miss Du Plessis was appointed as principal from January 1961.  It remained a Preparatory School until the end of 1967.  In January 1968 the classes were extended to Grade 7 thus the name changed to Walmer Estate Primary School.  When Ashley Street School was forced to close in District Six in 1981, the Senior Adaptation Class was sent to Walmer Estate Primary School.  The Junior Adaptation Class was sent to Chapel Street Primary for 6 months.  Then in January 1982 it was also transferred to Walmer Estate Primary.  After a few years the number of LSEN learners had increased so much that an Intermediate Class was also established.  The Adaptation Classes were dual-medium but the school had now become an English-Medium school.

When St. Mary’s closed in Woodstock during the late 1980s, the Department transferred the Principal, Mr Steenveld to our school.  The school remained under his leadership until he took the package in 1995.  Mr Philander who was the H.O.D. at the time was then appointed as Principal.  In 1997 the Adaptation Classes were dissolved and the LSEN learners were then accommodated in the mainstream.  During 2001-2002 Mrs Everts was the Acting Principal until October (2002) when Mr Kamish was appointed as the new principal.

The school has evolved to such an extent that there are no longer any adaptation or LSEN classes.  We do however offer struggling learners the opportunity to visit our LSEN educator for a few periods per week.  Mrs Mboniswa, our current LSEN teacher visits the school three day of the week to assist these learners.

The school suffered a major fire on 3 January 1999 when the whole administration block as well as some classrooms and toilets were burnt down.  In September 2002 the re-building of our administration block, classrooms and toilets were completed.

Currently we have 315 learners from Grade R – 7.  There is one class per grade, exept for Grade 2 (Two classes).

The current Staff Members are:

NO.	EDUCATOR’S NAME	GRADE	ROOM NO.
1	HEUVEL, C.	R	11
2	ST JERRY, S.	1	10
3	NYAMAJIWA, H.	2B	9
4	PAVITT, V.	2A	8
5	EVERTS, D.	3	7
6	MALITI, L.	4	3
7	TITUS, T.	5	5
8	REUTER, I.	6	1
9	REUTER, L.	7	2
10	MBONISWA, N.	LSEN	12

The Principal is Mr M. I. Kamish.  Our Support Staff consists of the Secretary (Mrs Z. Abrahams), the Caretaker (Mr N. Salie) and the Caretakers Assistant (Mr Pinto).