Mandela Barloworld Agricultural

Surrounded by bushy greens at all 3 sides except the front, MBAHS is built with rocks and green roofs to resemble its agricultural nature. It has Cattle, Broiler Chickens, Fish, and plantation fields of vegetables and plants such as Mangoes, lemons, and macadamia nuts. Learners practice agriculture both theoretically and practically. It is situated a bit far from main roads or houses, allowing peace and quiet in the learning environment. Monday and Friday mornings start with assembly, singing, mini-preaching, and prayer. Christianity being the main focus. The education standard upon my arrival(2010) was good, perpetuated by limited intake.It usually performed in the top 5 of the Circuit and mostly found in the top 3 of the 5. However, with later years intake started to be less selective resulting in diminished standard of education. The school offers both agricultural studies and Science studies, including Engineering and Graphics design, mechanical engineering, and CAT, but no commercial stream. There are fully equipped science laboratories for experiments and demonstrations and a fully equipped computer lab for CAT studies. The facilities were also good during the course of my studies but with increased intake there's is a high probability that it may have diminished.All blocks have flushing toilets and daily cleaning services. Sport is not very much encouraged and one should not consider taking their child there if they are sport-focused. The premises are also not user friendly for disabled people on wheelchair, however the newly built blocks had ramps. The school is semi-private, thus learners pay an annual school fees (was R1250 per annum then) and there's no government feeding scheme on premises. The outside allows enough space for visitors'parking and there's 24hr security on premises. The safety of the learner after school is however not guaranteed as most have to travel using public transport which is located a bit too far from the school, with shortcuts to the main transport road including venturing into the surrounding bushes.Available food on site are traditinal, mostly oily stuff. Any learner with health conditions, specifically diet restrictions should always have their lunchbox rather than opting to buy from school . Bullying was minimally addressed in my time, something that I hope they are handling different now. With the discrepancies that exist here and there in every 1 or 2 schools, it was overall a better place to be and learn.