Ngozi Nwoke
It was a day of academic accomplishment for the pupils of De Joyland Schools, Iwaya, Lagos, as they marked the 9th graduation ceremony. The event, which had a commissioner nominee in Lagos State, Mrs Folashade Adefisayo, Chief Executive Officer of Leading Learning Limited, as the guest speaker, was also graced by her alumnae, parents and well-wishers.
Aside having an exciting moment, the audience was thrilled with lots of educating presentations, music performances, beauty pageants and entertaining drama and choreographic displays by the nursery and primary pupils.
Proprietress of the school, Mrs Abimbola Osagie, expressed gratitude and appealed to parents to ensure that the pupils are engaged with extra mural activities and skills acquisition during the summer holiday:
“We thank God for where we are today. This is the ninth year since its existence in 2009. We are grateful to the parents for their support and encouragements. Our children are practically doing well, and doing exploits.
“Right now we are working on introducing the use of gadgets, to ensure that the school meets the 21st century standard. We have acquired some interacting boards, where the pupils will be taught on how to use tablets, and computer based tests and other e-learning facilities.
“We want to maintain the British academic curriculum and prepare them for the future. We assure parents that we will not compromise our competence.
“We appeal to parents to support us on this cause of academic pursuit. They should not be allowed to play all through the holiday. We cannot not achieve all of these without their support. The children should be provided with all the learning gadgets they need, especially the tablets and we encourage them to continue to provide and we as the school management, will ensure that their efforts will never be in vain.”
Mrs Henrietta Agbola, a parent expressed
Satisfaction at the high standard of the school. She said her son was not doing well academically when he was admitted, but with the help of the teachers, he turned out the best graduating pupil.
“I am impressed and over-joyed. The school has been very instrumental, informative and impactful on my child. It is disheartening when parents pay to enrol a child and the outcome is not manifesting.
“There is always a story behind a glory. When he was admitted, he wasn’t catching up fast, the teachers were not only concerned about his poor academic performance, they prayed for him. They took time to pray for his academic growth and put an extra effort on him before he began to pick up. Today, he is the best graduation pupil and I am most grateful to God and the school.”
Master Joshua Agwulla, a nine-year-old pupil from Osun State and Head Boy, who turned out the best graduating pupil and received three awards, narrated his experience taking the first position for nine
years:
“I feel happy for being the best graduating pupil, and moving on to another phase of learning. But I feel sad because I will miss my teachers and friends. My primary life has been a great starting point to life and I will always value it. I want to encourage my friends whom I left behind to continue to learn because learning never ends.”
Adefisayo said: “I’m very proud of the school. I can see the proprietress is working hard to ensure the pupils are imbibed with quality learning skills and to satisfy the parents. I encourage the management never to relent, but keep up the good work.
“I also encourage the graduating pupils, this is not the end of the learning process, this is just the beginning of a long academic journey, I wish them well anywhere they go, and they should remember the upbringing, trainings they had, and sacrifices of their parents.”