Battswood Primary school

Battswood was established in the year 1891 and has a very colorful past.

The school was founded by Martha Grey, the wife of the Earl of Stamford who had been sent to the colonies because he had a drinking problem and was an embarrassment to his noble family. Martha was a colored washer woman and she found him one day, along the banks of a river. She took him in and cared for him and eventually the two of them had two children together – a boy and a girl.

At the time the only primary schools in the area were the all-white Wynberg Girls and Boys. The girl was light-skinned enough to attend Wynberg Girls but the boy was too dark to attend Wynberg Boys. To enable her son to get a good level of education, Martha then established a school and called it Battswood – named after Hendry Batts who was a local landowner.

Martha belonged to the Dutch Mission Church at the time and they administered the school until 1997 when the church sold the land and the school became homeless. For three years the school was split over two campuses until the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and Old Mutual Insurance Company decided to build a school in Ottery. This school was officially opened by ex-President Mandela in 2001.

Battswood is a government school with an enrolment of 620 students from grade Pre R (kindergarten) grade 7. There is a staff of 24 and 22 classrooms. The annual school fee is R420 ($60) but, since the majority of learners are from the impoverished township areas, collection is difficult. There are also many children who receive a social grant and are therefore exempt from paying fees.

The school constantly fundraises and has at least one big fundraiser per term. Recently the computer room had to be shut down because the computers are obsolete and beyond repair. The school is currently attempting to raise funds to purchase new computers, and this is certainly a need for the students to remain current. Even though Battswood is not a rich school, it encourages pupils to dream big and to aspire to greatness. This led to the school partnering with a Canadian school based in Toronto – Nelson Mandela Park Public School. Two trips have been made to Canada on an exchange program. Battswood would like to partner with more schools and would like to develop a relationship with another sister school through Opportunity Education