St Mary'S Dsg (Pretoria)

St Mary's Diocesan School for Girls in Hillcrest, Pretoria, where you pay R181,918 a year for Grade 12 so your daughter can "stand tall and make her voice heard." Bra, for that price her voice better be heard from Pretoria all the way to Cape Town. That is not school fees, that is a deposit on a townhouse in Centurion. And Grade R is R92,947. The child cannot even read yet and you are already financing a small vehicle. 696 girls, Anglican ethos, boarding school, the whole package. So not only are you paying nearly two hundred thousand rand a year, you are also dropping your child off to live there, surrounded by hymns and "resilience." That word "resilience" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that description hey. Almost like they know what you are getting into. "Kindness, resilience and self-belief." Translated: the Wi-Fi goes down sometimes and the matron is strict but you will survive, my girl. The one genuinely impressive thing is that 10.5 to 1 learner to educator ratio. At most government schools one teacher is trying to reach 45 kids through load shedding with a broken whiteboard marker. Here your daughter basically has a personal tutor who also prays for her. That is not nothing. Overall verdict: Genuinely one of the more prestigious schools in Gauteng, but if your family is taking out a second bond to afford Grade R fees, maybe God is trying to tell you something.