A Century of Tradition

For more than a hundred years, Roedean, a school based on Christian principles and beliefs, has stood firm in a rapidly changing world.

The school’s original principles of Truth, Honour, Freedom, and Courtesy have proved to be a steadfast foundation on which the Roedean of today still flourishes.

Roedean (SA) was founded in 1903 as a sister school to the esteemed Roedean in Brighton, England, which was itself established to provide an education for girls that was equal to that provided by the illustrious English boys’ schools. Armed with “the most modern ideals for the education of girls”, Theresa Lawrence and Katherine Margaret Earle set sail for South Africa at the turn of the last century and began their school, complete with 22 pupils, in a small house in Johannesburg.

Today, some 806 girls from Grade 0 to Matric, wear the Roedean uniform with pride: girls drawn from a richly diverse range of cultures. When the school’s Centenary was celebrated in 2003, the flags of 47 countries were displayed, representing the different nationalities of pupils attending the school that year. They would one day leave the school with one thing in common: the hallmark of Roedean.

Read the full letter from Mrs Williams - Matric 2009
See the results for the top pupils.