Highlands Creative Academy- The Development

I started 'Hillibillies Home School'  in Jan 2009 initially to home school my two girls Jessie (then 7) and Stephie (Then 5). I had previously been Head of a local school so I invited some of their friendship group to join. The group numbered 8.  We began by building a traditional thatched roof on four poles. Reed mats were placed around the posts to create a temporary wall. Over the first year, as we managed to raise funds we added one wall each term till the room was complete!

 New parents visited and asked if their younger children could also attend the school so I decided to open a pre-school class. We had no room so made a temporary structure out of mats and blunder. The following year, this was turned into a brick room and we converted the garden storeroom into another pre-school class.

 A one room structure was already in the garden. This had been used as a watchman’s residence when we were originally building our house. I had been using it as my Art Studio but it now became the school office. A thatched patio area attached to this was also converted into another school room.In January 2011 we completed a new class from Reception and Grade 1.  We currently have 5 school rooms and an office. 

In February 2013 I changed the name to 'Highlands Creative Academy' in order to reflect the emphasis we put on learning in a creative way and using the arts as a teaching methods.  

Our latest class has reached roof level ( Aug. 2013) and will be complete by December 2013. This will allow the school to continue to Grade 7 from 2014.

Although Highlands Creative Academy  is a Private school I have kept the fees to a minimum as I did not want to financially  ‘exclude’ the majority of  the local community. The cost for 1 term is US$235 for pre-school full day, US$190. The fees go up to US$235 for grades 6 & 7.

 The ratio is currently 1 teacher to 10 students but may increase to 1 to 15.We currently have a few places available distributed between from  Pre-school to grade 6.

All profits have been ploughed back into the school for development and I only take a small allowance for myself. Within the next year the school will become financially self-sustaining. We currently have 2 'Sponsored' children at Highlands Creative Academy.

Can you please help us?

The vision of Highlands Creative Academy is to "create a child-centered school that offers  a global education with international standards of literacy &  maths & to install a sense of unity and respect for other people and cultures throughout the world, within in our students".

If you would like to help us achieve this we would be very grateful for donations of any of the following.

Fiction/non fiction books specially graded readers to help us develop a library.

Notebook computer or lap top computers for our IT room we are trying to develop.

Learning software suitable for ages 3-11yrs.

You may also wish to sponsor a child from an underprivileged background.Please e-mail me for further details about this option.

You may post us items to 

Highlands Creative Academy c/o Gill Zulu P.O.Box 60900, Livingstone Zambia.

Thank you for taking time to look at our site.