OUR HISTORY

HISTORY OF OUR COLLEGE

Revival City College is a Christian College in Brackenhurst Alberton, on the premises of the Revival City

Alberton AFM Church. In 1992 Revival City Alberton received a prophetic word from the Lord that ‘[they] will

have many children and that they will play in a peaceful and safe environment.’  In 1997 these words were

confirmed, and the church was promised by the Lord that they ‘ will take the next generation into their future’.

As a church RCA was instructed that they ‘ must not forget the children.’

Standing on these words from God, and since the church leadership felt that church buildings in most cases

are for most part underutilised, Pastor Hannes van Zyl and his Leaders stepped out in faith and decided to

open a Christian College on the church premises. It was their belief that it would be through the children that

the community would be touched for Jesus.

In 2016 Karen van den Oever was appointed by the church to register and establish a Christian Primary

School on the church premises. Karen had been in education for over 32 years at that stage, the last 19 of

which had been as a Principal in a local primary school. Being passionate about education, believing that

education is the tool through which society can be moulded and our future generations equipped to give of

their best in our country, Karen was led by the Lord to take early retirement and to volunteer for the next few

years at the church in order to establish this ‘dream’ from the Lord. Karen saw her involvement in the

establishing of the Revival City College as a wonderful calling from God in which she could to help create an

environment in which quality education may be delivered, at affordable fees, within the context of Christian

norms and principles.

As Operational Director, a position she still serves in today, Karen is responsible to ensure that the quality of

academics delivered at RCC is of an excellent standard, and that the staff appointed are staff who see

teaching as their calling and who place the interests of the children first in all instances. For her, giving

children the tools to learn and grow academically whilst laying a sound Christian foundation in the lives of

these children is a way in which she may contribute towards future generations.

As a step in faith, Revival City Church, in 2016, built the first seven classrooms plus a sickbay, Principal’s

office and Secretary’s office on their premises. The registration and marketing of the college was embarked

on and slowly the miraculous began to unfold before those who stepped out in faith. The next step was to

appoint the Principal and Deputy Principal for the college for the next year – again a step of faith, as only 24

children had been enrolled. The Principal – Natalie Louw and the Deputy – Misty Hutchins, both, after prayer

and deliberation before the Lord, resigned from their management positions in State schools and signed

contracts with Revival City College when only 24 children were enrolled. Both ladies knew that their step of

faith would be honoured by the Lord and they trusted Him to open doors for the college.

In January 2017 Revival City College opened their doors to 64 children in 5 classes – 2 Grade R; 2 Grade 1

and 1 Grade 2 class. With our full complement of 11 staff members, including security guards, sport

coaches, After Care cooks and 1 cleaner, quality teaching started. In the first year, RCC had a child who

represented us at District level for Athletics and a number of children who participated in sports tournaments,

eisteddfods, the CONQUESTA and CHALLENGA, to name but a few of our accomplishments. Right from the

onset, the focus at our college has been on excellence and on striving to be a ‘No Excuse’ college. We try

not to make excuses, nor to accept excuses – we all aim at achieving what we believe God has made us

capable of achieving, and we will do so with excellence!

By the April of 2017, plans were set into motion to build the next phase of classrooms for the college to

accommodate the proposed classes up to Grade 7. ABSA was approached for a loan, and an architect was

commissioned to draw up the plans for our expansion. Praise the Lord that He brought an investor on board

who was willing to loan our college the funds needed to build the triple storey block which would house 17

classes, 4 ablution blocks, an office a Science Laboratory and a Library – all interest free. Work on the new

block began in August 2017 and was completed by the end of November 2017 a week before the loan from

ABSA was granted to us – and so we could honour our commitment and settle our interest free loan.

The prophetic words received from the Lord in 1992, 1993 and 1994 about this school, were cast into the

foundations of the new block as the concrete was thrown. These promises remind us that ‘we will need faith

to go where the Lord is going to lead us’;  and that  ‘our ways and ideas of being church will be changed by

the Lord’;  and finally that ‘revival will come to us.’

January 2018 saw us open our doors to 180 children from Grade R to Grade 4. This year saw us open 3

Grade R classes; 4 Grade 1 classes, 2 Grade 2 classes; 1 Grade 3 class and 1 Grade 4 Class. Once again

we stood in awe at how the Lord was blessing and opening doors for us. By January 2019 we had 280

children enrolled in classes up to Grade 5. Our fulltime staff complement was 35 in total.  Lead Teachers

were appointed onto the College Management Team to support and work closely with the Principal and

Deputy and structures were set into place to ensure that each child was given the opportunity to develop to

their best potential. As we are well aware of the fact that we need to develop the entire child we place great

emphasis on the extra- curricular activities at the college, ensuring that we cater as much as possible for the

many learners’ different interests.

In order to ensure we meet the needs of all our children as effectively as possible, our class sizes do not

exceed 20 per class. We have also ensured that our staff are trained to identify problems and how to

address these.  Our college therefore has on staff trained and qualified counsellors who work closely with the

therapists who work from the college premises to assist children who have been identified with academic or

emotional problems. We have also set into place a well-structured mentorship programme for the

Learnerships or Interns we have on staff and for the inexperienced teachers who have joined us. This

programme sees retired educators come in when needed to guide, support and mentor those who may be in

need of their expertise and experience.

Within the context of striving for excellence in our ‘No Excuse’ College we have also embarked on equipping

our parents for their roles as parents. We have therefore run Reading Workshops, Study Skill Workshops as

well as Positive Parenting Workshops based on Christian norms and standards for our Parents. We believe

that by Parent and Educator working together in the best interest of the child we will create and environment

which will be conducive to constructive education taking place.

With the continued favour showered on us by the Lord, we were led to consider the expansion of our college

to accommodate a High School. As from April 2019 steps were taken to begin the planning and building of

the High School. An architect and engineer were commissioned to draw up plans for Phases 3 and 4 of our

extensions. The proposal was that Phase 3 or Phase 1 of the High School Building, should house amongst

other things, the College Reception and Administrative block; Staff room, Computer Centre; Management

Team Offices; Sick Bay and additional classes, as well as the tuckshop, eating hall, College Hall, Workshop

and Maintenances facilities.

March 2020 saw the onset of what was supposed to be a 3 week lockdown due to COVID, become a much

longer one. This fortunately began at the beginning of our Easter holidays. By the end of the holidays Revival

City College had migrated to online teaching making use of the Google platform. Each child had been given

a G-mail address and all staff were trained online as to how to teach using the Google platform. We made

use of our own designed E-Learning platform which ran on the Google platform. By the third term we were

given permission to open our doors to face to face teaching due to the measures we had put into place to

ensure the safety of all learners, staff and parents. Parents who however chose to not send their children

back to the college for face to face teaching continued with online lessons. We were blessed during this time

that although our finances were challenged, not one staff member was laid off or had to take short time. In

fat 2 additional staff members were employed to assist with managing the COVID 19 protocols which needed

to be met.

In the midst of the COVID challenges, application was made to ABSA to extend the loan in order to begin the

next phase of our building. Our Business Plan and our managing of the college finances even during the

additional strain of COVID supported our application and the extension of the loan was granted. Once again

the Lord had shown us favour and had guided us during a pandemic which saw the doors of many small

businesses, including small private schools being forced to closed. We praise God for His favour and His

guidance in all things.

Application was also made to the GDE to extend our registration from being a Primary School only to

becoming a Combined School. By March 2021 this was granted. We thank the Lord for the vision and

direction He has given us in this mammoth task and we praise Him for the favour and provision He has

bestowed on us. We thank Him for the children enrolled and for the parental support and enthusiasm we see

on a daily basis. The proposed Phase 3 extensions start in May 2021.

In January 2022 we opened our doors to our first group of Grade 8 learners – many challenges lay ahead of

us, as our new building which was to house our High School was not yet completed and we needed to use

every space possible to teach in. Classes were taught in the church auditorium as well as in the church

coffee shop. This period of waiting was a period during which we needed to live by faith and not by sight! In

July 2022, our new Miracle Block was dedicated to the Lord and our classes moved into this new block. The

new block housed the Admin offices, Staff Room, Tuck Shop, Ablution Blocks, Computer Centre, high school

Science Lab, Technology lab, Function Room and seen additional classes. God had honoured His word to

us and the naming of this block would be a constant reminder to us that this was His College and He would

open doors where needed.

By 2023, our doors opened with 585 learners enrolled from Grade R to Grade 9 and 41 children enrolled in

our Emmaus House, giving is a total of 626 learners enrolled at RCC and a total of 80 employees on payroll.

God’s favour may once again be seen as we look at how our numbers have grown consistently. With our

first group of Grade 9’s being enrolled we began researching the possible subjects we would be offering to

our learners as they entered the FET Phase in 2024. This was a daunting task, but we thank the Lord that

this task was tackled prayerfully! Besides planning the subject packages for 2024, we continued the process

of following up on the application for the lease of the veld behind our college to be used as our sports fields.

By the November of 2023 our application for the lease of the veld behind the college was approved – an

application which had been initially made in April 2017; 7 years earlier!

Once again the new year began with new challenges and new blessings. 2024 saw Pastor Hannes our

Spiritual Director step down from his role as Senior Pastor of the Revival City Alberton Church, he would

however continue to be the Spiritual Director of our college and would continue to uphold us in prayer. 2024

saw our doors open to 693 learners in total and 88 staff members. Our first group of FET learners were a

great blessing and their excitement about their subjects of choice was quite contagious. Having only 15

Grade 10 learners to start with, a decision was made to divide them into 2 classes in order to afford them the

blessing of one on one attention and to allow our new, inexperienced FET Phase teachers the opportunity to

find their feet, be guided and to work with incredibly small classes in order to help them deliver excellence.

All FET teachers were mentored and guided by mentor teachers as well as District Facilitators, to ensure that

by next year this time, they would be ready to cope with much bigger classes.

By February 2024 the wheels were set into motion to begin the last phase of the high school building – The

Fulfilment Block. The Plans were adjusted to meet the needs of the college, the SDP plans were submitted,

quotes were received for the building of this phase and plans were set into motion, and plans were made to

extend the loan to cover the new building. By the end of 2024, this building would be ready for occupancy,

marking the end of our building projects set into motion in April 2017! With the completion of the Fulfilment

Block, RCC can boast of 3 Science Laboratories, 2 Art Studios, a technology class, an EGD class, 2

computer laboratories, 2 staffrooms, a meeting room, function room, our own hall which will seat just over

300 people with the gallery in use, a tuckshop, 8 ablution blocks for learners, 2 ablution blocks dedicated for

staff, 2 staff kitchens, administration black with a sick bay, dedicated office facilities, and classrooms to

accommodate just over 900 learners. We thank the Lord for the favour He has showered on us and we give

Him the glory for what has been accomplished in 8 years!

With us having been granted the lease to a portion of the veld adjacent to the college / church building, steps

were taken to fence in that portion of the veld. All processes which are necessary to be followed to ensure

we meet all the legalities necessary for us to level and grass this area in order to make it into sports fields.

This would give us 2 of our own soccer fields, which could serve the purpose of a soccer oval if need be.

Container ablution blocks and change rooms would be sourced and our learners would be blessed with

sports fields of which they could be most proud.

Our vision is not yet complete – We wait in anticipation on the Lord for this.

It is with great excitement and expectancy from the Lord that we have opened this College. We know it will

be a place of great blessing to not only the children enrolled here, but also to their parents and the staff

employed here.  Each year as we have embarked on interviewing staff for the next year, we are amazed at

how the Lord brings to us the people He would have work here at Revival City College. Our college truly has

become the church in action. It is through the work we do with the children as we aim for excellence in our

‘No Excuse’ college that we see lives changed and God’s Kingdom glorified.

Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.