With families across the UAE navigating uncertainty, the country’s oldest nursery group has mobilised its full team offering free daily learning for all children aged 3–5, live interactive classes for enrolled families, and in-home educator visits built in under a week.

STEPPING IN WHEN IT MATTERS MOST 

Katrina Mankani, Managing Director, Jumeirah International Nurseries 

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Across the UAE right now, thousands of families are managing a reality that no parenting book prepared them for. Nurseries are closed. Routines are broken. Children are at home, and parents — many of whom are also navigating job uncertainty, financial pressure, and the weight of the news cycle are trying to hold it all together. 

This week, Jumeirah International Nurseries decided that the families of the UAE should not have to do it alone. 

The group has launched free online learning sessions for every child in the UAE aged 3 to 5 regardless of whether they are enrolled at a Jumeirah Nursery or not. The sessions run daily from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM, require no registration, no account, and no payment. They are, in the simplest terms, a gift to the community from a nursery group that has been part of it for 45 years. 

“Right now, families need a familiar voice on a screen at 8 AM that tells their child: good morning, we’re here, let’s learn. That’s what we’re offering. Nothing more complicated than that.” 

— Katrina Mankani, Managing Director, Jumeirah International Nurseries 

THE EDUCATORS BEHIND THE SCREENS 

What makes this initiative remarkable is not the technology. It is the people. 

In the days since nurseries closed, Jumeirah’s team of educators have been working through evenings and weekends to build a full daily programme that could be delivered remotely — not as a placeholder, but as something that genuinely mirrors the rhythm and warmth of the nursery day. Circle time. Phonics. Creative play. Story time. Structured breaks. All of it designed to give children the one thing they need most right now: the feeling that someone is showing up for them. 

Some of these educators have also volunteered to go further literally. Jumeirah’s Child-Led Home Learning programme, in line with the relevant guidance from KHDA, is prepared to send teachers directly into family homes across Dubai, to deliver one-to-one and small-group learning in the child’s own living room. It is, in the words of one parent, “the nursery coming to us.” 

“Our educators didn’t ask whether they would be paid overtime for working through Eid. They asked which families needed them first. That tells you everything about who they are.” 

— Katrina Mankani 

WHY THIS MATTERS FOR CHILDREN 

For adults, disruption is stressful. For children aged 3 to 5, it can be destabilising in ways that are not always visible. Young children rely on routine as an emotional anchor — the predictability of a familiar schedule signals safety to a developing brain. When that routine disappears, children may become withdrawn, anxious, or behaviourally unsettled, often without being able to articulate why. 

Jumeirah’s programme is designed around this understanding. The free webinar sessions follow the exact rhythm of the nursery day — because children who are learning and connected to a routine are children who feel safe. 

The format is a webinar: children see and hear the educator, but are not visible to one another, ensuring full safeguarding compliance. Two age-specific streams run concurrently — FS1 (ages 3–4) and FS2 (ages 4–5) — each with dedicated content and its own session link. 

THREE LEVELS OF SUPPORT — BUILT IN UNDER A WEEK 

The free webinar is the broadest offering, but Jumeirah has also built two additional tiers of support for families who need more: 

Interactive Online Learning: Live, camera-on classes where children are grouped with their own classmates and taught by their regular educator. Real-time interaction, small groups, familiar faces. The closest experience to being in the nursery. 

Home Learning: A KHDA-approved, police-cleared Jumeirah educator visits the family’s home to deliver structured learning in person — either as a Learning Pod (2–6 children of similar age) or dedicated one-to-one support. 

The entire three-tier programme was designed, staffed, and launched in less than a week. 

WHY JUMEIRAH NURSERY COULD RESPOND THIS FAST

In 1964, Shakuntala Mankani arrived in Dubai. By 1981, she had founded what would become the UAE’s longest-running nursery group — not as a business venture, but because she saw families arriving in a growing city who needed somewhere safe and excellent for their children. 

Forty-five years, ten branches, and more than 15,000 graduates later, the institution she built had something that most organisations do not have when a crisis hits: a team that had been trained in a single methodology for decades, a leadership culture rooted in purpose before profit, and a founder’s story that made the right response obvious. 

“In 1981, I opened Jumeirah Nursery with a simple founding purpose: give every child in this city the best possible start. That purpose hasn’t aged. It hasn’t changed. It simply adapts to whatever life brings.” 

— Shakuntala Mankani, Founder, Jumeirah International Nurseries 

It is that adaptability — built on a foundation of 45 years — that allowed Jumeirah to mobilise a full distance learning programme, a home visit service, and a free community offering in the space of days rather than weeks. Heritage, in this case, was not a marketing story. It was an operational advantage. 

EDUCATOR STANDARDS 

Every educator delivering the programme — whether online or in a family’s home — meets four standards: KHDA approval based on qualifications and experience, completion of Jumeirah Nursery’s proprietary 45-year training methodology, full police clearance from their home country and the UAE, and a Dubai Health Authority Occupational Health Card confirming medical fitness and freedom from communicable diseases. 

— ENDS —

ABOUT JUMEIRAH INTERNATIONAL NURSERIES 

Founded in 1981 by Shakuntala Mankani, Jumeirah International Nurseries is the UAE’s longest-established nursery group. With nine branches across Dubai and part of the Fortes Education family (which includes Sunmarke School and Regent International School), Jumeirah Nursery has educated more than 15,000 children over 45 years. The group is ISO 9001 and 21001 certified. Its founding mission — to provide safe, loving, high-quality early years education to families in the UAE — remains unchanged.