Paarl Gimnasium is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

Afrikaans medium co-educational high school situated in the city of

Paarl Paarl (; Afrikaans: ; derived from ''Parel'', meaning "pearl" in Dutch) is a town with 112,045 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the third-oldest city and European settlement in the Republic of South Africa (after ...

in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

History

Rev. van der Lingen founded the school in the centre of town in 1858. The school has produced some of South Africa's top

rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...

players, including

Schalk Burger Schalk Willem Petrus Burger Jr. (born 13 April 1983) is a South African former professional rugby union player. He played as a flanker for Saracens in the English Premiership and has won 86 caps for South Africa. He was a member of the 2007 ...

Jean De Villiers Jean de Villiers (born 24 February 1981) is a South African former professional rugby union player. He started his career at wing, but played most of his career as an inside centre. De Villiers previously played for Western Province in the ...

Marius Joubert Marius Charl Joubert (born 10 July 1979 in Paarl, Western Cape) is a South African rugby union player who played as a centre for Stormers in Super Rugby. He has previously played for the Boland Cavaliers, Free State Cheetahs, ASM Clermont Au ...

Handré Pollard Handré Pollard (born 11 March 1994) is a South African professional rugby union player who currently plays for the South Africa national team and Leicester Tigers in England's Premiership Rugby. His regular playing positions are fly-half, wher ...

and

De Wet Barry De Wet Barry (born 24 June 1978 in Ceres, Western Cape) is a South African former rugby union footballer who played 38 test matches for the South Africa (the Springboks). In 2000, Barry made his Springbok debut against Canada in East London. Bar ...

. Other alumni include the theologian

Stephanus Jacobus du Toit The Reverend Stephanus Jacobus du Toit (9 October 1847 – 29 May 1911) was a controversial South African nationalist, theologian, journalist and failed politician. In his younger years Du Toit did much to promote the Afrikaans language as a s ...

and politician Liezl van der Merwe. Carl Redelinghuis Sentrum

The primary school section of Gimnasium was founded in 1858 as a Dutch Christian school for boys, with the high school being founded much later. In the mid-1930s the school's language of education shifted to

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

. After the high school section was completed the school enrolled its first female student. Paarl Gimnasium High School has a large sporting program and takes part in the interschools tournament against

Paarl Boys' High School Paarl Boys' High School, known in Afrikaans as Hoër Jongenskool Paarl (also known as Boishaai) is one of the oldest schools in South Africa, built in 1868. The school is situated in Paarl, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The ...

, an event which attracts tens of thousands of spectators every year.

Sports

Sports played at the school include: * Archery *

Athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

* Cross country *

Equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: * Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

Hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

(Boys & Girls) * Mountain biking *

Netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

(Girls) *

Rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...

Squash Squash may refer to: Sports * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling * Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

Table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

Water polo Water polo is a competitive sport, competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the water polo ball, ball into the oppo ...

Notable alumni

Springbok Rugby

Other

* Marciel Hopkins, model * Marguerite Wheatley, actress * Perlé van Schalkwyk, businesswoman and owner of the ''Lollipop Lounge'' * Liezl van der Merwe,

Member of the National Assembly of South Africa Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

* Mandy Rossouw, journalist * Martelize Brink, author and radio presenter

References

External links

Official website
{{Cape Winelands School Schools in the Western Cape Paarl Educational institutions established in 1858 1858 establishments in the British Empire