Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are often described as the backbone of South Africa’s economy.
Many successful SME owners gained their knowledge of running their businesses from their parents and grandparents who ran their own small businesses and there have often been calls for entrepreneurial skills to be taught to the next generation at school level.
With parents considering schools for 2027, Radley Primary School is championing entrepreneurial thinking as an essential life skill, alongside its IEB curriculum.
At its Open Day, families can experience this approach through learner-run market stalls and explore Radley’s new Northriding campus, including its coding and robotics room, science lab and entrepreneurship hubs.
As parents of future grade one learners embark on the exciting and sometimes daunting journey of settling on a primary school for 2027, many are questioning how early childhood education will affect their futures.
Allon Raiz, co-director of Radley Primary School, founder and CEO of Raizcorp, said that one of the most important capabilities that parents need to ensure schooling nurtures in their children is the ability to create opportunities of their own in the future.
“The world our children are going into is not one in which we can promise them that doing well at school will automatically translate into a job,” said Raiz.
“What we can do is help them develop the ability to see possibility where others see limitation, to solve problems and to be resilient and to know how to create value for other people and themselves. Those are entrepreneurial capabilities, but they are also life capabilities, and the earlier children begin developing them, the more naturally they become part of the way they think,” Raiz added.
Entrepreneurial thinking has been central to Radley’s education model since Raizcorp took over in 2015, and when Raiz identified what he regarded as a gap in traditional schooling.
Radley Primary School learners follow the IEB academic curriculum alongside a dedicated entrepreneurial programme, with age-appropriate entrepreneurship content progressing through each grade.
The approach also extends to the school’s teachers, who are referred to as educator guides.
Each guide gets accredited with entrepreneurial training, equipping them to incorporate the language, thinking and practical principles of entrepreneurship into the way they guide learners.
The school will open its doors on 19 September 2026 to families looking to visit the school and gain more insight into its unique approach to education as an accessible private institution.
The open day will take place at the school’s brand new 2027 campus before its relocation to 61 Blandford Road in Northriding, which will give the school room to grow its primary school community while expanding the facilities available to learners from Grade RR to Grade 7.
Visitors to the open day will have the opportunity to see the school’s entrepreneurial focus put into practice through learner-run market stalls.
Families will also be able to book guided tours of the new campus through their website, meet Radley’s educator guides and explore some of the spaces being created for learners.
The new campus will include dedicated state of the art coding and robotics room, a science lab, entrepreneurship hubs and outdoor learning and play spaces,
“The move gives us the space to build on what Radley already is without losing the personal environment that families value,” said Charné de Gouveia, Principal of Radley Primary School.
She added that the open day is also an opportunity to answer the questions that matter when parents are deciding where to entrust their children for some of their most formative years.
“The curriculum is one aspect that parents want to understand and consider when making this important decision, but they also want peace of mind knowing their child will be seen as individual and not just a number, how the school responds when a child is struggling or when there is a behavioural concern such as bullying and whether the environment will help their child feel safe enough to participate and grow in confidence,” Gouveia said.
ashley.lechman@nationalmg.co.za