An Episcopal School, Fall/Winter 2025-2026
Anchored in Faith, Engaged with the World
By The Rev. Sarah Moses
Upper School Chaplain and Religion Teacher
[Top photo: Rev. Moses with Rev. Jaques Pretorius, executive director of Anglican Board of Education Southern Africa.]
“My time in South Africa reminded me that throughout history and around the world, the church has supported education because, as Christians, we believe God has given us all incredible gifts—to learn, to create, to play sports—and that schools provide a place to develop those talents.”
The sun had not yet risen on a cold August morning as I drove across Cape Town to St. George’s Grammar School (it was winter in the Southern Hemisphere!). Thanks to an APT Holden Summer Study Fellowship, I was in South Africa to explore how schools embody religious identity while honoring diversity, facilitating civic engagement, and striving to make quality education more widely accessible. One thing I value about serving in an Episcopal school is being part of a national network connected through the National Association of Episcopal Schools (NAES), which offers conferences and retreats for staff and faculty to learn from one another and celebrate a shared mission. But that rich network of school communities also extends to the global fellowship of the Anglican Communion, to which the Episcopal Church belongs, and to the schools founded all over the world as part of the church’s mission. The Anglican Communion Schools Network, a new initiative launched in 2023, aims to create opportunities for school leaders to collaborate around shared mission and identity. Thanks to this global network, together with the support of SSSAS, I had the amazing opportunity to engage with faculty, staff, and students at three Anglican schools in the Cape Town area.
My host, Rev. Jaques Pretorius, executive director of the Anglican Board of Education Southern Africa, helped arrange an itinerary that allowed me to see different models of Anglican schools and how they live out their identity. I was particularly interested in visiting schools in South Africa because of common realities and challenges we share, including religiously plural societies and legacies of historic racial discrimination and economic inequality that impact access to quality education. I traveled to South Africa with a simple question: what could I learn from Anglican schools about what it means for us to embody our Episcopal identity and values at St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes?
The Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church
The Anglican Communion, led by Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, is a worldwide fellowship comprising more than 80 million members across 46 churches or provinces in over 165 countries. The Episcopal Church is a member of the global Anglican Communion with dioceses in the United States and beyond. Established shortly after the American Revolution, the Episcopal Church shares historical roots, theology, and worship traditions with the Church of England and other Anglicans worldwide, but, like all member churches, is autonomous. The churches and schools of the country of South Africa are part of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, also a member of the Anglican Communion.
I visited three schools in the Cape Town area that represent the racial, cultural, and socio-economic diversity of Anglican education in South Africa, and was able to visit classes and talk with administrators, faculty, and students. My first stop was St. George’s Grammar School. Originally attached to St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, the school was founded in 1948 by the first Anglican Bishop of Cape Town, Robert Gray, and is the oldest independent school in Southern Africa. Now on an expanded campus independent from the cathedral, St. George’s is a coed institution serving about 400 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, with a highly-regarded academic support program for neurodiverse students. Reflecting the demographics of Cape Town’s middle-class families, I also learned that one-third of St. George’s students identify as Muslim. Historically St. George’s Cathedral provided school chaplains from its staff, but no longer does so. As the school budget cannot support a chaplain, religious studies courses were discontinued.
Elizabeth Schenck ’31, daughter of Rev. Moses, welcomed by a sixth grade class at St. George’s.
The second school I visited was Zonnebloem, where students from kindergarten through seventh grade attend the Boys’ Primary and Girls’ Primary Schools on the same campus with separate classes and faculty. Zonnebloem is designated “a government school on church grounds,” and receives state funding while operating on property leased from the Anglican Church. Founded by Bishop Gray in the 1850s, the school has long been located on church property that also housed a teachers’ college and diocesan offices. Originally established to educate the sons of African chiefs, the school later drew students from local middle class families of the “District Six” neighborhood in which it is located, an area known for its racial and cultural diversity. As that neighborhood gentrified in the post-apartheid era, Zonnebloem now primarily serves Black South African, Xhosa-speaking students drawn from socio-economically vulnerable areas on the outskirts of Cape Town. Because students must arrange their own transportation from distant areas and leave home very early, the school provides breakfast. Yet the school’s prime location in Cape Town places it in the government’s wealthiest funding tier, resulting in the lowest level of government support, so the school relies on outside non-profit organizations such as the Otto Foundation to provide resources like the library and Community Keepers, which provides school counselors. Similar to St. George’s, chaplains are no longer provided by the parish church and the school lacks the resources to hire one.
The third school I visited was Herschel Girls School (preschool–grade 12), founded in 1922 with the support of the English Church Schools Association. Located in an upscale Cape Town suburb, Herschel is a well-resourced Anglican school serving primarily students from high socio-economic backgrounds and ranks among the city’s elite independent schools for academic performance and college placement. Herschel is financially able to employ two chaplains, who also teach religion courses. Though financially independent, there remains a direct relationship between the school and the Anglican Church: the head of school is licensed by the Archbishop of Cape Town, and the head chaplain must be an ordained Anglican priest licensed by the Bishop of Table Bay and approved by the Archbishop of Cape Town. Like St. George’s, the largest group of non-Christian students is Muslim, and the school’s website identifies Herschel’s “explicit commitment to a culture of mutual respect and inclusion.”
My experience underscored that worship and spirituality can be embodied in multiple ways, and that broad participation in the spiritual life of a school helps cultivate inclusion and belonging. At St. George’s, for instance, both the primary and high schools hold weekly chapel services despite having no chaplain. Instead, through the high school’s leadership program, seniors take responsibility for various aspects of school life, including chapel. With the division director and other faculty, they plan services that include student and faculty speakers. The head of school shared that Muslim student leaders participate in the planning. I spoke with two of them who expressed their appreciation for the Anglican identity. They emphasized feeling fully welcomed and respected for their own religious identity and noted that the school offers space for Muslim families to host a community meal to break the fast at the end of the day during Ramadan.
Zonnebloem Primary School under the shadow of Table Mountain, Cape Town.
Rev. Moses speaks at Senior School chapel at Herschel Girls School.
Herschel also maintains an identity rooted in its Anglican heritage while supporting the spiritual paths of all its students. There is a Student Muslim Association at the high school shepherded by a Muslim teacher. The school also allocates a small classroom as a Muslim prayer room, even making sure it is next to a bathroom for performing water ablutions prior to prayer. While the weekly chapel services at Herschel are based upon the Anglican tradition, the chaplain was planning a special chapel service focused on prayers for healing so that non-Christian students could offer prayers for the sick from their own traditions. Although Zonnebloem no longer has a chapel service, the girls’ school incorporates prayer into the daily morning assembly, led by teachers, including a Muslim prayer.
I was reminded by this cross-cultural experience that in the task of educating young people in a world experiencing rapid transitions and uncertainty, there are enduring values in Anglican/Episcopal education that can anchor us and our students. One of those values is community, grounded in the shared work of building genuine relationships. When I asked students at St. George’s what they valued most about their school, they immediately spoke about their appreciation for the relationships they have with their teachers. One Christian student added that she liked being part of a diverse school where students genuinely get to know and learn from one another.
At Herschel, I attended a special chapel tradition at the primary school, where graduating seniors return to worship alongside the younger students. During the service, the seniors’ former elementary teachers addressed them personally with stories from their past school years. At the conclusion, the younger students gave the seniors personal letters they had written to them. This celebration of community and relationships was captured in the words of a poster hanging in Herschel’s faculty lounge: “Relationships before rigor. Grace before grades. Patience before programs. Love before lessons.” Likewise, the director of the boys’ school at Zonnebloem shared that many students come from challenging home situations, taking on adult responsibilities without consistent adult models to guide them. He saw positive adult mentoring as a key responsibility of teachers at his school.
A second anchor of Anglican/Episcopal education is the cultivation of character, and there were clear signs of a commitment to foster student growth morally as well as intellectually at all three schools. For instance, St. George’s is part of the international Round Square school network. Guided by six ideals—internationalism, democracy, environmentalism, adventure, leadership, and service—member schools offer activities that lead students to develop related personal virtues and attributes, including appreciation of diversity, courage, commitment to sustainability, communication, compassion, inquisitiveness, inventiveness, problem-solving, self-awareness, sense of responsibility, teamwork, and tenacity. In St. George’s primary school, each month they focus on ethical values in chapel and the classrooms, such as tolerance and humility. At Zonnebloem Girls’ School, character education is also incorporated into the curriculum, designating a specific value for each month and recognizing students as “value champions” at month’s end.
A third anchor I will refer to as hopeful engagement with the wider world was encapsulated in a sign at Zonnebloem’s entrance: “Enter to learn. Leave to serve.” At Herschel, community engagement is a core aspect of school life and opportunities are organized by the chaplain and a senior student leader. Herschel students engage in off- and on-campus community-based projects and after-school tutoring programs hosted at the school. In addition, eighth and ninth graders complete special service projects during winter break and present their work in religion class. At St. George’s high school students described being involved in community service programs at an elder care home and an eco-village. When I asked how they felt about their country’s future in light of real societal challenges—such as an extremely high youth unemployment rate—they spoke with pride about the many good things that have happened since the end of apartheid, and with hopeful commitment to making their own contributions to the future of their country.
As a chaplain at St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes, this trip gave me insight and inspiration about ways our school can continue to creatively embody our Episcopal identity and values in our own context, including strengthening our commitment to inclusion and belonging and solidarity with the wider community. As I shared at a Lower School chapel in September: “My time in South Africa reminded me that throughout history and around the world, the church has supported education because, as Christians, we believe God has given us all incredible gifts—to learn, to create, to play sports—and that schools provide a place to develop those talents. Just as we believe at SSSAS, I saw how these schools also want students to grow compassionate hearts and strong character, and I witnessed expressions of goodness throughout the communities I visited. This is what our world needs—young people who care about those around them and want to make their communities better. Young people who come to school not only to build a good life for themselves, but to go out into the world and serve others. I hope you leave chapel today knowing you are part of a global family of schools where students grow not only in mind, but also in heart, so that you may be a blessing to the world around you.”