Fifty-five years of building children who can stand anywhere.

Fifty-five years ago, Victoria Schools began as an idea I believe was given to me by divine inspiration. That is why we have stood the test of time, and why we are still standing — stronger, and still getting better.

Not many institutions see half a century of uninterrupted existence. Ours began in 1971 with a handful of pupils at No. 1 Rafiu Baruwa Street, Ijeshatedo, under the name Ebenezer Day Nursery School. In October 1972 we moved to our permanent site at No. 43 Imam Shuaib Street — then a place with no access road, only a bush pathway and a bridge of logs linking Aguda and Ijeshatedo. We called it our journey from Egypt to the promised land. That same day, the school was renamed Victoria Children’s School, in loving memory of my industrious and caring mother, Madam Victoria Famewo.

I must name Architect Emeritus Elder Ayo Afe, who drew the building plan and raised the first block of five classrooms that housed our first set of pupils.

In 2001, at the persistent request of parents who wanted their children carried through secondary school inside the same culture of moral and academic excellence, we established Victoria High School at No. 37 Ilamoye Street. Twenty-five years later it is a school of choice for families across Lagos and beyond.

Success comes to those who work hard, and stays with those who do not rest on the laurels of the past. So we have kept building. Our biology, physics and chemistry laboratories have been fully reconstructed and stocked. Our ICT suite runs new-generation computers connected to the internet. Our music room holds a full set of standard instruments. Parents check their children’s results online. And our curriculum has moved from the traditional to the holistic — concerned not only with content, but with context and application.

My dream is a school that raises literate, numerate children with a godly attitude, who can harness the power of digital learning and compete with their peers anywhere in the world.

To every parent who has entrusted a child to us for over five decades: thank you for believing in us. My slogan remains — let us celebrate the past, consolidate the present, and conquer the future.