The Chief Executive Officer and member, Governing Board of Corona Schools’ Trust Council, Mr. Adeyoyin Adesina, recently reiterated the importance of exposing children early to academic competition that will enhance their skills, stressing that such activities will put them in a better position to succeed in their work life.
Adesina, who spoke at the maiden virtual 2020 Corona Schools Inter-Schools quiz competition held in Lagos said the whole idea of the competition is to instil in the children the spirit of competition adding that life is about competition and the earlier students learn to compete, the better.
Said she: “The whole idea of introducing them to this kind of competition early in life is for them to realise that life is about competitive and it is about winning. To win you have to prepare and to win you have to work as a team. So we teach them teamwork very early and also teach how to be gracious in victory and how to handle defeat and disappointment, this is all that makes life what it is.”
Adesina explained that the fact that each year different school emerge winner goes to show the competitive spirit among the five Corona primary schools, that no one school dominates shows the uniformity of standards across our schools”, she said.
The chief executive officer said the annual competition is part of the efforts of the councils to ensure that all Corona School are set on the same pedestal
“If you look at the scores on an annual basis, they are always very close what this shows is that the schools are doing very well. It is the same curriculum, it is the same quality of teaching, and it is the same training that we give the teachers. This shows that the Corona Curriculum is definitely working and it is working very well.”
The Director of Education, Corona Schools’ Trust Council, Mrs. Amelia Dafeta, said the idea behind the inter-school quiz is to spur the pupils to go outside their comfort zone, do research and get themselves prepared to compete in a healthy manner.
She observed that the annual event is another avenue that the Corona Schools’ Trust Council deploy to test quality control across all their schools.
Head of school, Corona School Ikoyi, Mrs. Adenike Onafeso, expressed joy for the feat achieved by the school said the secret behind their success was a very strong team that worked together, and there was collaboration between pupils and teachers towards the competition.
She explained that never for once did she entertain the fear that her school would lose, rather, she encouraged her pupils to be resilient and have the ‘I-can-do spirit’ as they compete, which, according to her, was what Ikoyi School pupils did to clinch the ultimate prize.
The annual competition, which took place at Corona School, Victoria Island, witnessed a display of intelligence, composure and skills from pupils as they tackled questions in English language, mathematics, science, mixed basket (mind gene), coding and animation.
At the end of the competition, Ikoyi School emerged overall winner; Victoria Island came second; Gbagada School came third while Lekki School and Apapa School came fourth and fifth, respectively.
