Before you sign for 2027, find out what it would cost you to leave

You already know the 2027 number. It went up again, the way it did last year and the year before, and you will probably pay it, because the alternative is uprooting a child who has friends, a routine and one more year to get through.

Then the form comes home in October. Confirm the place, pay the deposit, return it inside a fortnight. Most parents sign it that evening.

Read the notice clause on your fee agreement before you do. Most independent schools want a full term’s written notice to take a child out, or a term’s fees instead, and the deadline falls earlier than parents expect. Sign now, change your mind in February, and you pay for a term your child never sits in.

Most parents in Bedfordview and Edenvale are not unhappy with what their child is being taught. The South African curriculum, CAPS, is what they have done since Grade 1, and it ends in matric. The rest of it grinds: a fee that climbs every year, thirty-five in a class, and the better part of two hours a day in the car.

CambriLearn teaches that same curriculum online. Lessons run live on a timetable, with a South African teacher on screen and a class who know each other. Registers, homework, tests, reports. Classes are small enough that a teacher spots the child who has stopped putting a hand up. Every lesson is recorded, so a child who is ill, or who lost the thread halfway, watches it again that night.

There are no grounds to mow, no buildings to insure and no buses to run, and the fee reflects that. Then there is what leaves your account outside the fee: petrol twice a day, aftercare because nobody can fetch at two, a uniform replaced every January, the sports kit.

The certificate at the end is the same one. CambriLearn is accredited by Cognia and registered with SACAI, and learners write the National Senior Certificate, which opens the same university doors as any matric. A family who later wants an IEB or a British route can move onto it without changing schools.

The first question most parents have is about friends. Children keep a class and classmates, more than 500 clubs and interest groups run online, and meetups happen throughout the year. Every space is moderated and open only to verified students and parents. A child who spent this year lost in a hall of a thousand often finds their feet faster in a room of twelve.

CambriLearn has taught online for 20 years, with more than 80 000 students in over 100 countries, and parents rate it 4.8 out of 5 across more than 380 reviews on Google, HelloPeter, Trustpilot and Facebook.

One date is worth writing down. Enrol before November 30 2026, and your 2026 fees hold for all of the 2027 school year, on any grade and any package. The increase you were bracing for does not arrive.

Families in Bedfordview and Edenvale can see the real figure for their child’s grade and what a school week looks like by booking a consultation at cambrilearn.com.