BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – INTERACTIVE stories, Bible passages and learning colours, shapes and numbers are just some of the things children learn during their early childhood years and especially at the Tender Loving Care (TLC) Pre-School.
The pre-school is located at Freedom Street, New Pond Site and caters to children from zero to five years old.
Recently, the school held their Sports Day, where dozens of babies and toddlers brought excitement and laughter to many who attended as they competed in various competitions including Tire race, Lime and spoon, and Relays.
The colour houses that were represented were Orange, Blue and Red and the event was just a fun and exciting break from their regular curriculum.
There was not an overall announcement of a winning house but children who placed in each race were eager to accept their special ribbons.
The pre-school has been around for five years and was started by Averil Archibald who has been in the teaching profession since 1969.
She has also had a college which catered to those who had gotten pregnant during school and had to stop; she offered them secretarial training and the college also offered business studies to enable persons to get their CXC subjects in five areas.
However, one day she saw the Child Month March and noting the large amount of children, wondered whether children were getting proper training and whether there was a godly influence in their life.
“To me it was more on a spiritual level… that tugging at my heart to start the day care. I’ve been doing Higher Learning and I also conduct seminars and workshops, so I wasn’t really thinking daycare, but for some reason it started tugging at my heart,” she said.
“So what generated in my heart began to blossom and I became more sensitized to young children and I opened the school. Another reason, too, was my Granddaughter Kayla… and I was happy she was able to grow up in the day care,” Archibald said.
She said TLC hopes to give children a head start so that when they go out into primary school, they are among the top five in their classes.
One of the interesting ways in which the school teaches is by planning a year of work in a notebook they turn into a text book.
They would stick various pictures and exercises, scriptures and other ideas that they would be teaching the children throughout the year for Pre-School One and Pre-school Two classes.
“I’m very strict with that. We follow the curriculum and also do additional stuff apart from the regular curriculum.”
The children have grown to become a major part of Archibald’s day so that whenever she walks into the room their attention is turned directly at her.
“There’s that special love and it was planted in my heart by God. I get a lot of love from the children. As soon as I walk into the room, the children will come running to me; it is very genuine and it is a nice feeling; it’s kind of like my life is centered around them,” she said.
Some of the activities the school plans annually are a Walk-a-thon, Take-away dinners, Christmas Concert and Sports Day. The activities they host are to help raise funds to buy equipment for the daycare and pre-school.
“My plan is to equip the daycare as much as we can. We pay rent for the land next door which is a playground for the children and I want to develop it into a nice play area, and bring in different stuff.”
The school is located on Freedom Street, New Pond Site and for more information on the school persons can contact Archibald at 1-869-665-7299 and averilarchibald@yahoo.com
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