Grade R applications: WC Education Department answers your questions

Sara-Jayne Makwala King spoke to Western Cape Education Department’s Communications Director, Bronagh Hammond.

Listen to their conversation in the audio clip below.

The Western Cape Education Department recently announced that online applications for grade R for 2025 will open from 1 August to 16 August 2024.

"If they are turning 6 within the 2025 school year, then you apply for grade R."

- Bronagh Hammond, Western Cape Education Department’s Communications Director

The Department is encouraging parents to start preparing all their child's certified documents in advance, namely:

• Immunisation card
• ID, birth certificate, passport, study permit or proof of application or police affidavit
• Proof of address or police affidavit

You can apply to up to 10 schools.

If you are visiting the website for the first time, you will need to register. Click here to familiarise yourself with the website, so come 1 August, you're good to go.

Hamond answers some of your questions about online school applications:

What weight does proximity to a school play in your likelihood of being accepted?

"It's quite complex. In terms of the Western Cape, we do not have feeder zones at all. We allow for the free movement and choice of parents to apply. We allow for that freedom of movement and choice. But, in the South African Schools Act, school governing bodies have the right to determine the admission policies. It could be preference for kids who already have siblings at the school, preference for kids in terms of the radius in the area, whether their parents were past pupils...there are various things schools take into account and they apply their own admission policy. I haven't come across an admission policy where they've ever added the name of a creche or an institution that is a feeder to a specific school and I don't think that would be appropriate in terms of the South African Schools Act."

- Bronagh Hammond, Western Cape Education Department’s Communications Director

Are schools compelled to meet "transformation targets"?

"We encourage transformation in our schools across the board and we've seen a rapid increase in that in the past ten years. We also need to factor in the safety of learners. For our primary schools, it's quite difficult to have a grade 1 learner go off after the bell rings and you let them travel in a taxi many kilometres home. It's always going to be a concern for the school."

 - Bronagh Hammond, Western Cape Education Department’s Communications Director

Does one have to, even if you don't want your child to go to that school, apply to the nearest school to you?

"We always encourage it because a lot of parents apply to the best schools in the province...realistically, the chances of getting into that school is going to be difficult because you've got so many people competing to get into that school. If you've done all of that for your 10 applications, then you really are cutting yourself very thin and that's why we say please try and actually keep it quite varied because of that no feeder policy for us...you still have the opportunity to apply but also having that safety net as well."

- Bronagh Hammond, Western Cape Education Department’s Communications Director

"For grade R it's really an equal playing field."

- Bronagh Hammond, Western Cape Education Department’s Communications Director

 Are there any particular problem areas for placements?

"A lot of parents panic about grade R. Because it's not compulsory, it's almost left to the schools and the independent institutions that offer grade R to sort out but there are appeal processes involved which will open on the 1st of October for grade R if necessary. We do try and help parents as far as possible to get their child into grade R. We are also realistic about the fact that it is an entry-level grade into a lot of our public schools but I think because it's not compulsory yet, we don't have grade R in every single institution in the Western Cape and it's limited because of our infrastructure plan we are needing to focus on the compulsory grades."

 - Bronagh Hammond, Western Cape Education Department’s Communications Director

If you aren't successful in any of the schools you applied to, what then?

"I would first of all approach the schools themselves and ask to be placed on a waiting list... If you haven't been accepted, there is a process and it's a bit of a patience game for parents...if you feel like you have been discriminated against and that your application hasn't been fairly considered, there is an appeals process that will open on the 1st of October."

- Bronagh Hammond,  Western Cape Education Department’s Communications Director

Scroll up to listen to the full interview.