Aida Gichuru is an Early Childhood Development Educator. Trained at Kindergarten Headmistresses Association (KHA) and The Institute of Teachers Professional Development with over 11 years’ experience. She is the founder of St. Jean Michel School, located in Dagorreti south, near Dagorreti High School.
Working with children under the age of 6 years is perceived to be a challenging task and most teachers prefer to teach older children. With the best training and experience earned over the years working in international schools, she mastered the art of teaching kindergarteners, where a good teacher inspires, ignites the imagination and instills a love of learning. In addition to ensuring that every child is accorded quality competency-based skills, she has trained her teachers to assess every child measure, their learning level and design interventions to help the children who fall behind to catch up. The curriculum cannot be a one-size-fits-all because children are not homogenous in how they learn and understand concepts.
There are various reasons why children in early grades may struggle to learn basic literacy skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. One factor is the language of instruction. Most children, who join school communicate in Swahili or their mother tongue and may struggle to understand the curriculum content due to their limited English proficiency.
The school has come up with an English reading program for children in kindergarten which extends to the primary section and a Swahili reading program for the primary section. Besides that, Aida is passionate about instilling financial literacy skills to the learners as early as 4 years old. It’s never too early to learn about money. Learning how to manage money wisely helps children make better decisions in the future.