Huppelland is the oldest Afrikaans pre-primary school, situated in the City Bowl area of Cape Town. Flanked by majestic Table Mountain and historie Signal Hili, and with a view of the new Fifa World Cup Stadium in Green Point, the school is at the heartbeat of all the best that Cape Town has to offer.
The school was established in 1947 as the pre-primary school of Jan van Riebeeck Primary School and moved to its new premises in the leafy suburb of Tamboerskloof in 2007 when it outgrew the old school building in Kloof Street.
The school currently has five full-time teachers who look after about 100 children with the help of five teaching assistants. The children range in age from three years to six years.
As part of Jan van Riebeeck Primary School, Huppelland is steeped in history. The Primary School was established on 31 January 1921 with 23 pupils housed in two classrooms in what was until then a stable. Situated just off Vine Street, the school became known as the Vine Street School. An inspection report at the end of the first year mentioned that “the enrolment was small and did not justify the employment of two teachers but action will probably be unnecessary as the school ought to grow”. And grow it did!
The next year there were 36 enrolments, two years later there were 48 and three years later the school boasted 160 pupils. On 15 June 1926 it was decided to rename the school to Jan van Riebeeck School.
Jan van Riebeeck was a Dutch colonial administrator who arrived at the future Cape Town on 6 April 1652 to establish a half-way point in the Dutch East India Company (VOC) trade route between the Netherlands and the East Indies where seafarers could find safe anchorage and refuel with fresh fruit, vegetables and meat.
Afrikaans is closely linked to its Dutch heritage and today it is the spoken language of two major ethnic groups in South Africa: the Afrikaans people (Afrikaners) and the Coloureds.
In post-apartheid South Africa Afrikaans shares its status as official language with ten other languages and an Afrikaans medium pre-school education such as the one offered by Huppelland is important to ensure the language’s continued survival. And with new generations of South Africans who openly support change and reje.ct the old racial policies of apartheid, Afrikaans is slowly starting to move away from its former label of “the language of the oppressor”.
