By Palesa Ndinisa
Thuto Private School located in Brakpan recently branched out its school to another additional block. The school is founded by Sellinah Mashinini, who is the Executive Director, together with her daughter, Nompumelelo Mashinini who serves as the Operations Director and Nkosinathi Mashinini, the Financial Director.
Its services include early childhood development education, foundation, intermediate, senior and further education training (FET) phase as well as after care and extra curricular activities. The school was established in 2017 after twelve years of the Executive Director, Sellinah Mashini began Thuto-Mfundo, which was a nursery school based in Tsakane that later relocated to Brakpan. Speaking to Nkosinathi Mashinini, son and Financial Director of the school, attested that the inspiration behind growing their educational enterprise began after he noticed the state which schools were in. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t further my education after matric because of lack of finances, so I continued with the transport business we had at home. My mom had an Avanza which transported school children to different schools. After dropping them off, I’d see that some schools were not in the standard a school should be in. Some schools were not registered and foreign owned, some had no occupational safety and their buildings were damaged. Some even closed down, but because we had space where we were renting, and my mom is a qualified facilitator and already in the education space, we googled all the requirements we needed to have an accredited school. It took over three years to acquire all necessary documentation and requirements to become a private school but we made it happen. We’re registered with the Department of Education,” gracefully expressed Mashinini.
As part of enhancing the school curriculum, Thuto Private School has Adventurer and Pathfinder Clubs where pupils are taught about life skills such as safety, first aid, religious studies and swimming lessons. The school also encourages Christianity and a staunch culture of participation in community. The school is close-knitted, where older students take care of younger ones. The school offers anti-bullying campaigns and offers activities like outdoor life events such as camping, reading, cooking, sewing, ironing, baking, nature studies and spiritual discovery in addition of the CAPS curriculum. The school is fully functionally dependent on fundraising and school fees funds. Although the school has applied for subsidy from the Department of Education with no luck, the academy continues to aim to deliver virtuous education.
Any form of sponsorship to benefit pupils would be appreciated. “We do have students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds so we’d gladly accept school shoes and uniform, equipment like laptops, tables or even funds. We house children from 3 months to grade 11, next year we’ll have our first grade 12 class. We’re different because we do not have a capacity of more than 25 learners in our class, which makes it easier for our teachers to notice if a learner has problems or struggles with their academics or social skills. Thus far, we have 16 teachers for all our grades and we have extra classes for students who need them. We have an anti bullying box where our students write anything related to bullying and it gets reviewed weekly, so we hardly have any bullying issues,” uttered the Financial Director, Nkosinathi Mashinini.
The school has all subjects offered by the CAPS curriculum which includes Commerce subjects, History, Tourism and Geography, Science subjects, Creative Arts, English, Life Orientation as well as Computer Application Sciences. The extra mural activities include netball, soccer, cricket, ballet, chess and swimming. To ensure that all required activities designed for students are effective and in compliance with the school’s policy, the school has a transport from Tsakane, KwaThema, Duduza, Springs and Brakpan.
“This is a dream come true for us. We’ve opened the new block because we’ve reached our maximum capacity in our first block. We can’t accept anymore students so the need for growth has increased significantly. Back in 2018, our school had about 35 learners and now we have 216 learners. We have a long waiting list of people wanting to be a part of us. We’re one of the top performing schools in the Gauteng district as we had learners from our school in the Maths Olympiad. Everything we wished for in the past 5 years is happening. We are so grateful,” added Nompumelelo Mashinini, the Operations Director.
Temoso Motshoane, a 16-year-old student expressed her interest in her school. “I’d like to be an entrepreneur one day and our school is owned by blacks. This motivates me and it shows me that it’s possible for blacks to succeed,” added Motshoane. Gloria Mongako, who is also a student majoring in History, Geography and Tourism revealed that her life changed for the better after she became a student at Thuto Private School. “I was quite undisciplined before I came here but the teachers were patient with me and trained me to do right. I put all my friends who were a bad influence on the side and focused on my studies. Currently, Temoso and I are top achievers in our school and I couldn’t be happier,” concluded Mongako.
