Westerford High School (City Of Cape Town)

Westerford High School. The Southern Suburbs school that looked at R55,150 a year and said "ja, that sounds about right." That is not school fees, that is a deposit on a car. A decent car. And it is a public school. A PUBLIC school. The Western Cape government is technically involved here and somehow your parents are still coughing up fifty-five grand a year. The WCED said nothing. The parents said nothing. Everyone just paid and went back to their sauvignon blanc. 916 learners and 59 teachers, which sounds fine until you read their own description back to yourself. "Pupil-centred." With 15.5 kids per teacher. So you are centred, just not too centred. You are centred in a group of fifteen other centred pupils, all feeling very individually attended to. Then they said sport is "compulsory." Not optional. Not encouraged. Compulsory. So you are paying R55,150 and they are also telling you what to do with your body. That is incredible. You are basically paying gym fees, school fees and therapy fees all in one invoice. And the cultural life is "enthusiastically embraced," which is exactly what someone writes when they want to make choir sound cooler than it is. Look, it is the Southern Suburbs. The wind is a problem, the property prices are a problem, and now the school fees are a problem. But everyone there acts like it is completely normal because their neighbour's kid goes to SACS and that costs even more. That is the Southern Suburbs measuring stick. "Is it worse than SACS? No? Then we are fine." Overall verdict: A public school that charges private school money and calls it pupil-centred, which really just means your kid is centred right in the middle of a very expensive sports field they did not choose to be on.