Akinyeye: Chrisland School Is Shaping Future-ready Nigerians Via Emotional Resilience, Digital Literacy

Mrs. Ayoola Akinyeye is the Director of Chrisland Schools, currently reshaping the education landscape with her innovative vision. In this interview with Funmi Ogundare, she explained her efforts to shape future-ready global citizens equipped with the knowledge, emotional resilience, behavioural intelligence, and digital literacy necessary to thrive in an ever-changing world. Excerpts:

What strategies have you implemented to support students and teachers in managing the pressures of exams, and how do you ensure that emotional intelligence is integrated alongside academic excellence in the school’s approach to education?

Current research shows that the attention span of the children we educate has dropped very short for Gen Z or Alpha. They have a shorter attention span, and they give me tips. There’s no running away from that. It has led to struggles in teaching them for many schools and educators, and you often see teachers and administrators wondering how we can educate Gen Z and relate to Gen Z parents. In some instances, some will think it’s a crisis, especially when you think that one in three of the students we teach today has anxiety, real anxiety as a mental health case. I don’t see it as a crisis.

I think it’s a call to change how we teach and revolutionise how we teach, not from the traditional angle but more from an understanding of how they learn, by embracing all that they are and embedding mental health, self-reliance, and resilience into teaching in a way that helps to shape them into future-ready global citizens. So, all we say is that we are shaping global citizens, but many of us have not stepped back to ask ourselves what it really means to be a global citizen. What skills do we need to give?

So, we all know the skills we need to give, but do we know what we need to do? Do we know the allowances we need to make? Do we know what is new that we need to do? My task is clear. It is very simple to merge academic excellence with behavioural intelligence. That’s the task. By merging academic excellence and behavioral intelligence, you can foster an ecosystem where students not only excel academically but also thrive emotionally and socially. So many schools have students that thrive academically, as we do in Chrisland. I think the lever is the emotional intelligence and how we bring that to be the balance in our academic process.

There’s a lot of talk about exam pressure. So many schools will do intervention and support classes to get better academic grades. But we don’t. We are not intentional about the emotional support. So in Chrisland now recently as far back as last week, I had a training with all our VP Student Affairs, Astro affairs, and we did a training called Steps to tackle exam pressure and stress, to make sure that just as the teachers and VP academics are preparing the students academically, the VP students are there with an intentional programme to support the pressures. So we did that training.

We’ve cascaded it as we roll into the exam season. I expect that we are probably one of the very few schools with a dedicated programme to managing the pressure that comes with writing exams because those pressures are more real now than ever. So not only did we do the training, we have the handouts and work with some parents, so we’re not just supporting the students, we are supporting the teachers that teach the student, and we’re supporting the parents of the children to understand what is exam pressure and how to manage it, because we do put the children under a lot of pressure to accept.

How do you ensure that the school’s policy and practices foster students’ emotional, social and academic growth?

The school has a policy in place, and it becomes effective in implementation. So, how do I make sure it’s effective? I work with a very dynamic team of regional heads or executive heads. My job is largely strategic. My job is to put the policies in place based on research, best practice and acculturation.  So we look at what is best practice and what the research is saying, and we situate it to develop policies that work for us, also in implementation. I work with the executive or regional heads team, and regional heads are responsible for turning strategy into operations. They are a tactical group. They have a good understanding of strategy. They have a good understanding of operations because each of the executive heads, by the way, have one school, so it’s easy for them to understand the operations of the school and how a policy gets translated into practice. So, the executive head takes the policies that are written and supports the schools in their region. For instance, they are in charge of regions.

We have regions A, B and C. Each region has five to six schools, depending on the region. So, the executive head is responsible for implementing or making sure those policies are implemented in the regions. They support the teachers in implementation, and where I need to go, they will invite me, and I would have coaching sessions. I hope I’m accountable to myself, so I’m quite talking, but to make sure that the policies are being implemented. I’m also supported by the quality assurance unit. The quality assurance unit checks that the policies are being implemented. And feedback is sent to me, so they do my spot checks to make sure that if I say write in blue biro, they’re the ones that go into the schools to make sure that the children are writing in blue biro, just like an example of policy implementation.

I then have the risk and compliance, which is a unit that is very strong, that also checks for risk and compliance of policies. So, where there’s a breach of policy implementation, the risk and compliance is being contacted, and they then set up the investigation process, which comes to my table for a review. If the policy is not a good policy, we review it. If the policy fails because of human implementation, we can either retrain, if we need to, or change the personality if we find out that it is not the best fit for the position. So, those are the structures in place to ensure that policies are fully implemented.

You talk about revolutionised learning. Apart from teaching, what is Chrisland doing in the area of tech and skills development in building well-rounded students?

We have smart boards in the classrooms, interactive boards. We’ve got the infrastructure, but that is really not how to revolutionize the infrastructure. That itself doesn’t solve it. It’s the quality of learning. We’ve recently relaunched our video on the device. Now, its in the first phase, the three phases, where we get the children to understand digital literacy, and that includes understanding how the world of technology works, the advantages and the disadvantages. We have embedded digital literacy into one of our very popular programmes, which we call ‘Ready for Life’. It has a number of modules in it. It is taught by default. It’s not an exception. So over and over again, we teach about online safety, about using tech to support your learning.

We teach about AI. We teach about plagiarism. We teach about all the dangers. So it’s a part of a curriculum that we’ve always had. All we had to do is just to review it and make sure that it is future-ready. We teach it from the primary all the way to secondary. In the primary, I think they do it once a week. In secondary, they do it once a week, but they have cluster lessons where the children actually get to discuss what it is they have learnt, and bring up their own ideas and solutions to the problems that we are counted. We’re putting devices in the hands of the children. It’s not the wrong strategy for me, what I think is cutting edge which is the way we have been able to embed it in our curriculum. So we are teaching them about digital literacy. We are aware of the dangers of the advantages and how to report online bullying, how to stay safe and recognize it.   

Nobody buys a car and gives their child the keys without going to the driving school. So our driving school is our ready-for-life programme where we teach you how to navigate the world of tech. Because it’s a programme, we can update it as tech evolves. Also, our learning delivery policies have been reviewed to ensure that they are very clear guidelines on what teachers cannot do and what they need to watch out for. So, in addition to being ready for life from the students, there are clear policy guidelines that support teachers as well as understanding that teachers have ambitions and are reluctant sometimes, but with the right kind of support policy guidelines, we’ve been running it for almost a year now, and I think we’ve recorded good level of success. We’re ready to move to phase two, which will include rolling out for a greater number of students and deploying additional online resources. So we’re taking it in phases.

How does the school ensure transparency and accountability when handling incidents, and what changes have been made to renew trust with parents? 

Partnerships with our parents have never been taken for granted or called into question. We have a very vibrant PTA community led by a chairperson. In my role, I found them extremely supportive, and when I say extremely supportive, they are not puppets supporting me. They’re also very critical friends. They’re very vocal and will tell me what the parents want to see in the school. Their expectations for their children make it easy for me to deliver these promises to them. So, I have a very positive, warm and vibrant relationship with them. I would frequently call them up, individually or collectively, to sound off ideas, discuss initiatives and get their views from a parent’s point of view, so transparency and relationship with the stakeholders would never have been better.

What disciplinary measures and counselling supports are in place to guide students’ behavior and prevent incidents?

Behavior management. I started by talking about educating Gen Z. We’ve got to look at behaviour from a point of reset, not punishment. The children of today don’t respond to punishment. They don’t respond to traditional methods of correction. You have got to engage with them to respect their boundaries. When we were growing up, it was just the voice of mommy and daddy then. For every teenager today, there are 7 billion people talking to them and you need a relationship to make sure that your voice carries weight.  So we have migrated, and continue to migrate, from a punishment perspective to an engagement perspective. It is tedious, but we’re starting to see change where the students understand that the school is there for them.

Whatever policies we roll out is in their best interest. So there’s a willing compliance, and where there’s an infraction, they know there’s a willingness to engage, not that they won’t be punished if they have broken the rule. We place a premium on them understanding the rule, why we say they have broken the rule, and the impact of breaking that rule, not just on themselves but on the wider community before we then go into punishment. So we still sanction, but we don’t sanction without the understanding being increased first. We do not name and shame because it is counterproductive for mental health. But we discuss cases if we need to discuss cases with the children, so we’ll talk about it anonymously, because it’s important that we protect the victims, the details and the identity and the self-esteem. That’s the word.

Naming and shaming of each child can never build anybody’s self-esteem. I am a strong believer that the aim of punishment should be correctional, not to destroy a child. So any punishment that destroys is not a punishment. So, I think also we need to move into corrective behaviour management, which is positive in output. The aim is to reform and get the children to make the right choices. So, we call our behaviour policies a positive behaviour management system because it focuses on getting the children to make the right choices.

What concrete steps has Chrisland taken to improve students’ safety and supervision on campus and during external activities?

We have taken concrete steps in managing behavior which is to improve safety and supervision. We have our policies in place, and it comes back to my policy implementation through the executive heads. It comes back to the support of the schools in implementing those policies. It comes to stronger investigation procedures which are fair. So where there’s a breach of policy, there is a proper process for investigating that breach and finding out more importantly, what caused it.  Our investigations are more reflective. Why did this happen? We make sure we take corrective steps from a policy point of view, from a people point of view, from supporting people, from working with parents, and because it’s well thought out, It’s well documented.

It’s easy for you to see, and like I said, it starts with educating the children to make the right choices. Much more than policing them. You can’t police Gen Alpha 24 hours a day, but you can get them to rethink the decision by constantly engaging with them. So you would often find me in schools talking to the children and finding out what school is like and what we can change. What needs to happen? What are you happy about? Sometimes, they would even send a request that they’ve not seen us in a while and when you should come into their schools and it’s just me exemplifying how I would like the heads of schools to relate with their children.

How do you handle conflicts among staff and parents’ complaints?

Our policies are very clear, depending on who is complaining. When a complaint is made, it is picked up by the investigator. We have an investigation policy, so once the complaint is locked, the first person to investigate the complaint is the head of the school, whether it is the parent reporting the staff or the staff reporting the parent. Once it is made, the head of the school picks up the complaints. He must investigate, according to the investigation policy, and come up with a resolution or a proposed resolution in three days. If the resolution is not satisfactory to either party or the alternative to the regional head, the regional head has another three working days to review the case and the investigation to make sure it aligns with the policy.

So it’s not about how I feel. It’s what our policy says, and where there’s been an infraction, try to correct it. So, if after the executive head or the regional head investigates in three days, they’re still unhappy, then it comes to my table, and what I do is I will review the case again and make sure policy has been followed, make sure there’s been no breach of policy. I would either uphold the decision of the executive head or upturn it. I very rarely have to upturn it because the policies are quite clear. If it’s a case where the parent is actually wrong, what I find myself doing is helping the parent to understand our position as a school and to let them know that the position is not going to change, but I can work with them through whatever challenges there are, but we don’t bend our policies to satisfy any one person once a policy has been followed, then the policy is policy.

What partnership are you embarking on to improve students’ learning? 

So, this is my wish list of where I would like to go. The world is a global village, and I am looking to setting up partnerships in schools where, in our days, we call them pen pals. You have a pen pal that you can write to. So, I’m looking to set up pen pal schools globally: China, Asia, no countries left out, Australia, New Zealand, name it. I’m interested. So we’re working on that initiative right now. It affords the children an opportunity to see how the rest of the world learns. The aim will be to do shared projects and joint learning. If I give you an idea that is in my mind, for example,  we want to study festivals, right? We also have a pen pal school in China. So our children will be writing about the festival and maybe the Chinese New Year.

In the collaborative space, we’ll be learning how festivals shape our culture and the impact it has. We’ll be looking at similarities. We will be looking at differences, and all sorts of things come into that space: language will come in, dressing will come in, food will come in. What’s the benefit of a festival without food? Music will come in, and it helps us to understand that we’re more similar than different. I am looking to build those partnerships using technology as a key leverage across as many of our campuses and for as many years as possible. It involves one looking for the key partners,  writing schemes of work, or writing modules into existing schemes of work to facilitate it.