Lana Pretorius’s passion is teaching children. After living in Grahamstown for only two months, she has already set up a playschool. Shooting Stars with the motto: where everyone is a star is a unique and innovative approach to engaging with and educating children.
Lana Pretorius’s passion is teaching children. After living in Grahamstown for only two months, she has already set up a playschool. Shooting Stars with the motto: where everyone is a star is a unique and innovative approach to engaging with and educating children.
Its focus is on visual and performance arts and aims to equip children with the skills and ability to perform. The playschool has been running for a week now, and holds classes from Monday to Thursday in the mornings.
Pretorius and her family moved to Grahamstown from Cape Town last December. Here she noticed the need for another preschool, and at the same time, identified a “gap in the market”.
Although there is encouragement for children to become involved in the arts as they grow older, there are no schools for toddlers that focus on the arts.
And Pretorius adds, “It has always been a dream of mine to start up a visual and performance arts school”.
Shooting Stars Playschool holds its classes at Princess Alice Hall on African Street.
Working in a public space means that Pretorius has to set up the school and disassemble it every day. But she is dedicated to her work.
Though she would like a permanent place to hold classes, she is happy with the venue. She has a permanent assistant, Vuyokazi Tata, to help her run the school.
The school caters for twoand three-year olds. The day begins at 8.30am and activities include singing, puzzles, art, educational games, listening to music, playing instruments, movement and drama.
Pretorius explains that the children sing the same five songs and play with the same instrument for one week to give them “time to develop a skill”.
A new theme is introduced every week. There is also time for the children to play freely. Pretorius sets up an indoor obstacle course where balls and various toys are set out.
The day ends at midday with story time and then while the children wait to go home, they can flip through story books. Mothers are invited to sign up to volunteer at the school.
This requires that mothers spend the morning with the children and watch them interact. “A mom gets to see what her child is doing and help me out,” Pretorius said.
In addition to the playschool, Pretorius holds a ballet class at the same venue every Friday for moms and toddlers. Pretorius has shifted the focus away from the formal ballet tradition to suit the toddlers’ needs.
“I teach them through telling stories and miming,” she explains. Ballet Babes focuses on fostering a relationship between mothers or caregivers and their children.
“I teach the mom, who teaches the child,” Pretorius says. Children between 18 months and three years can enrol.
Pretorius points out that ballet classes usually start when children are already four years old. Pretorius is a qualified ballet teacher, and has been teaching ballet for 10 years.
She has worked as a teacher at the Goodwood Park Primary School in Cape Town and has been in charge of the Élancer Academy of Performing Arts.
It was during this time that she realised her enjoyment with engaging with little ones. “To see them finding things out for the first time makes you appreciate everything for the first time,” she said. “It’s one of the biggest joys”.
