Green School South Africa has taken more than 100 students for its first term beginning on February 15, in the verdant Paarl-Franschhoek Valley just outside of Cape Town. 

“We had an extraordinary experience at Green School Bali”

The opening is the latest in the networks’s global expansion – in February 2020 a new school was opened in Taranki, New Zealand. 

Green School South Africa’s founders, Alba and Herman Brandt, set up the school after their three daughters attended the original Green School Bali. 

“We had an extraordinary experience at Green School Bali that fundamentally changed how we see education,” the founders said. 

“We saw a major change in our kids, the joy with which they went to school in the morning, and the excitement on a Sunday evening. 

“They loved the extent of arts, music, and drama as part of their normal week, the opportunity to perform in front of the school on a weekly basis and they felt that they were mostly just playing.” 

When Alba and Herman Brandt returned to South Africa, they decided to establish their own Green School to share “its forward-thinking approach to education with families in their community and beyond”.

“In talking with the educators we realised how much thought, research, and passion went into curriculum design with flexibility to adjust to each child’s unique level in each subject.”

The new Green School campus sits on eight hectares of land in the sun-dappled valley where more than 25,000 native flora have been planted in the gardens and orchards to act as an outdoor extension of the classrooms. 

In keeping with the Green School network’s focus on sustainability, Green School South Africa offers programs at every level, from kindergarten to grade 12, to help students become “more aware of the world’s environmental challenges and how they can make a difference”. 

“Green School is magic because it is full of beauty, full of innovation and full of hope for the future”

Co-founder of the original Green School Cynthia Hardy said that the group’s mission from the very beginning was to take a stand for future generations and to educate change makers for a more sustainable world. 

“Alba and Herman, congratulations and heartfelt acknowledgement for everything you’ve been through these past years. You’ve done it!” she said. 

“Green School is magic because it is full of beauty, full of innovation and full of hope for the future, one that we especially need today,” Green School co-founder John Hardy added. 

“South Africa is a beautiful country, and Paarl is a place that is really looking at that future.”