Parklands College – Growing Minds and building futures through learning innovation

Parklands college is a top independent school and a progressive place of learning and teaching, where a holistic approach is infused with innovation and the integration of technology. the school’s shared vision is to foster a sense of purpose and ignite a passion for life-long learning within its Parklands family. learners are encouraged to effectively communicate ideas, work collaboratively, identify and solve challenges using creative and critical thinking – all while taking action to positively impact our global community.

“This is our ‘growing minds’ philosophy – the heartbeat to our expression of education,” says Paul mayers, associate Principal of innovation. “we provide a space which inspires our learners to explore their imaginations and live their creativity and passions through action and service.

“Our mission statement – ‘Reaching outwards, growing minds, building futures’ – concisely describes the core of our purpose; our ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’.

“We have been recognised by apple as an apple distinguished school (ads) since 2016, for our continued innovation, leadership and excellence in education. our recognition is specifically for providing an authentic, technology infused learning environment, where through a multitude of opportunities, we inspire our learners to explore their imaginations and creativity, find their purpose, and build their own futures.”

Coding and Robotics was integrated into the school’s curriculum in 2014. this programme fosters an interest in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, and offers diverse problem solving and creative opportunities linked to the united nations sustainable development goals.

Parklands college’s Robotics teams have represented south africa in the various global competitions every year since 2015. the school’s best result so far was placing sixth in the world in the world Robot olympiad’s future innovators category in 2022.

Invention and rapid prototyping are encouraged through the use of tinkercad, autocad and 3d printers in art, design, fashion design, drawing technology, and engineering graphics and design. in the school’s secondary faculty, film, animation, sound engineering and app development extension courses are on offer in the media studios and coding incubator. “we are very proud of our young entrepreneurs who have released four digital albums on itunes, as well as of the 11 learner-developed applications on the apple app store. all of our apps, which include ‘simple learning time’, ‘safer web’, ‘simple learning afrikaans’ and ‘safer britannica’, have had about 100 000 downloads in total to date.”

The “holodeck” houses the school’s immersive learning facility where learners can experience virtual reality simulations. learners are able to participate in exploring a multitude of multisensory experiences such as travelling through a body as a blood cell.

Parklands college’s internationally recognised offerings include comptia certifications, autocad, adobe Photoshop visual communication certification (aca), arduino and the icdl these give learners career focussed, industry and workplace recognised skills and certifications. esports help develop better hand-eye co-ordination, quick thinking and decision making, strategy, and communication skills.

Parklands college is currently the south african high school counterstrike go champion, and it has many other esport opportunities on offer in its gaming studio. as humanity focuses on taking humans into space on commercial flights and possibly in the not-too-distant future to living on mars, we need to educate a generation of space engineers. for this reason, the school has partnered with maxiQ.space to launch a space science programme at the college.

Parklands college continues to explore new and emerging technologies in order to keep abreast of world trends in education and give its learners every opportunity to build their own bright futures.