St. Clement’s Primary School was started in 1954 by the Redemptorist Order, in the hall on the cnr of 7th Avenue and Lake Road. When the school first started they use the big hall that was divided so as to accommodate two classrooms. At the time it was the only school in the area after Lotus River Primary School (est 1934).

 

Much of the school that we now see and know was built later. Fr Path was responsible for building of six classrooms at the school. We currently have 21 classrooms at school. For many years the Redemptorist had a direct and hands on involvement in the school. They were very involved in the day to day running of the school.

 

First Fr. Harding then Fr Martin Gay acted as the owners rep. In recent times the owners involvement has been very minimal that is not to say that they are not involved. Our owners are still based at Holy Redeemer in Bergvliet. We have a complete brick building and unlike any of the school’s in the area we have no prefabricated classrooms.

 

Although the school had more in the past the school has had an enrolment of about 300 learners for the past 10 years. We have one class per grade from grades r to grade 7. We have 8 educators at school including the principal. The school only has English class and we had to drop Afrikaans a number of years ago due to low pupil numbers.

 

Many of the learner s are not Catholic and approximately half our school population is not of the Catholic religion. The school has church and mass asking Fr. Collins at St. Mary’s Retreat to do duty for us.

At present, half the school population is fed on a daily basis by the Peninsula School’s Feeding Scheme. Half our parents apply on a yearly basis for school fees exemption.