About
All About Me
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Hi! I'm Nadia
I’m so excited to have you along for my Smartie Tots adventure!
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I’ve spent half my life in various forms of childcare and the last 6 years I have been teaching full time while living in Qatar in the Middle East. Early on in life I knew I wanted to work with children, I love their innocence and there’s just something magical about looking at the world through their eyes. Seeing things and appreciating things as if they’re wonderous and exciting. I grew up in the beautiful city of Pretoria in sunny South Africa and it is still the place my heart belongs and will always call home.
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I started off working as a babysitter and helping out at a crèche. After high school I went on my first adventure abroad and spent a year au pairing with a family in New Jersey, USA. It was there that my love of children was truly cemented, and my goal was set. I returned home and pursued a career in child psychology, studying full time for 4 years and working part-time with children with special needs.
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As with all things in life, plans don’t always work out and after completing my studies I got the opportunity to teach abroad and so I moved to Qatar and completed my post graduate studies in Education at the same time.
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For the last few years I’ve started working on my dream of opening my own preschool back at home in South Africa and had planned to return home when Corona decided to throw a real spanner in the works, 2020 right? So even though I have to put my plans on hold for a little while, I’m still going to start the adventure and share my personal thoughts and experiences thus far. I’m also going to share my ‘mindfulness journey’ which in short are the people, experiences and things that have helped me along the way and that have impacted my personal journey.
All About Smartie Tots
How Smartie Tots came to be
Having lived abroad in a multinational country in the company of colleagues from all over the world, and through my experiences working with different curriculums and learning approaches, my vision for Smartie Tots came to life.
The name was something I struggled to choose and had a lot of help with. It was important that the name reflected that learning would be at the core of our school but that it would also be play based and we would have fun. And so: Smartie Tots. Smartie as in the Smarties candy to show that even though learning is important, we also play have have fun because after all, we’re just little tots who needs lots of play.
My vision is to create a learning environment that fosters a curiosity and love of learning through interactive, structured play while also providing learners with essential social and life skills to support their emotional well-being.
My mission is to create a loving and happy school environment with a sustainable ethos that fosters a love and desire for learning in children and provides them with essential life skills that they will carry with them not only through their schooling but through life.
Learning will be guided and assisted by the teacher but ultimately determined by the needs and interests of the learners, ensuring that they love learning and never tire of exploring new things. Small class sizes will mean that children get all the necessary attention they need and will be able to actively participate in all areas of learning. The teachers will work together with parents to ensure that children are being supported equally at school and at home both in their academic learning needs as well as their socio-emotional needs through their precious early years of development.
The school will be based on a sustainable ethos. Sustainability is something very important to me and I hope to embed this into the school and ensure that the our future learns from their very first years the importance of caring for and protecting theirs.
