Mission
To give every learner of Rooigrond — in Setswana, English, and Afrikaans — a strong foundation in literacy, numeracy, and self-respect, taught by adults who know their names and their stories.
A small school, by the dust road, that has been here a while.
Madiba Combined School was opened in 1998 in a single prefabricated classroom on a borrowed plot near the Rooigrond crossroads. The first principal, Mr. K. Ramotsehoa, taught Grade 1 in the morning and ran adult-literacy classes for parents in the same room at night. By 2003 we had three blocks of bricks, a tin roof, and 240 children. By 2024 we are 1 184 children, 38 educators, and one stubborn idea — that a child from Rooigrond deserves the same patient teaching as a child from anywhere else.
Today we span Grade R to Grade 12 as a combined school, with our largest cohort sitting in the primary phase (Grade R–7). Our learner-to-teacher ratio is around 31:1 — tight, but tighter than many of our neighbours. We sit in Quintile 1 on the national poverty index, which means we are a No-Fee school: not one rand for school fees, books, or NSNP lunches. We are a Section 21 school under SASA, which gives our SGB the responsibility (and the dignity) of managing our own funds, our own maintenance, and our own small choices.
Our mission is plain. We want every child who walks through our gate to leave reading well, counting confidently, holding their head up in their three home languages, and knowing that an adult in this school knew their name. The buildings are modest. The teaching, we hope, is not.
By the numbers · Ka dipalo
A school of careful proportions.
1 184
Learners in 2024
Roughly 720 in Foundation & Intermediate Phase (Grade R–6), the rest in Senior & FET (Grade 7–12). Our enrolment grows about 3% a year.
38
Educators & staff
Including 30 classroom teachers, two HoDs, one deputy principal, our principal, two NSNP cooks, one school assistant, and a part-time counsellor.
28
Years in this community
From one classroom in 1998 to three blocks today. Many of our current parents were also our learners. Our gate has not moved.
Our way of doing things
Mission, vision, and the small things in between.
We try to keep this short. A school’s philosophy is mostly proven on a Tuesday afternoon, in how a teacher speaks to a child who has forgotten their pencil for the third day in a row.
Vision
A school where every Grade 7 leaver can read a newspaper, write a letter, work out their change, name three plants on their walk home, and choose their next school with confidence.
Values · Boitshwaro
Botho (humanity), Tshepo (trust), and Boikarabelo (responsibility). We borrow these words from Setswana on purpose. They are older and more careful than the English ones.
If a child can read by the end of Grade 3, the rest of school is a long, slow act of kindness. If they cannot, no clever programme will save us. So we begin there.