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International Schools in Durban: What's Actually On Offer for Expat Families

By The Expat Club · Updated August 2026

Search "international schools in Durban" and you'll find a lot of pages implying Durban has the same kind of international-school scene as Johannesburg or Cape Town. It doesn't, and it's worth knowing that before you shortlist a suburb around a school that may not offer what you think it does. Here's what's genuinely on the ground, honestly.

The honest starting point

Johannesburg has a full American school, a German school and a French lycée. Cape Town has an American school and a German school of its own. Durban has neither, at least not for a general expat population. The one true foreign-curriculum school in the city, Deutsche Schule Durban in Westville, teaches a German curriculum but only up to Grade 7 and exists mainly to serve the local German-speaking community rather than international families broadly, it won't take you through to matric.

What Durban has instead is a strong bench of local IEB private schools, several of which have added international-benchmarked elements (IB at primary level in one case, Advanced Programme subjects at another) without becoming full international schools. That's not necessarily a downgrade: for a family not planning to move again after South Africa, a good IEB school is often the better and cheaper choice anyway. But if a fully portable IB Diploma or Cambridge A-Level qualification is the priority, Durban is genuinely thinner ground than Joburg or Cape Town, and it's worth confirming directly with any school rather than assuming.

What curricula are actually available

• German (primary only): Deutsche Schule Durban, in Westville, teaches in German with some English introduced from Grade 5, but stops at Grade 7, there's no secondary offering, so families need a plan for high school regardless.
• IB (primary level): Crawford International's La Lucia Preparatory campus is an authorised IB World School running the Primary Years Programme. We could not confirm a full IB Diploma Programme through to Grade 12 at any Durban-area school, if the IB Diploma specifically matters to you, verify directly with schools rather than assuming Durban offers one.
• Cambridge (CAIE): genuinely thin on the ground in Durban proper. A common assumption is that Reddam House runs Cambridge everywhere it operates, it doesn't. Reddam House Umhlanga follows IEB only, with IEB Advanced Programme Maths and English as an internationally benchmarked supplement, not a Cambridge qualification. We didn't find a confirmed full Cambridge IGCSE/A-Level provider inside the Durban metro; confirm with individual schools if this is a must-have.
• IEB, South Africa's own strong local qualification: the default for almost every private school in and around Durban, St Mary's DSG, Thomas More College, Kearsney College, Clifton School, Curro's Durban-area campuses, Crawford's College-level offering, and Reddam House's Umhlanga and Ballito campuses all write IEB.

Common mistake: assuming "Reddam House" or "Crawford" automatically means Cambridge or IB right through to matric because that's true of some of their campuses elsewhere. Ask the specific campus what it offers in the grade your child will actually be in, not what the group offers nationally.

The schools expat families ask about most

Not exhaustive, but a reasonable starting shortlist. Several schools don't publish full fee schedules publicly, so figures marked as estimates should be confirmed directly.

Two things worth reading off that table. First, almost nothing in Durban comes close to the roughly R600,000-a-year top-end pricing you'll see at Johannesburg's American school, Durban's private schools are meaningfully cheaper across the board, which tracks with the city's lower cost of living generally. Second, several genuinely well-regarded schools simply don't publish fees online, which isn't unusual in South Africa but means you shouldn't trust a secondhand number without checking it against the school's own current fee schedule.

Where these schools actually are

Durban's private schools cluster in four pockets, which broadly track where expats already live:

• Umhlanga, La Lucia & Durban North: Reddam House Umhlanga, Crawford International La Lucia and Curro Select Umhlanga, close to the beachfront apartments and estates most corporate relocations gravitate to first.
• Kloof & Hillcrest (the Upper Highway belt): St Mary's DSG, Thomas More College, Kearsney College, Curro Hillcrest and Highbury Preparatory, cooler, greener, more space, a 25–40 minute drive inland.
• Westville: Deutsche Schule Durban, Westville Boys' and Girls' High, and Clifton School in neighbouring Morningside.
• Ballito & the North Coast: Crawford's North Coast College, Reddam House Ballito and Curro Salt Rock, the fastest-growing cluster, serving the North Coast's booming semigration and family market.

As with Johannesburg, it's worth shortlisting a school or two before committing to a suburb rather than the other way around, a great-looking house can quietly rule out the school run you actually wanted. Our guide to the best places to live in Durban is a good starting point for matching a suburb to your shortlist.

Government ("Model C") schools: still a real option

Durban has several well-regarded semi-independent government schools that cost a fraction of private fees. Durban Girls' High School in Glenwood and Northlands Girls' High School in Durban North are both strong academically, and Westville Boys' and Girls' High are popular with expat families wanting a rigorous school without full private-school pricing. As everywhere else in South Africa, these schools are catchment-based and heavily oversubscribed in the suburbs expats prefer, so a good address doesn't guarantee a place, check current admission zones and waiting lists before you assume.

Applying: practicalities worth knowing

One structural point catches out almost every newcomer: South Africa's academic year runs January to December, not September to June or August like the US, UK or most of Europe. A family arriving mid-year is arriving mid-school-year, which affects both timing and what places are actually open. Beyond that:

• Apply as early as you reasonably can, popular entry grades at the schools above fill up well in advance, and several don't publish availability online.
• Expect a non-refundable registration or acceptance deposit at most private schools, commonly in the low tens of thousands of rand, usually credited against future fees.
• Ask specifically what curriculum is taught in the grade your child will actually enter, as noted above, a school group's national offering doesn't always match what a specific campus provides.
• Confirm current fees directly with the school. Several of the schools above don't publish full schedules, and even the ones that do typically raise fees 6–9% a year.

Taken together, Durban's schooling scene rewards families who do their homework rather than assume the city works like Johannesburg or Cape Town. It has fewer options at the very top of the international-curriculum spectrum, but a genuinely strong, noticeably cheaper set of local private schools, and for most families settling here for the medium-to-long term rather than moving again in a few years, that trade-off works out fine.

Frequently asked questions

General information only, confirm current details for your situation.