Nova Pioneer has been recognized as one of the top 10 schools globally in the field of education innovation, securing its place among the world’s educational elite. This prestigious acknowledgment underscores Nova Pioneer’s commitment to fostering innovation, creativity, and excellence in education.

The recognition of Nova Pioneer’s outstanding contributions to advancing educational practices and pioneering new approaches to learning demonstrates its dedication to preparing students for success in an ever-evolving world.

Nova Pioneer stands out for its innovative curriculum, dynamic teaching methods, and commitment to leveraging technology to enhance learning experiences. Through project-based learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and real-world applications, the school equips students with the skills and mindset necessary to thrive in the 21st century.

In addition to its innovative programs, Nova Pioneer fosters a culture of collaboration, inclusivity, and community engagement. By partnering with local organizations, industry leaders, and educational institutions through its post school success programme, the school provides students with opportunities to apply their skills in real-world settings and make a positive impact on society.

As Nova Pioneer celebrates this prestigious accolade, it reaffirms its commitment to innovation, excellence, and continuous improvement in education. By embracing change, embracing challenges, and embracing opportunities, Nova Pioneer remains at the forefront of educational innovation, preparing students to excel in a rapidly changing world.

While being among the top 10 schools in the innovation category is a tremendous honor, our journey does not end here. We have set our sights on winning The Community Choice Award. This award is open to 50 shortlisted schools and awarded to the school that receives the most votes in the Public Vote. Only one school will be awarded the Community Choice Award and to achieve this goal, we need your support!

Please cast your vote for Nova Pioneer by following the instructions provided below.

1. Head to  https://vote.worldsbestschool.org/
2. Select Nova Pioneer
3. Register to vote
4. Validate your vote via email

Additionally, we encourage you to share this wonderful news with your friends, family, and networks, and ask them to vote for us as well. Together, we can make a difference and showcase the excellence of Nova Pioneer on a global stage.

Please note that public voting will close on June 28th, 2024. 

If you are not part of the Nova Pioneer community yet and are interested in learning more about our innovative approach to delivering our unique learning model, please sign up here to visit us at our next open day.

What makes a student project authentic and meaningful? How can we better prepare our students for real-world tasks through project-based learning? This year in our Innovation and Leadership programme, we’ve focused heavily on levelling up our projects, so that students engage in projects with a public audience and an authentic task.  This led us to two culminating events – our Nova Talks event and our Social Entrepreneurship Shark Tank.

The main highlight of the year was our first annual Nova Talks event, held on 23 June 2023 in USIU auditorium. This event brought the top two speakers from each of our Nova Pioneer Kenya high schools to share their Talk on the theme, “Impacting the African Century”. Form 4 students across our high schools were challenged to write and deliver a talk on how they’ve made a positive impact on the world during their time at Nova Pioneer. Lessons for Term 1 Innovation and Leadership focused on best practices in delivering a talk, and each student gave a talk in their Innovation and Leadership class. Students then selected the top talks from their classroom to go on to speak in front of the school, and then the students selected the top two talks to represent their school at the final showcase event.

The event, which brought together students and families from across all six Nova Pioneer schools in Kenya, featured MC Elijah Odundo and judges Chinezi Chijioke, Dr. London Moore, Agatha Juma and Mary Onguko. Miss Mureithi and Miss Waiharo of Nova Pioneer Tatu Girls gave the best speech overall, sharing their idea for  “Plastikey,” a business aimed at reducing plastic waste by repurposing waste materials into urban farming materials. Their speech was supported by concrete examples of their ideas brought to life. Miss Maina and Miss Nzou, also of Tatu Girls, emerged as the most compelling speakers, sharing their business idea for “THREAL: An African Heritage Story,” providing an online platform for young Africans to connect with one another and learn about their heritage, correcting flawed global narratives on the African experience. Their presentation included movement and music, capturing the audience’s attention as they shared their message. Finally, Master Mukisa of Eldoret Boys earned the award for most compelling concept through his talk titled “UKUAJI: Fostering Joint Economic Growth Through Diversity and Inclusion”, which provided innovative solutions for revitalising rural communities and fostering community engagement and pride.

Later in the term, Tatu Boys hosted Nova Pioneer’s second annual Social Entrepreneurship Shark Tank event on 7 August, 2023. Over the course of Term 2, Form 3 students across all four high schools learned about social entrepreneurship, building business and impact models for their own social enterprise idea. The top team from each school went on to the final Shark Tank event, in which they delivered their social enterprise pitch live to a team of “Sharks” – Kenyan business and non-profit leaders. The 2023 “Sharks” included Catherine Kiama, Director of Programmes and Impact at She’s the First, Jedidah Ndubi, Senior Investment Associate at Acumen Fund, Linnet Muturi, Educational Counsellor at Uniconnect Ltd., and Hilda Nyareso, Chief Operating Officer at Shamiri Institute. After each pitch, the Sharks gave their live feedback to each team, and offered their total mock investment for each team.

Tatu Boys team “NIXIE AI”, which included Master Munene, Master Richard, Master Wangai, and Master Mbowe, won the event with a total of Ksh.12,700,000 across the four judges. Their innovative idea focused on AI-supported mental healthcare for young people. This was the second year running in which a team from Tatu Boys won the event, as the Tatu Boys team “TuLink” won the competition in 2022.

Looking ahead to 2024, we are excited to further build on our Innovation and Leadership programming. We will be launching our Grade 8 Innovation and Leadership curriculum next year, focusing on Failing Forward, which all Grade 8 students will take alongside their regular lessons. We will also launch an Artificial Intelligence unit in the Innovation and Leadership curriculum in 2024, helping students to understand the role AI will play in our changing world, as well as the technical aspects of artificial intelligence.

Innovation and Leadership remains a top priority for Nova Pioneer in the years to come, and we cannot wait for you to see what we have in store next!

 

Video Editing is one of the many interest classes offered at Nova Pioneer. Interest Classes are extra courses, in addition to the subject related content, offered to students at Nova Pioneer that equip our students with other lifelong skills needed in the job market. Examples of such courses include; Coding, Chess, Entrepreneurship and Journalism, just to name a few. 

The beauty of the interest courses is that the students select them based on their own interests and skills that they would like to develop. This gives them an opportunity to think about their future and career options based on the skills developed.

I have exercised my video editing skill since 2018 when some of the projects I worked on involved creating videos to tell a story. I needed to work on several videos put together to form one refined video. Some examples of these projects include, a school documentary, appreciation videos, know your Novaneer videos and many more.

I developed my video editing skills over time through research and I have gradually learnt how to bring my clips to life through careful storytelling.  I have learned how to use Adobe Premiere Pro Video Editing, a software that filmmakers use to edit their movies. Through my realization of Adobe Premiere Pro and what it could do, I decided to learn more about it through YouTube tutorials and I am currently able to comfortably edit videos from what I learned.

This skill has enabled me to create informative videos that include the Math Bench,  ‘Know Your Novaneer’, and Appreciation videos for Nova Pioneer. I am currently teaching the Video Editing interest course to 30 students across our Nova Pioneer High School, supported by Mr. Nicolus Kimathi. Our lessons take place daily from Monday to Friday. Video Editing is a fascinating course and students are captivated by it because they are able to express themselves creatively. Our students taking the video editing classes are movie-lovers and we once in a while hear them talk about camera tricks, effects, and graphics that occur in movies and seeing them learn how to apply these effects and graphics on their own has been heart-warming to us as their teachers.

We give assignments to the students in the form of editing their own projects on a bi-weekly basis. With these assignments, we’re able to gauge their understanding and grade them accordingly. An example of an assignment would be, depending on the skills learnt in a particular week, students can get appropriate videos of their liking, edit and join them to create an amazing 3 minute final product and all the learnt skills should be visible in it. As teachers, we use a created rubric to grade their projects.

Filmmaking is a field that is taking over the world and through that, we have watched great movies that have gone ahead to top the charts because of powerful Video Editors and producers that have worked behind the scenes. I am creating awareness in this field to my students who are so passionate about video editing and would want to take this skill to another level when they step into the job market. 

With a lot of passion, and with these skills,  students have different career options at their disposal. Some of them would want to be Online Content Creators, Creative Designers, Film Makers and Multimedia Animators.

 

Our students take…

 

“Hello, my name is Steve Mose, a Form 4 student at Nova Pioneer Tatu Boys. I opted in on Video Editing as it captured my mind as soon as I heard about it. It looked so complicated and yet so simple and I had to know how to use Adobe Premiere Pro, the primary software in the video editing class. As I took on the class I aimed to take my editing skills to another level as I had been dabbling in the art for quite a while. As all new endeavors do, it proved quite a challenge but these challenges only serve the purpose of stimulating improvement, and true to this I soon got the hang of it. So far it has been an amazing class, full of joy and excitement, and definitely one that puts the mind to task. Be that as it may, in the spirit of always growing and higher expectations we strive to reach new heights with each lesson that passes”.

Click on the link below to watch one of our video editing sessions:

It is exactly four months to the day since the first case of COVID-19 was announced in Kenya. Within 48 hours, the Government had announced the closure of all schools – post haste. Many employers also required staff to work remotely, so there we were, all suddenly thrown into the deep end of a new normal. It was initially unsettling, but we quickly fell into a routine with the help of a brilliantly simple schedule from a friend on Facebook.

Since March 13, the last time David (10 years) and Jonathan (7 years) were in school, they have grown in leaps and bounds into big little men whom I often hardly recognize. They mastered the new schedule quickly, which helped them to complete all the exercises in the virtual learning packs prepared by the school by mid-April. 

Since then, they’ve maximized the prolonged period at home to learn new skills – most notably in the kitchen, which is very apt given that they’re trying to eat me out of house and home!😄 I am so impressed with how they are making themselves useful with chores and anything that needs doing in the house. It seems their favourite words nowadays are, “Mum, do you need help with anything?” And, “Esther (our exceedingly gifted housekeeper), what can I help you do?”

 

Identifying Their Unique Strengths & Gifts

 

I’m finding that taking a few minutes whenever possible to teach them something new or do something together, however seemingly mundane, is helping us to know each other even better and giving the boys confidence in their unique strengths and gifts. 

Speaking of gifts, is there anything sweeter than enjoying grilled sweet and sour chicken wings or roast rosemary potatoes made from scratch made by your fast-growing little ones? I could hardly believe how confidently they peeled, washed, halved, parboiled, and seasoned the potatoes after just one trial run with Esther! 

They’ve also learnt how to cook chapatis – all the way from making the dough to rolling and frying. And how to make mandazis using a recipe from their cookery club at school. Thursday was one of their favourite days in school because they had cookery club. I don’t know how to cook chapati or mandazi, but hopefully they’ll teach me soon! They also cook some really good cinnamon French toast. As expertly taught by yours truly 😄.

Meanwhile, the mandazis come in all shapes and sizes 😄. Mine are usually heart-shaped ❤. They serve them with spicy tea for me to enjoy while I’m in an online meeting. And my share of the mandazis is labelled and stowed away safely in the fridge, away from ever-peckish boys! 😂

Between them and Esther, they’ve also taught themselves how to make really tasty bhajias – something we’ve never cooked at home before. Now to learn how to make lasagna. I think that just might win me Mum of the Year in their world!😂. For desserts, they’ve taken making ice lollies to a whole new level. David’s innovation – freezing a lolly made with Ribena and then piercing it in the middle to infuse orange juice to make a two-in-one lolly! Simply brilliant!

 

Taking Initiative..

 

Household chores are quickly becoming a breeze for the boys. They’re in the habit of making their beds, airing their rooms and tidying up their shelves when they notice they’re getting disorganised. What impresses me most is that they take the initiative themselves, especially on weekends, and then report with pride on their accomplishments.

Like when David manages to change the cover on his duvet, a tiresome task even for adults, or Jonathan volunteers to make all the beds on a Sunday! Never mind that he has turned his car bed into a notice board 😄. It’s so humbling to wake up to neatly made children’s beds on a weekend with an offer at the ready, “Mum can we make your bed for you?”

 

Boys will be boys 

 

Boys will be boys, so many times I find them on the roof of the car, relaxing in shorts and vests and with pillows for maximum comfort, reading, completing activity books, or just chatting (gratefully, they’re best of friends). Then the looks on their faces when I get them to wipe down the car of their grimy prints once they’re done – priceless 🤣! The important lesson in this “class” is that when you spend half the week hanging out on the roof of mummy’s car, you spend Saturday morning wiping your dusty little foot and finger prints off said car 😂.

 

Getting Creative

 

Their crafts creativity is also really growing. On Mother’s Day, they not only surprised me with a breakfast tray in bed, but with such thoughtful handmade gifts. David, with a mini-robot made from a cardboard box, toilet rolls, a party mask and ribbon, and Jonathan with a paper megaphone painted a sunny yellow that I can use to yell their names if I need anything. I was under strict instructions not to lift a finger that day. Their gifts have pride of place on my bedroom wall .

Thanks to Esther, they’ve also learnt how to make simple stitches and sew buttons. They practice on recyclable woven bags. 

Then there’s the week they were feeling particularly patriotic and decided to surprise me with a mini-flag of Kenya in our backyard made from old broom sticks and a bandanna. I was blindfolded for my introduction to the new invention 😂. It was such a refreshing and heartwarming sight, the lovingly made flag blowing obediently in the wind. Esther helped them rig it up in a way that they can pull it up and down, just like a real flag.

Don’t ask me how but there’s some cool tech there! I had “caught” them from my bedroom window, hard at work digging and “building” the flag, but I had no idea what they were making and they told me not to ask. The team work involved though was at expert level. 

 

Taking Charge

 

One of the greatest reliefs is how they’ve learnt to take full charge of feeding, bathing and walking their furry “sister” and best friend – Ms. Fluffy Whiskers. Yes, she has a pony tail 😂. This was after an afternoon of serious grooming although we got experts for that. Right now, the boys’ elaborate plans for a “camping” movie night for her birthday are in high gear. She turns one next Saturday😄. Their excitement is palpable. They’ve even got the popcorn seeds lined up, ready to pop! 

 

Boosting their love for reading

 

Let me take credit for stocking up the kids’ bookshelves to keep their fiction reading up and introducing them to audio books. The looks on their faces when they received a new shipment of books – after they had read literally all their story books – was so rewarding.

Discovering audio books (and the use of headphones ) has also been a treasure. They’ve dived into this exciting new virtual space with gusto – David loves sci-fi and devoured Interview with the Robot by Lee Bacon and Diary of a 6th Grade Ninja by Marcus Emerson in a couple of days. Jonathan seems to enjoy the classics. He persevered with all 18 chapters of Anne of Green Gables – 9 hours and 22 minutes of audio book – for about a month, and at his insistence! He is now reading the audio version of Alice in Wonderland. I know – audio books may not be the obvious choice for young readers, but I am banking on this experience boosting their comprehension, storytelling, and hopefully vocabulary skills as they complement with hard copy books for spelling. 

 

Teachable moments

 

Some of my favourite mummy-teaching-boys moments have been unexpected. Like making up and playing a game we decided to call “find the country on the globe” on a random Sunday morning when I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet. It was so funny showing David how to climb into the house through a window. He then taught Jonathan. These are very important skills that must be passed down between generations!😄

It was so fulfilling to teach Jonathan how to put a nail in a wall and hang up a picture. He had found a canvas painting of an octopus that he had made last Christmas and a sisal artwork that needed to be put up or perish when he was tidying up his reading space. He was so proud of himself when he put them up, and rightly so!👏🏻

 

Family time

 

We’ve caught some really good movies on the random weekday family movie afternoons I like to organise. Some favourites have been A Dog’s Purpose, timeless flicks like Free Willy, and animations inspired by real life events like the 2018 animation – Sgt Stubby: an American Hero, which tells the story of a World War I soldier’s dog. I’ve also introduced “sleepover nights” where we carry the boys’ mattresses and beddings into my room for the night and have a slumber “party”. They love it! 🤗

 

 

I’ve noticed that as we get more accustomed to staying indoors, it’s sometimes a struggle for the boys to get out and play as they sometimes prefer to continue reading indoors or even helping with chores. But they eventually go outside with a little encouragement (read thinly veiled threats😄).

They’re good cyclists and during this time, they’ve increased their stamina so they can do longer distances without struggling. Best part of this – David taught me how to ride a bike! 🙌🏻 You know one of those things you’ve always assumed you knew how to do? Until you tried to and realised you’ve never actually done it? Cycling was one of those things for me!

David was so inspirational about teaching me too, saying, “Mum, you can do it”, when I was unsteadily approaching a bump. No picture for the learner bike rides yet unfortunately. Chief Documentarist aka Mum was busy learning how to not fall off the bike!

The boys have taken advantage of this time to perfect their roller skating. David took the first plunge and helped Jonathan catch up without too many bumps and bruises too! Thankfully, all teeth are accounted for! 😄 Jonathan has also perfected doing press ups – he’s turning out to be a real fitness buff and is now dutifully waiting for his biceps and abs to show up after all his efforts! I have no doubt they will – muscles are beginning to ripple 😄!

Today, I finally summoned the words and courage to tell the boys that school is out for another nearly six months. And that they will still be in their current grades when schools reopen in January 2021. As expected, they were disappointed. But they understand why it’s necessary.

So, we continue to #stayhome #staysafe and #sanitise. Meanwhile, we’re determined to continue making the most of this unusual time, a rare opportunity. So help us God. 🙏🏻

 

Written by: Wakiuru Maina, (current parent at our Nova Pioneer Primary, Tatu City Campus)

 

“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it ceased to be one.” Mark Twain

Perhaps, I would least wish any enthusiastic learner to make the above utterance.

I share my four tenets which I would have paid quality attention to in my younger years to achieve most out of them. Grab a pen and a journal as we walk through my school memoir as I reflect on what I wish I knew in my younger years.

Exploration

What if I had developed a unique set of skills in my high school days that would make me a versatile person equipped with necessary foundational skills, competences and character qualities that would have made me more prepared for this world of a technological revolution?

During ‘those days’ the light I was focused on was my academic goals, getting those assessments done and “pass” have the good feel and be ready to join campus after the robust four years period.  Wait! Was I getting it twisted?

I definitely wish I sought more solid guidance in my career path options. Believe it or not, I had three non-related career options with a major emphasis on getting a lucrative job after joining college. Being more deliberate would have worked great for me. 

I have come to a realization that critical thinking, collaboration, curiosity, adaptability, social and cultural awareness are just as important as literacies like numeracy, scientific literacy, financial literacy, and ICT literacy.

The opportunity to participate in an array of beyond-the-class walls activities during my holidays would have impacted the society tremendously.

Collaborate with Peers

I wish I had more meaningful group interactions as opposed to being overbearing. Expecting everything to be done right was good but doing them in the right manner is the best experience. Being unaware that everyone executes tasks at their own pace was not a welcome thought to me. Working in a group was most times frustrating but the light of the day comes in when everyone has a chance to equally participate. It is a vital skill knowing how to collaborate with peers.

Partnership With Educators

Understanding that there is a need to have a cohesive relationship with my educators as they are among the greatest resources we have. I would ideally wish to connect more with my teachers since influence is the next step beyond control in achieving the best in the un-ending field of education.

Exposure

I wish I was involved in blended learning activities like exchange programs with students across the globe. This would be a point of no return in pursuit of academic excellence. I would definitely have emitted my energy in building international connections so that problems facing the African continent can tactfully be countered.

Make a Move to secure your Future! Make it worth-while.