Curro Hazeldean High School (Pretoria)

Curro Hazeldean High School in Hazeldean, Pretoria, where the fees for Grade 12 are R120,840 a year. R120,840. That is not school fees, that is a deposit on a Polo. That is a used Fortuner with low mileage. Your parents are out here financing your matric like it is a bond and you are still failing Maths. And Grade 7 starts at R96,102, so by the time your kid crawls from Grade 7 to Grade 12, you have basically bought a small plot in Centurion and handed it to Curro. Lekker. Now they have 736 learners and 41 educators, which gives you a ratio of 18 learners per teacher. So this is not the small intimate private school vibe they are selling you at the open day. That is basically a government school with a nicer gate and a debit order. Eighteen kids per teacher in a school costing over a hundred grand a year means someone is making very healthy margins, and it is not your parents, I promise you that. And Hazeldean, Pretoria, jy weet hoe is dit, it is that part of Pretoria where everything is a new development and the roads are still half gravel but the estate has a French name. Very fancy on paper. The Jacarandas are beautiful but the irony of paying R120k a year while sitting in Pretoria traffic on the N1 trying to get to school is not lost on anyone. Overall verdict: Curro Hazeldean will absolutely drain your parents dry, but at least the co-ed setup means you will leave with a matric AND a love interest.