At Nova Pioneer, we believe that character is what sets individuals apart. With this in mind, we integrate character education into our daily school experience. Our students learn about self-discipline, taking initiative and being mindful, which are all important in building the future they want for themselves.

It is important that our students solve problems collaboratively and develop high levels of academic mastery. We prepare our students for the future by ensuring that they have the opportunity to work with other students from across the continent and around the world. We believe that leadership is a skill that each individual can develop, and we ensure ample opportunities for each student to craft and hone their personal leadership style. All students are challenged to be innovators and leaders in their own communities. With campuses in Athi River, Kiambu and soon opening in Eldoret, we are now reaching more students across the country.

Earlier this year, our Nova Pioneer students celebrated Black History Month by paying homage to their favourite and most memorable African icons. Black History Month is an annual observance marked every February aiming to celebrate African Icons in history and throughout the world. 

 

Importance of celebrating African Icons

African history is a massive and intricate subject, world-shaking events have shaped the continent’s history, from the early men and women who left their footsteps in volcanic ash to the liberation of Nelson Mandela, and a whole lot of wars, conquests, civilisations and revolutions in between. As a school developing the future leaders and innovators who will shape the African Century, we feel it is important that students know their history.

We connected with some of our young Novaneers to learn more about their African icons and what they admire the most about them. It’s so inspiring seeing how informed these young Novaneers are! Look at what they had to say about their heroes.

 

 

Who Was Yaa Asantewaa

Yaa Asantewaa was an influential Ashanti queen at the beginning of the twentieth century who remains a powerful symbol today. She was a skilled farmer before ascending to the title Queen Mother in the 1880s. In 1896, the Ashanti people began to rebel against the British presence and the British attempt to construct the “Gold Coast” colony. To retaliate, the British captured and exiled Asantehene Prempeh I, King of the Ashanti, and Asantewaa’s grandson Kofi Tene, who was also a powerful leader. The British removed the king and other Ashanti leaders to the Seychelles Islands in an effort to acquire the Golden Stool.

While remaining leaders within the community debated on how to best respond to the British threat, Asantewaa held her ground and rallied the troops. Her leadership and passion led to her role as Commander in Chief of the Ashanti army. In turn, the Anglo-Ashanti wars’ fifth and final war against the British became known as the Yaa Asantewaa War of Independence (or the War of the Golden Stool), which began on March 28, 1900.

 

 

Who is Dr Atar?

Originally from Torit, a town in southern South Sudan, Dr Atar completed his medical training in Egypt. In 1997, as war ravaged Sudan’s Blue Nile State, Dr. Atar volunteered to help those in desperate need of medical assistance. He established his first hospital from scratch and working at the heart of a large-scale conflict, often under direct aerial bombing.

Dr Atar and his team deliver vital care in extremely challenging conditions: the hospital has no general anaesthesia, x-ray machines, operational theatre lighting, or blood bank. Yet their resourcefulness and dedication means they carry out almost 60 operations per week.

His commitment to treating all people in medical need regardless of their background has earned him the respect of both refugee and local communities. His work shows the difference that one person can make, even when facing incredible odds.

 

Nova Pioneer was represented at a global academic competition, the World Scholar’s Cup, where 46 students from Girls Secondary Schools were in attendance.

Our Nova Pioneer Girls Secondary School, Tatu City Campus, left for Durban, South Africa on Sunday 22 September 2019. They represented Nova Pioneer during the Global Round for a week after qualifying in April at the Nairobi Regional Round. 

The World Scholar’s Cup brings together students from 82 countries with the aim of not only challenging them to be the best, but to allow children to enjoy learning. The competition is aimed towards motivating students of all backgrounds to discover new strengths and practice new skills and inspire a global community of future scholars and leaders.

The students were accompanied by two of their teachers Ms. Gaturi, Ms. Jepkemboi and one of the Nova Pioneer Parent. Our gratitude goes out to our amazing teachers who put their best foot forward to make this trip possible. We wish our girls the best of luck.

Nova Pioneer students recently participated in the Kenya Science and Engineering Fair (KSEF) formally known as Science Congress, 57th Edition at the county level. Four Nova Pioneer work groups emerged top four out of 39 schools in the specific categories.

We dive deeper into the top-ranked project in the Agriculture category: The Automatic Chicken Drinker. Amor Rehema and Michelle Adika (Form 2) tell us more about their project and their thoughts behind it. 

 

What is your project about and what is the aim?

Our project is simply a chicken drinker. What makes it unique? it is automatic and time-saving. Our main aim for this project is to reduce the amount of time a farmer would take to re-fill the currently used system, hoppers, and recover the energy wasted for chicken drinkers.

 

What are some limitations of your solution?

A challenge we have faced in our project is finding a way to make this economical for the farmers by restructuring it to function without a constant supply of water. We had a few challenges in making improvements on the drinker to make it suitable for chicks to use especially because they can easily jump into the basin and completely block water flow.

 

What Inspired you to come up with this project?

As two aspiring scientists who had just learned the Hooke’s law, we were eager to apply our newly found interest. We heard about KSEF and when given the opportunity we signed up with no project in mind yet. Since we are both in the same table group, we came up with different ideas that we found impossible before realizing that if you stretch a spring and have something to block the end, it can stop the flow of a liquid in a container. We knew nothing about agriculture but applied the Physics we knew and hoped it would improve the agricultural field.

 

Have you implemented any feedback from the last round?

Our project was initially taller and we were advised to make the stand shorter for it to be more realistic we applied this and the project now is more practical and easier to understand.

 

What are your aspirations for this project?

Kenya is aspiring to be an industrialized middle-income country by the year 2030. If we manufacture such simple innovations, this goal will be attained faster than we think. We hope to get to the international fair and compete with great minds and projects. We also hope to get academic scholarships and for the government and farmers to actually consider our idea and improve it. We want to change the world not because we were taught that we must but becomes we can.

It is that time of the year again. When our young men and women go out into the world and get to showcase the innovative projects they have been working on. This year, our presence at the Science and Engineering Fair was as our students showcased projects that they had worked on over the last few months.

 

Competing with the best of the best

We had a total of five projects proceed to the Kiambu County Kenya Science and Engineering Fair 2019. It is important to note that by far, competitions within Kiambu County are the most competitive within the country due to the heavy presence of seasoned powerhouses. At the Sub County level, we managed to clinch the top two categories across 12 different projects presented by both the boys and the girls. The young men who represented us in Computer Science and Engineering Projects are as follows:

Intel Cyberops presented by Isaac Muendo (F4) and Kimani Kamau (F3) – This project covered how to enhance cyber security in a rapidly changing world. Scooped the 1st position in the Computer Science category

Skout, a website for scouting athletic talent scooped the 2nd position under the very able leadership of our very own Robert Maathai (F3) and Issa Mbagathi (F3)

Retro Vision, a project on integrating different gaming systems on a single device. A brainchild of Vuyo Chebon (F2) and Andrew Michatha (F2) stood in at a very strong 3rd position thoroughly cementing the Computer Science category at the competitions a strictly Nova Pioneer affair!

 

Innovation is the name of the game

For our absolute fixers in the Engineering Category, we saw our Form 2 students win the top prize with their E-bin. The E-bin is a litter bin that automatically scans bar codes on your trash and recommends where you can replenish your grocery supply conveniently. This was the brilliant result of collaborative work between Michael Makobi (F2) and Christopher Njihia (F2). The two young men proceeded to the county’s having clinched a superbly deserved  3rd position.

 

 

Our learning team is taking things a notch higher by finding fun ways to promote a reading culture at our Primary School. During the April school holidays, the entire school was put to task to each read a book of their choice with a family member.

 

Creating a Reading Culture

This initiative created by the school learning team was aimed at developing a reading culture, as well as create a deep sense of appreciation for literature among our youngest Novaneers. At Nova Pioneer, we believe that strong readers are those who can read as well as analyse a diverse range of texts. It is important for our students to be able to indulge in independent, self-selected reading, both in and out of the classroom. 

 

 

Never too young to start

All students were challenged to participate in this exercise, including the our youngest students in Play Group class all the way to our big kids, our Grade 3 students. While students might trudge through set texts during class lessons, our learning team is constantly trying to think of ways to inspire students to open a book when they get home.

 

 

Parents are the best teachers

There was a fun twist to the assignment: parents also participated in this Holiday assignment where they too, were required to read a book with their young ones. It was not just about reading but our young learners showcased their presentation skills when they, with the help of their parents, presented to their entire class on what they were reading on. To commemorate the end of the BookWorm week, our learners got to tap into creative juices by recreating the costume from their favourite book character. The level of creativeness with what they came up with was quite inspirational and we continue to be impressed by how our Novaneers continue to live up to our culture principles of #JoyOfLearning and #HighExpectations.

Nova Pioneer students from our Tatu City Girls Secondary School campus recently took part in the Annual Computer and Robotics Fair. Our young Novaneers showed up and showed off bringing back three big victories.

 

A platform for techies

In 2017, the Alliance High School ICT club launched its Annual Computer and Robotics Fair. The event is aimed creating a platform for, and bring together, high school students who are passionate about tech. Young techies come together to share solutions around various social problems using technology.

 

A roaring success

The 2nd annual computer and robotics fair was held on 25 May 2019. Teams from different schools registered their projects by submitting a pitch video on YouTube and sharing the link with the event organizers.

The categories of the projects were:

1. Software (Python, Visual Basic)
2. App development (Android, iOS, Windows)
3. Hardware (Robotics, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Intel)
4. Web technologies

 

Celebrating our wins

At the fair, the student groups gave a 3-minute pitch to industry experts within their categories. Our young ladies were quite the champions this year, bringing back three big victories! They swept trophies for:

1. Third best school in the competition.
2. Best girls school in computing and robotics.
3. Best software project – second place.

 

We have celebrated lots of wins in tech this year and this is a testament to the hard work and creativity our girls have put in to ensure they are using their knowledge and access to technology to better our society

Thirty Nova Pioneer Tatu Girls Secondary School students were given the opportunity to spend time at the Sub Saharan Africa International Model African Union held at the United Nations Office in Gigiri in July 2018. This was part of Nova Pioneer’s efforts to expose young students to opportunities beyond the classroom.

 

Are we ready for what the future holds?

When you think about how the future will look like, a few questions may to mind. Perhaps you wonder how prepared students will be for that future? Or maybe you’re just curious if what they learn in the classroom will be enough for them to thrive? What about what they are exposed to… are there any other ways students can be exposed to real-life situations? Situations that will enrich their experiences and enable them to know better and do better?

 

Exposure = Opportunity

Nova Pioneer always strives to ensure that there’s a myriad of options and avenues for learning through action to happen within and outside the classroom. We had 30 young ladies spend time at the Sub Saharan Africa International Model African Union held at the United Nations Office in Gigiri in July last year.

 

 

All about the Saimun Conference

Sub Saharan International Model United Nations (SAIMUN) is a five-day international relations simulation for both high school and university/college students that is held annually in Nairobi. The international conference is attended by more than 500 students from all over the world and seeks to inculcate the global development agenda in youth based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  

 

Preparing students beyond the classroom

Our young ladies, as delegates of different countries, were expected to produce position papers on the topics to be debated in their committee. With the theme  being “Humanity at Crossroads: Global Action for Sustainable Development.” A position paper is a brief document that outlines your country’s views on the issues at hand and recommends some policy responses to tackle the problem. Producing the position papers enables the performance of structured research on respective countries and topics, ensuring that the delegates are better informed to participate actively and insight-fully during the debate. All delegates are then given access to other team’s papers, enabling them to identify views held by other ‘countries’.   

 

Loud shouts and snaps

One of our students got a full-page feature on the conference daily for her contributions. A round of hearty snaps to our young ladies for a great demonstration of high expectations and servant leadership as they continue to forge forward with bravery curating their future paths and shaping conversations that will build the great continent of Africa.

In the spirit of celebrating diversity in our culture, our Nova Pioneer Tatu City Girls’ Secondary School organized its very first cultural day. The young ladies did not disappoint as they went all out, adorned in beautiful African fashion, the students spent the day celebrating what they appreciate most about our culture. 

 

 

Food brings us together

They had food presentations from different communities which they actually made by themselves. Our Nova Pioneer exchange students from South Africa also had a chance in participating in this cultural day in which they performed a beautiful Zulu song.

 

 

Dance is a universal language

It was a pompous event with our young women adorned in beautiful regalia ready to show us just how conversant they are when it comes to traditional dances. The event was nothing short of outstanding and we appreciate our young women for bringing culture and diversity to life in such a fun way. 

 

Special shouts to all Novaneer parents who showed up to support their daughters at this fantastic event!

During Term 1, our young Novaneers had the opportunity to be the change-makers that we hope for them to be in this world. Our future leaders took thirty minutes off their classroom routine to participate in a global initiative known as the School Strike For Climate Change initiative.

 

 

Change now for a better future for us

The initiative aims to sensitize students on Climate change and its causes and effects since it is a global issue that has an impact on all of us. Our goal is to ensure that we are always preparing our future leaders to be aware of global issues and how they can tackle them. The worldwide initiative was also commemorated across our schools in South Africa. 

 

 

Armed with comprehensive knowledge the learners had the opportunity to talk about global warming. It was quite impressive how the students took the initiative to research widely on the topic beforehand. With impressive views and thought-provoking ideas, the students took center stage to speak to their peers and teachers on how as individuals we can take necessary steps to reduce global warming. Huge shouts to our Novaneers for #JoyOfLearning.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek” – Barack Obama.