A cross section of graduating students of Corona Secondary School

By Elizabeth Osayande

THE Chief Executive Officer/ Member, Governing Board, Corona Schools’ Trust Council, Adedoyin Adesina, has emphasised the importance of exposing children early to academic competitions that will boost their soft skills, noting that such activities put them in a better position to succeed in their work life.

Adesina, while speaking at the maiden virtual 2020 Corona Schools inter-schools quiz competition held in Lagos, said the whole idea of the competition was to instill in the children the spirit of competition, adding that life is about competition and the earlier students learn to compete, the better.\

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According to her, “The whole idea of introducing them to this kind of competition early in life is for them to realise that life is about being 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”

She further added 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 was part of the efforts of the councils to ensure that all Corona School operate on the same pedestal

According to Adesina,” 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”.

Mrs Amelia Dafeta, Director of Education, Corona Schools’ Trust Council on her part said the idea behind the interschool quiz was to spur the pupils to go outside their comfort zone, do research and get themselves prepared to compete in a healthy manner.

Dafeta noted that the annual event was another avenue that the Corona Schools’ Trust Council deployed to test quality control across all their schools.

On her part, Mrs Adenike Onafeso, Head of School, Corona School, Ikoyi while expressing joy for the feat achieved by her school said the secret behind their success was a very strong team that worked together.

Onafeso noted that never for once did she entertain the fear that her school would come last rather, she encouraged her pupils to be resilient and have the ‘I can do spirit’ as they compete, this according to her was what Ikoyi School pupils did to clinch the ultimate prize.

The 2020 competition held at Corona School, Victoria Island witnessed a display of intelligence, composure and skills from pupils as they tackle Quiz questions in English Language, Mathematics, Science, mixed basket (mind gene), coding and animation.

At the end of the keenly contested exercise, Ikoyi School emerged overall winner; Victoria Island came second; Gbagada school came third, while Lekki School and Apapa School came fourth and fifth respectively.