ACADEMIC

Cedarwood Preparatory School and College provides an academic education of high standard which integrates the National Curriculum from Grade 1 to Grade 12, with individualised remedial and therapeutic support in order to remove your child’s learning barriers as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

Cedarwood School’s creativity programme utilises the arts, music, technology and creative visualisation. This encourage the development of your child’s imagination and lateral, out-of-the-box things, as well as enhancing personal strengths and artistic talents. Areas of strength are identified and emphasized early on. The environment provides an atmosphere of calm understanding and fair discipline, where pupils are encouraged to reason and problem-solve using a variety of teaching methods and learning strategies.

Through the School Based Support Team, Cedarwood School offers additional academic support, emotional support, psycho-educational assessments, group speech, occupational and physiotherapy.

Private therapists are on-site offering individual speech and language therapy, individual occupational therapy, individual physiotherapy. Specific assessments outside of the assessment offering will be charged at a nominal fee.

Because we know that many of our children lack social interaction skills and self-confidence, Cedarwood School have developed a unique emotional intelligence module which guides and supports your child emotionally, socially and spiritually. Weekly class sessions with our head psychologists teach children how to build interpersonal relationships effectively, to work cooperatively with one another with mutual respect to grow self-awareness and self-confidence, and to develop positive attitudes and ethical human values.

On-going wrap-around meetings are held with the Headmaster, Heads of Department, teachers, therapists and parents to set objectives and to evaluate progress in order to meet your child’s individual needs. Termly reports and annual scholastic assessments assist with this process.

Why Cedarwood School Has Limited Subject Choices (Grades 10-12)

Subject Offerings

Cedarwood School offers only the minimum seven subjects required for the National Senior Certificate:

Compulsory subjects:

English (Home Language)
Afrikaans (FAL) or isiZulu (FAL)
Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy
Life Orientation

Elective subjects (choose one from each pair):

Geography or Drama
Visual Art or Business Studies
Computer Applications Technology or Life Science

Reasons for Limited Subject Choices

Content-Heavy Subjects Are Excluded

History is not offered because it is too content-heavy for pupils with learning difficulties. The extensive memorisation requirements and dense curriculum content make it particularly challenging for Cedarwood’s learner population, who have mild to moderate learning support needs.

Physical Science and Core Mathematics Interdependency

Physical Science cannot be offered as a standalone subject because:

Physical Science requires Core Mathematics as a co-requisite
The school has very few pupils taking Core Mathematics
Most pupils opt for Mathematical Literacy instead of Core Mathematics
When pupils drop Core Mathematics for Mathematical Literacy, Physical Science becomes unavailable to them

Unfair Distribution of Human Resources

With a very small number of Core Mathematics pupils:

It becomes economically and pedagogically impractical to staff specialised science and mathematics teachers
The school’s limited staff resources must be distributed to benefit the majority of pupils
Small class sizes (maintaining the 1:14 staff-to-pupil ratio) for a handful of Core Mathematics learners would drain resources from the broader school population
Specialist teachers would be underutilised, making it financially unsustainable

Focus on the Remedial Education Context

Cedarwood prioritises subjects that:

Are more accessible to pupils with learning difficulties
Allow for meaningful remediation and support
Match the school’s specialist remedial teaching approach
Support both academic and alternative (Pre-Vocational/Vocational) pathways

The limited subject choice model ensures that Cedarwood can maintain its high-quality, individualised remedial support whilst offering subjects that give pupils realistic opportunities for success and future pathways.