SUMMARY

Emerald Hill is a large integrated community primarily consisting of the School for the Deaf, the Children's Home, and the Dominican Convent. These three communities are deeply integrated and live and work side by side. The wider community also includes the many parents and partners of the school, other Dominican communities, and the residents of the surburb of Emerald Hill.

Many members of the three core Emerald Hill communities are able to communicate with the hearing-impaired learners and often interact together.

SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF

This consists of a primary school, a high school, and its corresponding boarding facilities. The primary school practices inclusive education and therefore has a mixture of hearing and hearing-impaired learners. The high school mostly comprises hearing-imparied, with a few hearing learners. Most of the hearing-impaired learners reside at the school's boarding facilities and therefore often roam the premises after school and interact with the children from the children’s home when they are present.

CHILDREN'S HOME

Emerald Hill Children’s Home is a home for orphaned and other vulnerable children, run by the the Dominican Sisters since 1914. Today, the home cares for well-being of about 90 children aged 3 to 20. The children come from a variety of difficult backgrounds, many of them having gone through traumatic experiences of neglect and abuse.
Apart from providing food and shelter, Emerald Hill actively focuses on the emotional healing of its children through Christian spirituality in daily life, the engagement of social workers and counsellors, and a number of other creative offers. After completing their primary education, the boys move to St. Joseph’s House for Boys, Belvedere, Harare, while the girls stay until they finish their education.

Visit the Emerald Hill Children's Home website

DOMINICAN CONVENT

The convent is home to a number of Dominican sisters at various stages of their professions. Some of the community work with the school for the deaf while others work at the children's home.

Visit the Dominican Sisters Of The Sacred Heart - Zimbabwe, Facebook page

COMMUNITY HISTORY

Date	Event
1908 (Feb)	Letter received from Mr. de Noon stating that he wants to donate Emerald Hill to the Dominican Sisters.
1909 (Mar)	Legal transfer of property to the Sisters, to be used as a health resort for them.
1914-15	Brother Haupt SJ erects the main building for an orphanage, later girls' hostel, blessed by Fr. Sykes SJ.
1915-17	Another wing is added by Br. Haupt for boys' dormitories and temporary staff-room.
1922	New kitchen.
1923-24	New wing added - hall - by Constance Harper Trust.
1925	Chapel erected. St. Ursula helping with her own hands.
1936	New block for boys - by Palmer Memorial.
1944	Swimming pool.
1947	Water-borne sewerage.
1950	Two baths and toilets for senior girls are added.
1952	Tennis-court.
1953	Sports-field.
1954	Renovation of main building started.
1956	Floors cemented and parquets laid, steel windows, fire escape staircase added.
1957	Municipal water reservoirs built.
1963	New kitchen and laundry.
1964	The sisters move from the old dormitories into the new Convent.
1978	Boys and girls of Children's Home move into the Palmer building: girls upstairs and boys downstairs.
1979 (Feb)	Emerald Hill School closes. All children go to Avondale Primary.
1979 (May)	School for the Deaf - formerly Loreto School for the Deaf - opens at Emerald Hill. The deaf boarders live in the former Girls' hostel.
1984 (Jun)	The new boys' hostel for the deaf is completed.
1984 (Oct)	The new school building for the deaf children is opened.
1987	Extension of the School for the Deaf: five additional classrooms, science lab, and art-room.
1999	Plans for renovation and extension of Children's Home are being discussed. The project is started in 1992 and completed in 1994.
1995	The Nuncio blesses the renovated and extended Children's Home.
1995-96	Two classroom blocks, comprising eight classrooms, and a hall are added to the School for the Deaf.
2000 - now	More boreholes are added to the premises. Greenhouses are added to the garden in 2024.
Source - Emerald Hill Dominican Convent Archive.

OVERVIEW

Life at Emerald Hill School for the Deaf is about learning. Learning at school during school hours but learning and growing as an individual as well.
In order to do so, every year, our learners go for educational trips to different places. Last year, in 2023, learners went to Nyanga and Manicaland Province. It’s an opportunity for the learners to discover a new part of the country and for the teacher to meet and ineract with their learners in a different setting.
During the weekends, after study, the boys and girls have time for recreation where they play ball games such as netball, soccer and volley ball.

Because personal growth is very important for each learners, every Thursday, from 8:00am to 8:30am, the learners and teachers gather in the school hall for catechism.

CULTURAL

Each year around the 25th of May, we celebrate Africa Day with great joy! It’s an opportunity to gather pupils, teachers and staff members together, and to celebrate all the different cultures of our beautiful continent.

SPORTING

Disability is not inability; being deaf does not stop the learners from participating in sports.

• In term one, our learners take part in track and field athletics, culminating in our annual Sports Day
• In term two, our learners play various ball games which include soccer, netball, volleyball and foot-golf
• In term three, our learners participate in indoor games which include darts, chess, and table tennis amongst others

Since Emerald Hill School for the Deaf is a member of the Catholic Secondary Schools Association (CASSA), we participate in the CASSA Sports Tournament that takes place each term. In the second term 2024 CASSA ball games, our school came second out of the 12 schools that participated. Such inter-schools events give our learners the opportunity to socialise with other learners from other schools.

Our learners also take part in Dominican Derbies where they compete with learners from other Dominican schools in various activities. These activities include soccer, table tennis, netball and volleyball. At the derby, our learners' art and artefacts are displayed, assessed, and greatly appreciated.

RELIGIOUS

As a Dominican institution, we celebrate the Feast of Saint Dominic each year.

SUMMARY

The school offers a variety of settings to help learners develop both academically and personally. Pupils can use the library, the study rooms and the computer rooms for internet research to learn more about their lessons.
The school also has an audiology lab in which a technician can assess and aid the hearing-imparied learners.
Physical activity is very important at the school, so learners can take advantage of the two large outdoor sports fields and a swimming pool.

The school also has various practical facilities for the learner's vocational courses. These include a woodworking workshop, a kitchen for food and nutrition studies, a textiles room for textile technologies studies, a gazebo for sculpture, and greenhouses for garden work and agricultural studies.