By Byron Mutingwende
Good Care Pre School has proven to be a beacon of excellence and a pacesetter in academics over the eight years it has been in existence.
Speaking during the prestigious infant learning institution’s graduation ceremony held on 1 December 2018 at the David Mascott Country School Campus, Mrs Gertrude Mandizvidza, the Founder and Director of Good Care Pre-school said she reflected on the past and the future with pride.
“Being the principal of Good Care Pre School, I reflect on the past with pride and satisfaction. We have eight awards in one year. All these were a result of being torchbearers in maintaining high standards and being pacesetters in many areas of academics and other co-curricular activities that earned us this great recognition at national level,” Mrs Mandizvidza said.
Good Care Pre School has an enrolment of 76 children. Of these, 22 will be going to Yellow Class, 17 to Red Class, eight to various schools and 29 to David Mascott Country School as ECD students and others Grade 1.
The school holds civvies days and parents go out of their way to buy goodies, which they donate to the school. The infants at the pre-school are well known for bringing friends to parties.
It also runs a Home Economics Day known as Mahumbwe Day where parents are asked to bring foodstuffs for cooking. This year’s Mahumbwe Day event went viral on social media and resulted in more parents enrolling their children at the institution.
The Pre-school’s curriculum has the following: Maths, Languages, Art, Science, outdoor play, water-play, block-play, swimming, computers, music and movement.
“Our children learn mainly through play. We have a mobile swimming pool to develop children’s aquatic skills through water games. We have a sand area which helps them to develop cognitive skills through their great imagination. We have a jungle gym which helps them to develop gross motor skills,” Mrs Mandizvidza said.
Most of the children who are intending to go for ECD and Grade 1 can read pictures and can enumerate at their level because of Good Care’s rich curriculum. Since most of the children come to David Mascott, the pre-school introduced cycling in line with David Mascott requirements.
Good Care Pre-school organised two successful educational tours. The children went to Mbizi Game Park and Mukuvisi Woodlands. As always, the children were the only dressed up to the occasion and they were the envy of most parents from other schools.
Good Care introduced a pre-school band that is always aired on national broadcaster ZTV.
“In 2013 we taught Munya Matarutse who is now doing wonders overseas. This past year, our children have been busy collaborating with the stars of Norton when it comes to music as you have seen. We hope to record our song with Mbeu and the Mhodzi Tribe that has been on ZTV, in local newspapers and various radio stations,” Mrs Mandizvidza said.
The Mhodzi Tribe frontman and bandleader, Ashton Tapiwa Mahora aka Mbeu said it was an honour to perform at the Good Care function for the second time. He paid tribute to the directors of Good Care Pre School for supporting the band since 2015 when the band started performing.
The band will launch an album on 8 December 2018 at Pakare Paye Arts Centre. The band is being groomed and nurtured by music superstar Oliver Mutukudzi.
