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HISTORY
Here you can find out more about our schools rich history and humble beginnings.
Click on the gallery below to walk through a year by year journey of our school.
1998
After Gaye Oosthuyzen (now Mrs Stilwell) and Roy Stilwell recognised the need for quality education for the previously disadvantaged community, they opened the Advance for Life Education Centre. The school opened in a building of an old people's home that had been closed by the government. It started with three classes and 45 students in the first year.
1999
The school doubled in size within a year because there was a shortage of schools that offered quality education to the majority population. The school had five classes and about 100 students. At the end of 1999, the government took the building back to be used as police barracks and the school had to move to a Catholic mission station near Mdantsane. The school had six classes and about 130 pupils.
2000
The school had six classes and about 150 pupils. But at the end of the year, the Catholic Church needed its building again.
2001
The only premises the school could get at this time were in a house in a suburb of Cambridge and once again the school had to move. Because of the many moves, the school lost a lot of pupils. The school had four classes and about 100 pupils.
2002
As the school continued to offer a very high standard of education, the school grew again. The school had six classes and about 130 pupils.
2003
The premises in which the school was housed could not accommodate the growth of the school and a second building had to be rented to accommodate the two new classes. The school had eight classes and about 160 pupils.
A donation enabled the school to obtain the current premises in Wilsonia.
A donation enabled the school to obtain the current premises in Wilsonia.
2004
The huge building in Wilsonia was a centre of attraction for parents who wanted to take their children to school. The school had seven classes and about 160 pupils.
2005
Growth continued and the school had seven classes and about 170 pupils. The success of the years was marred by the sad news in October when Roy Stilwell was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
2006
In September, Esther Wallis joined her mother Gaye Stilwell to share the work.
2007
Two of our students, Hlumelo Mji and Kamva Ngcwangu, won the National Marine Week competition and their drawings were used for the T-shirt of the year. We celebrated our tenth anniversary. The school had six classes and about 120 pupils. The sports field was completed. Mrs Gaye Stilwell retired after 49 years of teaching.
2008
We had ten classes with 200 students attending the school. We are a school consisting of grades R to seven.
2009
We had eleven classes with 256 pupils attending the school. At the end of the year we encountered a big problem because we could not place our Grade 7 students in schools with equivalent educational standards to ours.
2010
307 learners attended our school. We progressed into High School to accommodate our Grade 7 learners from 2009 that had not been placed in schools. One of our teachers, Mrs Pirzenthal, was awarded a trophy from NSRI and SAF Marine for her work in educating learners in and around East London about water safety.
2011
We saw our first Grade 9 class with a total of 372 learners. We opened our first remedial class where children who are either struggling with learning difficulties or who are behind are individually supported to catch up with their peers.
2012
This promises to be a fantastic year all round. With our new FET Grade 10 students who have moved to the new premises at 1 Regent Street, Eureka, and our Grade R second class, there are now a total of 432 students attending Advance For Life Christian Academy.
2013
Our school was attended by 465 students from grades R to 11. We had 40 staff members at the school, all with the vision of creating a better future for our students. We are part of a global community and we emphasise the importance for students to live with God, protect the environment and be good stewards of their time and resources.
2014
Adopt a School, a venture of Cyril Ramaposa, built us a library. With our first twelfth grade class in 2014, which consisted of 13 students, we achieved an 85% pass rate. We had a total of 586 students from Grade R to Grade 12. We opened a new class for students with mild learning difficulties. They are taught life skills and home economics in the hope that jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities will open up for them in the future.
2015
We maintained our 85% success rate with our 27 Matric students. In our Grade 12 cohort, we achieved a total of 14 distinctions. Two of our Grade 11 students took first place at the Eastern Cape Eskom Expo. They then entered a national competition and received a bronze medal for their invention. We had 605 learners in Grades R to 12.
2016
We had a total of 595 students from Grade R to Grade 12. Our Grade 5 students were involved in a project to plant spekboom to increase oxygen levels and improve soil quality.
2017
We had a total of 475 students at Primary School and 154 students at High School. In other words, we had a total of 629 students at our school. This is a growth rate of 30% per year (300% over the last ten years). 93.75% of our students passed Matric. In total, our 2017 Matric class saw 11 distinctions, 2 Higher Certificate Passes, 7 Diploma Passes and 6 Bachelor Degree Passes. A special mention goes to Banele Mtimkulu for her outstanding performance with an overall result of 73.5%! Another special mention goes to our Grade 7 student, Gareth Zuma , whose invention of a new type of mobile phone was patented and led him to a meeting with the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and the Department of Technology.
2018
This year we have added another class in Grades 6, 8 and 11. We have 502 students in the primary school and 2012 students in the high school. That's a total of 714 students and 68 staff. In 2018, we want to expand our sports facilities. That means new football pitches and more netball courts. We have introduced rugby and it is going well. Hockey had a slow start this year due to lack of coaches and transport and will be reintroduced next year. We passed 95% of Grade 12s. This included 18 Distinctions, 2 Higher Certificate passes, 6 Diploma passes and 11 Bachelor Degree passes!!!! Our valedictorian was Litha Loni who passed with an overall score of 77%.
2019
We have added another class of Grade 7, 9 and 12 and moved the High School to a bigger building. There is still much to do in the new high school space, with our science and consumer labs taking priority. We currently have a total of 740 students, with 514 in primary school and 226 in our high school.
2020
We had 497 students in Primary school and 227 students in high school. A total of 724 students. COVID hit our school hard, and many students lost their parents to the virus. It became very clear that we needed to bring our school more into the digital world. We were going to expand our sports facilities in 2020, but that was postponed until 2022.
2021
we have 74 employees, 45 of whom are teachers. We have 21 classes at primary school, in which 485 students are taught. We have 11 classes in high school with 254 learners. In total 739 learners. We have the largest grade 12 class since our first class in 2014, with 33 students who will take their final exams in October 2021.
Our Founders
Gaye Stilwell grew up in Ontario, Canada, and graduated from the teachers training college in Toronto, Canada. In 1962 she moved to South Africa to help her late husband, Harry Oosthuyzen, who ran a Bible school in the former Transkei from 1962 to 1991. In 1991 they retired and moved to East London. After Harry's death in 1992, Gaye continued to teach and was headmaster of Isaiah 58 School. After Gaye Oosthuyzen (now Mrs Stilwell) and Roy Stilwell recognised the need for quality education for the previously disadvantaged community, they opened Advance for Life Education Centre in 1998. Roy Stilwell had been working as a lawyer. Together they ran the school until Roy Stilwell passed away in 2006. After 50 years of teaching, Gaye Stilwell retired at the end of 2007 and lives with her daughter Elisabeth Joubert in Tweeling in the Free State.
Gaye Stilwell
Roy Stilwell
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