ELIZABETH CONRADIE SCHOOL

HISTORY OF ELIZABETH CONRADIE SCHOOL

 

In a unique co-operation between the National Departments of Defence, Health and Labour, boys with rehabilitative disabilities who reported for military service, were grouped during 1939 in special peletons at Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria.

 

Early 1941 these peletons grew into a battallion and from 1942 the Physical Training Battallion was launched under Major Danie Craven. Since September 1942 the Physical Training Battallion also became a school at Voortrekkerhoogte and by 1945 it was a very good school with 660 disabled boys and 32 teachers. After the Second World War, the school moved early in 1946 to the old Army Base in Kimberley.

 

The post office at the base was called Diskobolos, and so the school was also informally called Diskobolos. The then Union Education Department took over control of the Physical Training Brigade School. The symbol of the school was the statue of the discus thrower – the Diskobolos statue.

 

The 166 staff members of the school comprised of medical doctors, psychologists, vice principals, teachers, therapists, a statistician, a photographer, a sociologist, dieticians, a butcher, an investigator (policeman), a farm foreman and a sports organizer. Dr Danie Craven was the director (principal) of the school. In April 1950 the school ceased to exist as the Physical Training Brigade focussed on rehabilitative disabilities. Since 1948 pressure was put on the school to also enroll learners with non-rehabilitative disabilities.

 

So learners on crutches and in wheelchairs were also enrolled, and three different schools came into being: a boys school for boys with physical disabilities, a girls school for girls with physical disabilities, a high school ("beroepskool") for boys with physical disabilities.

 

In April 1955 the Girls School moved from picturesque and historical Alexandersfontein (where Cecil John Rhodes and his friends played) to Diskobolos. One school was formed, Elizabeth Conradie School. The school was named after the wife of the then Administrator of the Cape Province, Dr Johanna Elizabeth Conradie as she was the dynamic president of the National Cripple Care Council. When PW Botha, Minister of Defence, indicated that the military needed the Diskobolos facilities, a new school was planned and built in Kimberley.

 

On 1 December 1973 Elizabeth Conradie School moved to the current premises next to the N12 road.