St George's School in Gqeberha was founded in 1936 as a private prep school for boys, and at the end of this year it closes. It took in girls from 1987 and added a high school in 2001. Curro, which owns it, announced the closure in May, saying too few pupils had enrolled and the school kept running at a loss. The decision affects 197 pupils and 51 members of staff.
On Wednesday Advtech, the JSE-listed group behind Crawford International, Trinityhouse and Pinnacle, said it had bought the St George's property. The site, in the St George's Park area, will become the first Eastern Cape campus of The Bridge School, with room for 450 learners. Advtech has not disclosed the price.
Why the desks emptied
Curro's explanation is a short lesson in how a school works as a business. The buildings, the staff, the compliance work and the utility bills cost much the same whether the classrooms are full or half empty. Curro said enrolment at St George's had stayed materially below the level needed to cover those costs, and that neither the current pupil numbers nor the projected ones could support them. So the school closes, and the buildings stay where they are.
A school for children who learn differently
The Bridge School, which Advtech started in 2018, is built for pupils who need a personalised route through school. It runs smaller classes with specialised academic, emotional or social support, and the Gqeberha campus will offer assisted learning shaped around the needs of each neurodivergent child. It will be Advtech's third Bridge school.
Chief executive Geoff Whyte said the acquisition "responds to growing demand for specialised schooling". That is the bet in plain terms: buildings Curro could not fill with one kind of pupil, filled with another.
Getting there takes time. From 2027 Advtech will upgrade the site's academic, cultural and sporting facilities and add specialist learning and therapy spaces, and it plans to recruit or relocate teachers with expertise in neurodivergent learning. The campus opens officially in January 2028, which puts a full year of building work between Curro's last term and the first Bridge School class.
