ABOUT UNITY COLLEGE   history

Unity College started with 27 pupils in August 1990. Syd and Cavell Lowenthal organised to rent classes at Temple Shalom in Louis Botha Avenue, Orange Grove.

There were absolutely no funds and everybody (teachers and parents) pitched in and brought all the equipment, readers and resources from home.

No playground was available so during break time we went to the park with our pupils, carrying chairs, blankets, flasks of coffee, mugs, lunch and juice. The pupils played on the swings, slides and other equipment.

In January 1991, we employed additional educators as the school had grown tremendously “by word of mouth”.

At the beginning of 1992, we moved to the Temple Emanuel in Oxford Road because there wasn’t enough space for us at Temple Shalom. We had classrooms, a playground for the juniors and a car park for the seniors to play in! We had an enormous hall for school plays, prize-giving, functions and Bingo evenings etc. This was true bliss!!

It was at the Temple Emanuel that we started our first computer centre, library, had a copier, a full-time secretary, our own telephone line, a speech therapist and an O.T.

We moved to our present premises in Witkoppen in the December of 1996 and officially opened the doors of the “new” school in 1997.