York Road Primary School Pre-School is located in Lansdowne. Our school was founded in 1850 by the Christian Instruction Society as the Plumstead Mission School (Plumstead was then still part of Wynberg). In 1852, our school was taken over by St John’s Anglican Church in Wynberg and was then called the St John’s EC School. The building was erected at the corner of Ottery Road and Broad Road, and the school was then called the Ottery Road Schoolroom.

Over the years, the school was referred to by several names: the Plumstead EC School and Parkinson’s School (after a well-known and much-loved principal, Mr George Parkinson, principal from ± 1890 – 1900). The school served children from all communities.

In 1890 the school came under the Department of Public Education and officially became the Ottery Road Public School. In 1925 the Department built a new building for the school in Broad Road. After the school moved there it became known as the Broad Road Primary School. The school was still mixed, but gradually became more coloured as the population of Wynberg East changed. There were coloured and white teachers at the school for several years.

In 1966 the school was served with an eviction notice in terms of the Group Areas Act of 1950, and in 1967 the school relocated to York Road in Lansdowne and changed its name to York Road Primary School.