By Funmi Ogundare
The Director of the Foreshore School, Ikoyi, Ms. Oyindamola Egbeyemi has congratulated the teachers, parents and year six pupils for the feat achieved at the Cambridge Checkpoint Examinations, conducted in April.
She said taking the examinations was a significant achievement to the school because of the creativity, innovation and teamwork that was applied to ensure that the pupils were ready and confident enough to write the examinations.
Egbeyemi, who said this in a release made available to THISDAY, recalled the challenges faced by the school occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to her, “at The Foreshore School, the challenges were dire and the state of confusion was so immense that the core of the school’s existence, which is a family values-based system, was threatened on multiple occasions. This was a true test of trust, resilience and the strength of the foundation that was laid when the school was established 14 years ago.
“At the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, the outlook for Africa was tremendously bleak, especially for its most populous nation, Nigeria. Fear and caution then became watchwords for most of the past year. Educators were inevitably in the same dire state of confusion that all organisation leaders had to forcibly go through.”
She said despite the challenges, the school had to brace up to maintain standards, fill gaps, rebuild and sustain relationships among its stakeholders so as to survive and thrive.
“This was the mindset and driving force during the pandemic, and the momentum has been sustained now that we are recovering from it.”
The director expressed excitement about the school resuming physically, with a hybrid learning option available for families who prefer their children to learn from home, adding that children are happy to be back and interact with their friends and teachers.
Egbeyemi also recalled the conversations around education during the pandemic, saying that everyone simply needed to do what they thought was the best that they could, in order to survive.
“Conversations were not complete without the following recurring questions: How do children continue to learn during a pandemic, when they cannot be physically present at school?, How do children interact socially whilst confined to their homes? How can there be any assurance of the state of children’s mental health? What about teachers? “How do they adapt to new methods of teaching and learning in an environment that may seem behind our global peers in the delivery of education? How do teachers cope with their mental health whilst trying to manage themselves, their families and other people’s children who they teach? How would parents manage their homes, children, their children’s education and their work in a situation where job security is not assured?
“What about the schools? How do they manage a sudden inevitable change in budget and financial planning whilst striving to sustain a business and perhaps build a legacy? These were some of the very difficult questions over which educators and leaders at schools had to ponder. There were no straightforward, correct or one-size-fits-all answers to them.”
