LOCATED at Lot 6 Temple Street, Ogle, East Coast Demerara, Atikali Learning Lab offers a full-service early childhood education solution for families. The school is a premium Early Childhood Education and Development institution, committed to providing a nurturing, safe, and innovative learning environment for young children.

Founder and Managing Director of Atikali, Quenita Walrond, is a seasoned educator who explained that ‘Atikali’ is an ancient Swahili word which means ‘to understand.’

As an education centre, the Atikali team aims to give parents and families the gift of guilt-free time so that they can maximise their potential, and their children can be in a space where they are being cared for and nurtured.
Atikali has a mission to redefine education through immersive experiences, which focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM), as well as the natural environment for young learners in a way that is student-centred, inclusive and prioritises literacy and numeracy development in addition to social and emotional learning.

She pointed out that parenting is a constant negotiation of different competing priorities, whether it’s time, affordability, or worrying about the quality of care your child is receiving.
Parents worry wherever they are and regardless of how old or young their children are, “whether they’re eating properly, whether they’re resting properly, are they getting enough exposure to the things that will give them an advantage as they go on through life,” she said.

Their programme includes a meal plan (am and pm nutritionally balanced snacks) and individual sleep stations for each child.
“Unlike other spaces, we are catering for the entire workday, first and foremost. We are open from eight to four, with optional before and after care services that extend our day from 6 am to 6 pm. This allows families, mothers especially, working mothers especially, the flexibility to be able to have an uninterrupted workday without worrying, what am I going to do about this midday pickup? Then having to interrupt the flow of activity to transport your child to wherever it is that they have to go for the second half of the day, restarting the cycle of worry, separation and reduced productivity.

“We have a full programmatic day that is anchored in the Creative Curriculum, the gold standard of international standards and best practices for early childhood development. Its learner-centred approach and robust assessment system are one of the most research-supported and proven early childhood curricula there is, and we are their ambassador school in this region of the world,” she expressed, adding that children who attend the Atikali Learning Lab will be the only children in Guyana exposed to the Creative Curriculum.

“It’s a developmental curriculum, so you’re not going to be concerned about: is my child getting ‘good grades; are they managing to sit behind a table and chair all day?”
She went on to say that since children learn through play, they are leveraging the power of children’s play (their natural love language) to get at those core areas of development. That is, their social and emotional learning, their cognitive development, their physical development, and their literacy development.

Math, English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science, she said are content areas of development, and they do emphasise those as well, however, it is done through purposeful play.
Their classrooms are set up with active learning centres where children can experiment with the things they do. They investigate, engage in ‘hands-on’ experiences, and have natural conversations about what they are seeing and doing with trusted adults or with each other.

Walrond noted, “That’s a space where it (children’s conversations) is going to be encouraged, where it’s okay for it to be a little bit noisy because noise means that things are actively happening. Children are talking to each other, they’re playing, they’re exploring. So we are definitely far removed from the traditional classroom.”
The Atikali Early Years Programme spans toddler years (18 months to two plus years old), and pre- Primary years (three to five year-olds). Each band is developmentally split into 2 cohorts. Cohort one is junior pre-kindergarten: 18-27 months old and senior pre-kindergarten: two to three years old.

Meanwhile, Cohort two is junior kindergarten: three to four years old, and senior kindergarten, four to five years old.
Persons can contact Atikali on (592) 620-5052 or info@atikalilearninglab.com, additionally, their website is also up and running and can be found at atikalilearninglab.com. Atikali can also be found on Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin @atikalilearninglab.