A wide view of Marang Primary School's main building at sunrise, with the morning bell still ringing and learners arriving through the side gate.
About Us

A small school, a long memory, a steady promise.

Marang Primary has stood on the corner of Ndebele Village, Klipgat C, since 1989. Generations of children from Mabopane have walked through our gates. This page is the story of how we came to be here, and what we promise to the next child who arrives.

A note from the principal

We do small things with care, every day.

When parents ask what makes Marang different, I tell them the truth: we are an ordinary public school, with ordinary classrooms and ordinary timetables. What is not ordinary is the care. The teachers here know your child’s name by the second week. The cooks know which child does not eat sweetcorn. The cleaners know which Grade 1 cries on Tuesdays because that is the day his mother works late. None of this shows up in a brochure. All of it shows up in how a child grows.

— Mr. Eliphus Pule Kotsokoane, Principal since 2014

An aerial-feel view of the Marang Primary School grounds: brown brick buildings, an iron gate with the school sign, and the dust playing field where afternoon athletics happens.
Our Story

From a borrowed church hall to our own school yard.

Marang Primary School opened its first Grade 1 class in January 1989, in a borrowed hall behind the local Methodist church. The founders were a group of seven parents from Klipgat C and Ndebele Village who were tired of their children walking forty minutes each way to the nearest primary in Mabopane. They wrote letters to the old Bophuthatswana Department of Education, and after fifteen months of persistence, the first six classrooms were built on the present site.

Today we are a registered public ordinary school under the North West Department of Basic Education, NatEmis number 600101095, falling under the Bojanala District Office. We hold Section 21 status, which means our SGB manages the school’s operating budget directly, and we are categorised as Quintile 1 — one of the schools serving the country’s most modest communities, and proudly a No-Fee school.

Inside a Grade 4 classroom at Marang Primary: rows of wooden desks, a worn green chalkboard, and learners working on long-division on lined paper.
Our School Today

447 learners, 17 educators, one shared school yard.

In 2024 we registered 447 learners across Grade R to Grade 7, with 17 full-time educators and a small support team of administrative, kitchen and grounds staff. We are a comprehensive primary school, which simply means we do not specialise; we teach the full CAPS curriculum, end to end, the way the Department of Basic Education expects.

Our medium of instruction is Setswana in the Foundation Phase, switching to English in Grade 4 in line with national policy. Most of our learners speak Setswana at home; a smaller number speak Sepedi or IsiZulu, and we accommodate both. Every learner receives a hot meal each school day through the National School Nutrition Programme. The kitchen is run by four mothers from Klipgat who started as volunteers and stayed.

A child who is known is a child who learns.
A teacher kneeling beside a Grade 1 learner, helping her hold a pencil correctly. Both are smiling; the classroom wall has hand-painted Setswana alphabet posters.
Our Mission

A dignified primary education, for every child in our village.

Our mission is simple, and we say it out loud at every staff meeting: to give the children of Klipgat C and Ndebele Village a primary education that opens doors, taught with patience, in a school that feels safe. We do not promise to turn every learner into a top achiever. We promise to know each child, to teach them honestly, to feed them, and to send them up to high school in Grade 7 ready for what comes next.

We work inside the constraints of a Quintile 1 No-Fee school, which means we have to be careful with every textbook, every meal, every chair. But we believe a school that is plain on the outside can still be rich on the inside — rich with attention, with stories read aloud, with a teacher who waits at the gate when a child arrives wet from rain. That is the kind of richness we are building, year after year.

Why Families Trust Us

Three quiet things our parents come back for.

We do not run open days with marching bands or printed brochures. Most of our new families arrive because a neighbour told them to. When we ask those neighbours what they tell people, three things come up again and again.

A mother and her Grade 2 daughter at the school gate at the end of the day; the daughter is holding a clay pot she made in art class, smiling shyly.

Teachers who stay

Our average educator has been at Marang for eleven years. The Grade 3 teacher who taught your eldest is likely still here for your youngest. That continuity is rare, and it matters.

A hot meal, every day

NSNP-funded, cooked on site by mothers from this community. We serve 447 plates each school day, and we know which children depend on them most.

An SGB that listens

Our School Governing Body holds monthly open meetings. Anything from a broken window to a curriculum query gets heard. Our parents show up, and they are taken seriously.

School Leadership

The people who carry this school.

Our leadership team is small. Most of them teach a class as well as carrying a portfolio. Below are the four colleagues who, between them, run Marang day to day — and the chairperson of our SGB, who keeps us honest.

Mr. Eliphus Pule Kotsokoane, principal of Marang Primary School, in a navy jacket, standing in front of the school noticeboard.

Eliphus Pule Kotsokoane

Principal
32 years in primary education B.Ed (Hons), UNISA · ACE (Education Management), NWU

“A child who is known is a child who learns. We start there, every term.”

[email protected]
Parents’ hour: Wednesdays 14:00–15:30
Mrs. Lebogang Modise, deputy principal, mid-conversation with a learner in the corridor outside the Grade 5 classrooms.

Lebogang Modise

Deputy Principal · Curriculum
21 years in primary education B.Ed, North-West University · ACE (Mathematics), UNISA

“Our timetable is the most honest thing about the school. If we say a child gets reading every day, they get reading every day.”

[email protected]
Parents’ hour: Tuesdays 13:30–15:00
Mrs. Tebogo Sekgobela, head of Foundation Phase, sitting at a child-sized table holding up a flashcard for two Grade R learners.

Tebogo Sekgobela

Head of Foundation Phase
26 years teaching Grade R–3 Dip. Junior Primary Education · ACE (Foundation Phase), UNISA

“In Grade R the work is small: a pencil grip, a circle on the carpet, learning to wait. We do that work seriously.”

[email protected]
Parents’ hour: Mondays 14:30–15:30
Mr. Kagiso Mathebula, head of Intermediate & Senior Phase, leading a Grade 6 maths lesson with chalk in hand.

Kagiso Mathebula

Head of Intersen Phase
17 years teaching Grade 4–7 B.Sc, University of Limpopo · PGCE, UNISA

“By Grade 7 the gap between learners can be wide. Our job is to close it — quietly, day by day, before they leave us.”

[email protected]
Parents’ hour: Thursdays 14:00–15:00