Wiggles and Giggles: A Mother’s Vision Growing into a Community School in Ghana

Barbara’s journey as a school leader began with a deeply personal challenge, one shared by many working mothers. As a nursing mother and a teacher in Tamale, she struggled to balance caring for her child while pursuing her career. Realizing she wasn’t alone in this struggle, she envisioned a place where mothers like her could trust that their children were safe, nurtured, and learning. From that vision, Wiggles and Giggles Educational Center was born.

Barbara opened the school in 2016, starting humbly as a daycare center with just four children. Inspired by the simple joy of infants. “If you wiggle your baby, he or she will giggle,” she explains. The name became a symbol of warmth, care, and early childhood development.

Over the years, Barbara’s school has grown steadily. Today, Wiggles and Giggles Educational Center offers classes up to Primary 6 and remains one of the most affordable schools in the area, with fees ranging from 200 to 400 Ghana cedis. Before joining the EduQuality program, the school enrolled fewer than 100 pupils. Now, enrollment has doubled to nearly 200 children in just two years, a clear sign of increased trust and improved school performance.

As a school leader, Barbara has embraced continuous learning. Through Opportunity International EduFinance’s School Leader Professional Training, she gained valuable skills in school management, branding, and community engagement. These lessons have helped her attract more families and strengthen the school’s identity. Equipped with better financial management knowledge, she secured a loan to purchase chairs and learning materials, and she hopes to access another loan soon to improve the school’s latrine facilities, which remain her biggest operational challenge.

Barbara has also diversified the school’s income by selling school uniforms, clothes, and textbooks, initiatives directly inspired by her training and essential to sustaining the school’s infrastructure. Supporting her leadership are two dedicated Teacher Mentors, Gladys and Fauzia, who are active participants in the Teacher Mentor Professional Development program. The training has helped them improve lesson planning, early-grade reading instruction, and classroom engagement. Every week, they conduct peer learning sessions with other teachers, moving between classrooms to observe teaching, provide coaching, and share techniques.

“We move to each other’s classes to learn and observe how they teach the children,” Fauzia explains. “We’ve also learned how to mimic children’s behavior so we can understand and support them better”.

Barbara has seen a noticeable transformation in her school as a result. Classroom delivery has improved, teachers interact more positively with learners, and student performance has risen significantly. The nurturing environment she has cultivated is felt across the school community.

As Catherine, the headteacher, expresses: “The way our proprietor treats us is very encouraging. She treats us as family, and that motivates us to stay.”

Looking ahead, Barbara hopes for even greater support, particularly through the introduction of mobile banking services by partner financial institutions. “I wish banks could introduce mobile banking so that we can easily save the tokens that we make,” she says, highlighting the need for accessible financial tools for small school leaders.

Barbara’s story reflects the resilience, innovation, and unwavering dedication of school leaders who are shaping the future of education in Ghana. Through her leadership, Wiggles and Giggles Educational Center has become more than a school; it is a place of hope, opportunity, and community for families in Tamale.