1989 – 1990: Africa Week

The origins of the LEAP School, and its predecessor the LEAP Program, lie in a school student exchange program begun in 1989 by John Gilmour when he was Head of Department at Pinelands High School in Cape Town.  This program, called Africa Week, involved black students from townships close to Pinelands being invited to spend a week at the school.  It was not a true student exchange program in that the white students did not spend time in the township schools, something for which John says the white community was not yet ready at that time.  Although the white community was cautious about this initiative, the white students who volunteered were excited about meeting their black counterparts.  John says that he was able to initiate Africa Week because students at Pinelands had a voice and were articulating a need for contact with students from townships.

1990 – 1995: Langa Students Bussed to Pinelands High

The success of Africa Week allowed John to take the initiative a step further in 1990 with the inception of the original LEAP Program.  The acronym LEAP is derived from the nature of the early program: Langa Education Assistance Program.  This program’s aim was to provide students from Langa with support tuition and it took the form of one hundred students being bussed from Langa to Pinelands High three afternoons a week, for sessions that lasted an hour and a half, over twenty weeks during the year.  Under John’s direction, Pinelands High teachers provided the students with extra lessons in English, Maths and Science. 

1996 – 2000: Teachers Bussed to Langa 

Although the early shape of the LEAP Program worked well and John says, “…it felt good”, he believed that it was limited in what it could achieve in redressing the inadequacies in the students’ maths and science foundations.  There was also a need to legitimise the fact that good schooling could occur in township schools.  Furthermore, the cost of transporting 100 students three times a week was becoming prohibitive.  Thus it was decided to alter the way in which the program operated: rather than transporting the large body of students to Pinelands, a smaller group of teachers were bussed to Langa to provide the support tuition, also for three afternoons a week for twenty weeks in the year.  Over time the number of teachers varied between twenty and thirty, most of them from Pinelands High, but also from Bergvliet and a number of other southern suburbs schools.

2001 – 2003: Township Teachers Paid for Extra Tuition

The nature of the LEAP Program was again altered because a voice began to emerge within the Langa community that expressed unease with the notion of white teachers attempting to save black schools.  The teachers in the community felt that they could do the job.  Thus the logical response was to alter the LEAP Program so that the funds that LEAP raised could be used to pay township teachers to provide the extra lessons.  This version of the LEAP Program continued despite John’s move from Pinelands High to become Headmaster of Abbott’s College in 1997.  As well as paying township teachers, an earlier version of the LEAP Program was resurrected in that township students were occasionally bussed to Abbott’s College from Langa in order to use the science laboratories and receive extra science tuition.

Despite its successes, John was dissatisfied with the LEAP Program.  Although it was logical to use funds to pay township teachers to provide extra lessons, he became concerned about creating a culture where teachers would expect payment for involvement in the school after 2:30pm.  More important, though, was what was being indicated by the statistics: the proportion of black matric students that were gaining university exemptions with science and maths had hardly budged since 1990, this notwithstanding the considerable efforts of the LEAP program, and other programs like it, in providing support tuition.  To illustrate, in 2003 there were around 650 students in Langa who sat the matric exams; of these 350 passed, but only 6 achieved university exemption, and none did so with Science and Maths on Higher Grade.  In the entire Western Cape in 2003 only 55 African language matriculants achieved exemption with science and maths.  John says that the inescapable conclusion from statistics like these was that tuition support was simply not delivering the desired results and that the only apparently workable alternative was one involving “full immersion” tuition, i.e. where students are subjected to virtually double the normal classroom tuition time on a full-time basis.

Thus the LEAP model was taken in something of a full circle, where students were again being bussed out of the township, but this time to a school designed specifically for the needs of the community.  John’s decision to situate the school, at least temporarily, away from Langa was based on the belief that its presence in the township could have been a source of tension and jealousy amongst the Langa schools.  Furthermore, having the school in the suburbs would allow for easy access for donors and other interested parties, as well as paving the way for a partnership with a privileged school.

So strong was John’s conviction that he resigned from his post as Abbott’s College Principal at the end of 2002 with a view to starting the LEAP School where just such a model could be employed.  He began discussions with Grant Nupen, the principal of Diocesan College (Bishops), about a possible partnership between Bishops and a LEAP School. 

2003 - 2004: LEAP Science and Maths School is established

In early 2003 John began scouting around for potential financers of the school and by October 2003 he had secured a R1m funding from the Shuttleworth Foundation.  With this financial backing and the Bishops partnership in place, as well as the blessing of the Western Cape Education Department, the LEAP Science and Maths School was established in late 2003 and opened its doors to its first 72 students at the beginning of 2004.

2005 - 2008: Formation of the second and Third LEAP schools

Since 2004, LEAP has had four classes of Grade 12 learners matriculate, with 70% of matriculants going on to pursue tertiary studies.

In 2007 LEAP started a second school on the Mupine campus in Pinelands, LEAP 2, serving the communities of Gugulethu and Crossroads.

In 2008, LEAP welcomed its first learners in Johannesburg at a school based in Linbro Park which serves the community of Alexandra.