About Us

Kool Kidz School was started in January 2008 to cater for the children of parents living in the Highlands area of Livingstone in the southern part of Zambia. Livingstone, with a population of 177,000 according to the 2022 census, is host to the Victoria Falls, other tourist attractions and an international airport. Livingstone is less than 500km from Zambia’s capital, Lusaka.

The school is managed by Doug & Peggie Shand.

Peggie is a qualified teacher holding a BA in Education from the University of Zambia. Peggie is the headmistress and manages the day to day operations at the school.

She is widely experienced and has taught in South Africa, China, Singapore as well as Zambia itself.

Doug, a retired mining engineer and mine manager, who has wide managerial experience in Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique undertakes the administration and finances of the school.

2 – 6 year olds are like little sponges. They can take in so much more than people think. Parents should make use of this time to equip their little ones with the skills they will need in their lives. Taking children to just any school might give them an academic head start but ONLY if the manager and teachers are PROPERLY trained in Early Childhood Education. Otherwise this type of schooling will fail to develop their social and emotional skills that are of utmost importance for their future. Additionally, these skills get developed by being around other children their own age.

At Kool Kidz we have the right personnel to achieve that goal. Kool Kidz provides a foundation for learning both socially and academically. Young children are naturally curious and observant. They want to learn the skills that their families and society value – such as reading the instructions to assemble a toy or selecting the correct bills or coins to pay for a purchase. To prepare children for the academic demands of school we have teachers at Kool Kidz that offer a wide variety of games and activities that will help them acquire not only necessary academic but also social skills.

School Environment

The school originally catered for children aged between 2 and 5 years in Baby, Middle and Reception classes.
In 2021, we established a Grade 1 class in order to retain the Reception Class children who were moving up an age group.
The following year our intake increased substantially such that we are now able to cater for children up to Grade 7.
We now have an enrollment of 71 children and expect this to increase further in 2024.

The school day starts at 8.00am and continues until 12.30pm with a half hour recreational break. The children are provided with a nutritional lunch following which the pre-school children are allowed to sleep until 3.00pm.

in the afternoon they are allowed tp play on the trampoline, swings or slides until 4.30pm when they are collected by their parents.

School finishes at 12.30pm on a Friday.

Primary school children also have their lunch break from 12.30 pm but at 2.00pm they continue with their lessons.

Syllabus

The syllabus follows the Zambia National education guidelines but our teaching programme concentrates on the 3 R’s…. reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmatic. The Reception class kids are able to read simple decodable stories and comprehension passages BEFORE they proceed to first grade. This is a MUST.

Staffing

In addition to Peggie, Kool Kidz has five qualified, experienced, hard working and enthusiastic teachers….Juliet, Besnart, Aaron, Patrick and Sylvia.

Juliet, our head teacher, has a Pre-School Teaching Diploma from the Mosi-O-Tunya College of Education. Juliet teaches the Reception Class kids.

Patrick who looks after the Grade 7’s holds a Primary Teaching Diploma from the Charles Lwanga College of Education.

Aaron, who teaches the Grades 3 & 4’d holds a Bachelor of Information Technology with Education from the Victoria Falls Universuty of Technology.

Besnart teaches the Grades 1 & 2 and has a Early Childhood Education Certificate as well as a Secondary Teacher’s Diploma from the David Livingstone College of Education.

Sylvia has a wonderful ability to manage tha Baby & Middle Class children.

Last but by no means least is Auntie Maria who cooks the kids lunches as well as undertaking many other invaluable duties.

Dambwa North

In January 2023 we opened a new sister school in Dambwa North, a medium density suburb of Livingstone about 5km from our Highlands School.

At the present time the school caters only for Baby, Middle and Reception classes and has an enrollment of 13 children. We are expecting this number to gradually increase as our presence becomes more widely known.

Teacher Mwaka is the resident teacher and oversees the day to day running of the school. She is regularly assisted by Teacher Peggie who ensures that our required standards are maintained.

Current Activities

Our Highlands School shares residential premises but we are in the process of purchasing the adjacent property, which when finalised will allow us to convert the existing house into classrooms and later to construct additional standard size classrooms.

Our current student enrollment is standing at 71. At this point only word of mouth is used to advertise which seems to be working as seen by our growing numbers.

Kool Kidz is providing a vital service to the community members whose family and working lives would be adversely affected if the constantly had to worry about the well being of their children. The niche is there and we have positioned ourselves to take advantage of this ready market. Children stand to gain a lot from coming to Kool KIdz School because they develop social and emotional skills and learn how to get along with other children, to share and to contribute.

Findings show that children who attend a high-quality school like ours enter their secondary schools with better reading skills and a richer vocabulary. Peggie has been teaching young children to read for a long time and and her experience in this field is an added advantage for our children.

We are hooked up to WiFi and are now able to use virtual learning material in some subjects as well as being able to show the kids cartoons during their recreational periods when it is raining.

We presently have 7 I-Pads which are primarily used by our grades 5 – 7 children and 30+ Android Tablets which are used by the lower primary grades.

Last year we purchased a jumping castle from South Africa which has proved extremely popular and which we blow up weekly on sports days.

English Reading Programme

Over weekends and during school holidays, Kool Kidz runs and English reading programme.

The programme is set up to accommodate both children and adults.

Many parents of children from nearby schools have contacted us to enrol their kids in the programme to improve their English reading skills.

Adults who wish to improve their English language ability also enrol in the programme to better their job prospects.

We charge K100 per two hour session and insist on a minimum of 10 sessions for children aged 5 – 15 to gain a full understanding of the lessons.

The charge for older children and adults is K120 per 2 hour session.

Our Vision

We strive to connect our African children to the future they envision for themselves.

Our Mission

To build talent and opportunities through transformative learning experiences for our children.