Gunshots being fired just a few hundred metres from where small children were sitting at their desks trying to learn was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back for Strelitzia Primary School parents, pupils and teachers.

Fear, anger and frustration – the result of years of violence and crime affecting pupils – bubbled over and residents of Bethelsdorp, where the school is based, shut it down demanding the education department provide fencing they say has been promised for months...