New Primary School for Kwanokuthula

A new primary school in Kwanokuthula in Plettenberg Bay will reach practical completion next week, and open its doors in the 2016 academic year. This R40 million facility was built by the Department of Transport and Public Works for the Western Cape Education Department between June 2014 and December 2015.

The school will be able to accommodate up to 1 250 learners, including 60 in Grade R. Most of the school buildings comprise a framed concrete structure with a mixture of face brick and painted infill walls. The senior phase classrooms have been built one storey up because of space constraints on the site, and that part of the school is a reinforced concrete structure. The roof of the hall rests on structural steel supports.

Teaching facilities comprise the following:

• Two Grade R classrooms. 
• Ten foundation phase. 
• Ten intermediate phase.
• Eight senior phase classrooms.

The complex has four specialist classrooms, a multi-media room, a hall with toilet facilities, an administrative building, a kitchen, a garden store and caretaker’s facilities. Care has been taken to ensure that all classrooms have natural light and that they are adequately ventilated.

There is on-site parking for staff, and a drop-off/pick-up zone for Grade R learners.

The building has some capacity to harvest rainwater for irrigation, which will reduce the consumption of this precious resource and lead to long-term cost savings for the school.