Laerskool President Pretorius (Potchefstroom)

Laerskool President Pretorius in Potchefstroom, where the school is named after a dead president and the vibe has not moved much since then either. Potchefstroom, where the biggest excitement is arguing about whether the Leopards are going to win this weekend, and somehow this school has 1072 kids crammed in there like a taxi from Potch to Joburg on a Friday afternoon. Over a thousand primary school children. These are grade ones, broe. Tiny humans. Running everywhere. Someone's shoe is always missing. And then you look at the staff list and there are 51 educators trying to manage all of that. That is a 21 to 1 ratio, which means for every teacher there are 21 kids doing whatever they want. Twenty-one kids. In primary school. Where they still eat sand. One teacher is basically running a small crèche and a hostage negotiation at the same time. Jy weet hoe is dit when the register alone takes fifteen minutes of your life. It is a public co-ed school, which means boys and girls sharing one chaos together, which honestly sounds about right for Potchefstroom. At least nobody can say this school is not building character, because if you survived a class of 21 kids and one exhausted teacher in the North West heat, you are basically ready for anything. Overall verdict: A proper, hardworking government school that is clearly doing a lot with very little, but with 1072 kids and 51 teachers, someone is definitely getting lost on the way to the bathroom and not being found until grade seven.