Our history

New Hope’s story began in 1971 with 33 learners, 14 staff members and two housemothers at the former St Peter’s Hostel in Murray Street, Brooklyn. The first setting was modest, but the purpose was already clear: to create a school in which learners with complex physical and educational needs could learn with dignity and specialist support.

As enrolment and the work of the school developed, the need for a purpose-built campus became increasingly important. A permanent home would have to bring teaching, therapy, care and daily access together in ways that an adapted hostel could not.

In 1979, the school moved to the completed campus on its present site in Ashlea Gardens. The name came from the homestead on the farm—New Hope—and became a fitting expression of what the school wanted to offer generations of learners and families.

Growth at New Hope has never meant adding classrooms alone. Over time, the school expanded its educational programme alongside therapy, health, residential and practical support, responding to a wider understanding of what learners need in order to participate fully.

Today the learning journey stretches from early childhood to Grade 12. Academic study sits alongside technical occupational and life-skills routes, giving learners whose strengths are better served outside a conventional academic path a purposeful way to keep developing.

The school continues to change because the lives awaiting learners after school also change. New technologies, different pathways into work and a stronger focus on inclusion all shape the next chapter, while the founding commitment—to meet learners with expertise, dignity and hope—remains constant.