Gene Louw Primary School

Gene Louw Primary caters to all parents and all children. This double medium primary school in Durbanville practises Christian principles.

Gene Louw is an average school, I am a former student and have not been back to the school since 2020. My experiences I will be telling you about are all from 2020, and things could have possibly changed, however I doubt it.

To begin with, the facilities and school building.

The facilities at Gene Louw are pretty mediocre, the IT department is not the best and most classrooms are still equipped with chalk boards and 1 decently sized whiteboard and projector. There are maybe 3 or 4 classrooms equipped with smart boards. There is ONE computer room and all computers are equipped with Windows 10. There are around 10 prefabs and the school building is decently sized, it would take you around 10 minutes to walk around it. There is a very large sports center over looking the field with 2 indoor tennis courts and multiple offices or rooms where the children (usually grades 1-3) do PE in if it is raining. There are 5 music rooms, but besides that most of the school grounds are clean. However the toilets, they absolutely REEK. Especially the boys ones. From what I've seen they are cleaned around once every 2 days, but there is always at least 1 or 2 stalls/urinals out of order. No hot water taps. which is alright however running out of soap and toilet paper was a common issue. There is also a library which has a very nice selection of books.

The Teachers/ rule enforcement.

Most teachers were alright, during my grade 7 year there was one teacher who absolutely disliked me to the point where he would give me dirty looks and whenever something went wrong in the class or someone made a noise, he would assume it was me. The teachers are not that strict however some are really just over the top, and really just bring the vibe of the classroom down. I had really awesome teachers in my previous years, and I believe a few of them are still there.
As for rule enforcement etc, teachers were really strict at break times, children weren't even allowed to hold or pick up a stick because apparently anyone who picked up a stick was going to throw it or hit someone with it. We were not allowed to clime trees which I understand and we weren't allowed inside the school building during break, only to use the toilets. I was bullied during my grade 5, 6 and 7 years, and there wasn't really anyone for me to talk to. I'm not sure if there were counsellors or if there are counsellors now. Also one really annoying thing that I wanted to mention was this school favors Afrikaans children over English children. It's honestly so disgusting. During 2019, when prefect elections were held, around 15 Afrikaans boys, 15 Afrikaans girls, 5 English boys and +/- 7 English girls were chosen to go to the Prefect camp. This was extremely unfair, I'm not going to go into too much detail however, this was a very big issue and multiple parents were complaining about it. Not sure if this has changed.

Overall, Gene Louw is an average school and I don't think I would send my children there, but hey. Everyone has their own opinions, however there are better options.

I think it's lovely that the school was named after Durbanville's first coloured mayor.

Excellent school. They make every child feel worthy. Kind, caring teachers. The school as a whole was focused and very supportive during lockdown.

Please don't let this school fool you. It's been seven years since I've been out of this school, I'm turning twenty this year and still, after all these years, I think back to my time here with a terrifying shudder that snakes up my spine. The teachers appear to come off as wonderfully supportive and positive yet that was never carried over in the classroom. My Grade 3 teacher would bully me to no end, constantly screaming my ear off for being a creative soul and who couldn't do math. My Grade 5 teachers, both register and math, would also bully me in class by making fun of me for (once again) not being able to do math. That same year I was diagnosed with the learning disability dyscalculia, which overtook my life like you wouldn't believe. Even with that knowledge publicly declared to both the vice principal and my educators I was still made fun of, recieving detention after detention. I eventually had to learn how to lie which ended up turning me into the bad guy. Because of these teachers bullying me the students went along with it, turning into physical, mental and emotional abuse. The amount of times I'd come forward telling my teacher about the boys who'd beat me up which ended up being turned away with a simple "they'd never do that" was totally staggering to me, both as a child and now as an adult. My Grade 7 teacher would rip my drawings out from underneath my desk and shred them up, throwing them into the bin or forcing me to shamefully throw them away myself while I sobbed. I'd get thrown out the class, made fun of by her behind my back to my classmates (which I had to learn through my best friend who was also in the class). There was a bullying situation that happened in Grade 7 with me and two other girls in my class which ended up with us getting falsely accused for something someone else did. The teachers refused to believe us when we said it wasn't us and had a vote amongst the classes on who they thought it would more than likely be. As well as this, my Grade 7 teacher withheld my end of year report. We were away at the time, sent our address and even still she never sent it. Eventually we had to fetch it ourselves. It was a wonder how I got into high school. Please reconsider sending your child here. Also, they favor their Afrikaans students over the English ones and it's very obvious.

TL;DR: This school sucks and the teachers are abusive.