‘We constantly look for new ideas and methods to ensure the children are happy’

Increasingly, young couples and single working mothers worry over their babies’ wellbeing and education once maternity leave is over, after three months. Here, RONKE ADENIYI founder and director of Posh Babies and Kids Nursery School, Ikoyi tells STEPHEN ONYEKWELU what they do to help babies grow up with sounds minds and healthy bodies as the school marks its fifth anniversary. Excerpts:

What motivated you to start the school?

My desire to continue working with children and nurturing them motivated me to start the school. It is something I am 150 percent sure I can do brilliantly with the right support and structure. And voila, here we are the very best preschool in Ikoyi and its environs.

How do you design the learning environment to help children?

I can provide you with a textbook answer or just something off google but to be honest the school has been designed with utmost comfort of the children in mind, we have the right facilities and the ambiance is phenomenal.

The staff have the right attitude, skills and experience so a combination of all these works perfectly.

We are big on creativity and outdoor learning, we have two massive playgrounds and the children have a lot of choice to aid their learning.

What is the most unique thing about your school?

Quite a number of things are unique to PoshBabiesandKids School so it will be tough to give just one so pardon me.

Our constant desire to learn and innovate; we constantly look for new ideas and methods to ensure the children are happy and they are playing constructively. The work of the child is to play. How they play and grow is important to us at Poshbabiesandkids.

We have really cool teaching and non-teaching staff that can relate with the 21st century child, people who are not afraid to show off the inner child and help bring out the very best in children.

We are aware that a lot has gone wrong in the Nigerian Educational system hence we continue to look for ways to ensure children love to learn and we are not repeating the same mistakes of the past.

What age range is admitted?

We admit our posh little babies in the crèche from the age of three months; this is usually after the maternity period given to many mums.

How is dollar scarcity affecting your operations?

Phew! Who hasn’t this affected?

Fortunately, our school has invested in materials over the years so currently only the increased cost of food and diesel have gone up.

What are your expansion plans?

We are currently working on a super amazing building for the Primary School. The school is a huge size though so we are not currently under pressure.

What are some of the challenges you face and which solutions are in sight?

Power remains a challenge and the calibre of teachers available in the market are challenges we face.

These challenges with power are beyond our control but we do what we can in terms of Empowerment and Education by training teachers.

Does the government have any role to play?

Absolutely!

As we already know, the country needs significantly better power supply to ensure businesses are able to thrive and the quality of our Educational System needs to improve dramatically.

What are some of your achievements?

Is it time to brag?

Let me just say the school itself is an achievement as we started off as a creche on 7th February, 2012 and now we are already working on a building for the Primary School.

It is also a massive achievement for me as I have been out of the country for most of my adult life so coming back to set up a SUPER AMAZING school is really a dream come true in such a challenging environment.

Beyond that, I have been able to expand my tentacle in education by providing support for parents in balancing the work-life/parenting dichotomy and also provided a lot of training and support to teachers.

I am the Founder of the Parent Right Community (a thriving online Facebook community) where individuals are empowered and equipped with tools for life as individuals and ultimately parents, there is a lot of education, training and entertainment available on the group also.

PoshPartyPacks is another one of my businesses where we provide a one stop solution for parents who want to give their children memorable experiences through their birthday parties.

Tell us about the Montessori Method of teaching?

Again, this can be googled as I know the audience reading is very smart individuals.

What I will just emphasise is that it is an approach or methodology to teach children, similar to what you would have in any other curriculum. The Montessori Method teaches from abstract to concrete and makes use of special materials which make learning fun and easy for the children.

It is a very old learning methodology which has its limitations especially when it comes to teaching the 21st century child.

Hence, I encourage educators and parents who use this approach to incorporate the use of 21st century approaches to learning particularly the use of technology.