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A MUM'S determination to give her daughters a bi-lingual pre-school education led to her opening her own school, writes Liz O'Reilly.
Now KG.Kids is expanding to offer the same opportunity to families in the Saar area.
The original KG.Kids Riffa was established in 1994 when British born Janet Lanceley Abbas was looking for a pre-school for her three daughters and discovered there were none offering both the Arabic and British curricula.
Married to Bahraini Khalil Abbas, Janet, who herself now holds Bahraini nationality, was adamant that her girls should learn both languages and cultures from an early age.
Janet had studied education, with a particular emphasis on course development, in the UK and taught for four years at Ibn Khuldoon School followed by eight years at St Christopher's School.
With her background in education, she decided to take on the challenge of opening her own school and KG.Kids was born with professional teachers offering the dual curricula.
Janet said: 'This is one of the things that makes KG.Kids unique, children of any nationality will be richer from the broad spectrum of opportunities for learning.
'It is an excellent opportunity to learn about local culture and mix with children of different nationalities.
'It's so wonderful to see a child who has never spoken Arabic before mastering a new language ... and teaching his or her parents.'
The venture was a great success and now, 15 years on, has 150 pupils aged two to six years.
In 1998, Janet opened a local nursery in Hamad Town. She had asked the Ministry of Education where a nursery school was most needed for local children. They told her there were no facilities in that area at the time so Janet opened a school that was subsidised by KG.Kids Riffa. It ran for three years until the area developed and there were enough local facilities.
The combination of Arabic and English at KG.Kids was so popular that parents pushed Janet to open a school for older children and in 2003 she established Palms Primary School, in Riffa, which caters for 110 seven- to 12-year-olds.
And now it is the turn of the other side of the island with KG.Kids Saar just open.
The new pre-school will be run by Jackie Kennedy, who has several years' experience teaching at the Riffa school. There are seven children enrolled in the new kindergarten.
She said: 'We decided on Saar because there are many expats here married to Bahrainis and though there are schools offering English with Arabic as an extra class, there is nothing like this available where children can learn both equally.'
For the start of the new term the schools are launching an afterschool clubs programme AcademiKids which will feature items such as the Dino Club, at which youngsters can learn about dinosaurs, and Fishy Fun, looking at sea creatures.
And, Janet has also now taken over the Victoria Dance Centre which will be based out of the Saar premises and will be offering all sorts of activities from street funk and hip-hop dance to swim-kids and 'mummy and me' fun sessions.
