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!

 

Education plays a pivotal role in shaping your child’s future. This reality makes selecting the right school environment a crucial decision for a parent or guardian. While boarding schools have their merits, day schools also present many advantages.

In line with offering a variety of options to serve more of our families, Nova Pioneer is launching a day school option for Junior School in the city of champions, Eldoret. We currently have two campuses in Eldoret, a Girls’ Secondary School, and a separate Boys’ Secondary School dedicated to impacting the next generation of leaders and innovators.

Three Reasons To Enrol Your Child At Nova Pioneer’s Junior School Day Option in Eldoret 

Reduced Cost and Accessibility

Affordability is one of the reasons families are not able to access quality education. The Nova Pioneer Eldoret – Junior School Day option enables families who live in Eldoret to access quality education at a reduced cost due to the reduced boarding expenses. The money saved can be redirected to developing other aspects of your child, like specialized extracurricular activities.

Sense of Independence and Responsibility

We pride ourselves in developing responsible leaders and innovators who will shape the future and our learning model is student-centered, thus giving them the opportunity to explore what they know under the guidance of our teachers. A day school option will enhance their sense of responsibility and independence since they will have to balance the school assignments with daily family responsibilities and  personal interests. Your child will get to develop their organization skills and time management ability. This early practice will help them seamlessly transition into Senior High School and other higher learning institutions. 

Reduced Homesickness and Stress

Sometimes, it can be hard for your child to get accustomed to a boarding school environment. Unfortunately, getting a quality Junior Day school is an uphill task in most urban areas. Our day school option will help your child avoid dealing with high-stress levels caused by homesickness as a result of being in a boarding environment. A child that is not stressed has better mental health and will have a positive attitude toward academics. Thus, being able to develop as an all-round student.

If this is an option that interests you, reach out to Cosmas from our Admissions team via 0799453440.

Life is an unpredictable journey, often leading us on unexpected paths that shape our futures in profound ways. In this series of alumni spotlight, let us turn our attention to Shakira Mwakitawa, a remarkable alumnus of our Tatu City Girls School, class of 2020. She is currently a Civil Engineering major sophomore at the University of St. Thomas.

 

 

Career Pathway

What began as a traditional academic pursuit took a turn into unchartered territories ultimately redefining Shakira’s professional trajectory.  In High School, Shakira was a Gold Key student. We were very inspired by her artistic expression in painting. In fact, in 2021 she ran a business called Sunnysideupke, an online art business that supported her friend and Novaneer classmate Jeanne Sere to donate sanitary pads to a centre in Kibera.

After pursuing her high school education, she applied for the alumni internship program at Nova Pioneer where she joined the Marketing team as the Content Creation Intern. Curating content for the Nova Pioneer Kenya social media handles was a project that she enjoyed doing. Her dedication, innate flair for innovation, and creative ideas contributed to her success in that role.  She held this position for close to a year before joining University. This experience bolstered her portfolio and enabled her to continue engaging in the social media space as a student assistant at the University of St. Thomas.

When she joined the university, she enrolled in an environmental studies course but switched to Civil Engineering due to an interest in urban planning and landscape architecture. With each lecture, project, and discussion Shakira has expressed that she finds herself increasingly drawn to the world of Civil Engineering, its challenges, and possibilities igniting a new fire within.

 

Personal Scoop

During her free time, Shakira enjoys watching  Netflix and reading African literature. She enjoyed reading  “Havoc of Choice,” authored by Wanjiru Koinange. A book that she highly recommends for all who find reading engaging. 

 

The Nova Pioneer effect

Shakira felt prepared for the professional and university environment because of the Nova Pioneer culture that challenged her to set high expectations, grow from every challenge, and defined her as a Novaneer. She learned to structure her time when she was in High School. She expressed that she had support from her teachers notably Mr. Godfrey Otaka and Ms. Margaret, that helped her in her journey from being shy and reserved in opinion to being confident and outgoing in nature.

If you want to find out more about how we prepare our Novaneers to create their future, take a moment to click here and get scheduled for one of our Campus Experiences.

 

As the Global systems and Analytics Coordinator at Nova Pioneer this is my story.

I was nominated and voted as the Joy of Learning culture hero for the  year 2023. The news of my milestone did not come as a shock to me. This is bold to state but I have confidence in this stance due to feedback from my manager and my colleagues who see my passion for what I do.

At Nova Pioneer, Joy of Learning is about bringing infectious energy and delight into the learning space, because we believe joy fuels learning and hard work. This culture principle is centered around curiosity, exploration and a love for learning. I believe I embody this culture Principle because of how I approach my day to day duties with curiosity to learn and improve the details of my work. My passion areas are in; dashboards, trackers and surveys. It brings me great joy to teach my colleagues what I learn, from formulas, to how to efficiently get a task done using tools available to us  like formulas, dashboards, or a recent one I taught a friend to make use of descript, a transcribing application, instead of typing out a recording from a meeting. I believe when there is joy, exploration and curiosity , we get so much more from an experience, be it a book we pick up to read, a topic we research on or a lesson we deliver.

Having an objective mindset has been such an asset in my professional journey. Many teammates in Nova have offered me support, advice and tools that have spurred my growth as a person and a professional, and I believe it’s because I was not rigid to learn, I was curious and I ask questions, and I often have self reflections to keep myself accountable. To learn , we have to be willing to fail forward. Seek out new challenges, seek thought partnerships and support when we are stuck, and own up to our failures when they come, because those are opportunities that give us new perspectives and  a sense of direction. 

When you trace anyone’s growth journey others will be mentioned in it. To grow, we need to stretch out our hands for others to pull us up or push us up. Just like me, my manager Nicola and other teammates have enlightened me and directed me through giving  feedback , advice and encouragement. 

I delight in sharing what I learn and enlightening those around me as well. I have done this through giving feedback, offering support and lessons on how to organize data, or crunch numbers to some of our teachers, as well as having thought partnership sessions with others to problem solve, and this brings me great joy.

Nova Pioneer has provided me an opportunity to show up curious , ask questions, seek thought partnerships, celebrate progress and appreciate people. It is powerful to bring infectious energy into our learning space and celebrate progress, and I’m glad I learnt this early in my career. I give my thanks to the Nova Pioneer Culture. 

To create more stories like mine, take a second and give a glance to our Career Page. 

June 16th is a day set aside to remember and celebrate the African Child. Every year on this date, the African Union and its Member States observe the Day of the African Child (DAC) as a commemoration of the 16th June 1976 student uprising in Soweto, South Africa, where students who marched in protest against apartheid-inspired education, were brutally murdered. 

People worldwide celebrate this day by highlighting awareness about the education system in Africa by sharing their views via social media using some hashtags for example #educationforAfrica, #InternationalDayOfTheAfricanChild. Contributions are also made to organizations that work towards improving education for the African child. 

This year, a deep emphasis was put to raise awareness on having Access to a child-friendly Justice and education System in Africa. This augers very well with the Nova Pioneer Mission of developing generations of innovators and leaders who will shape the African Century. It was therefore our pleasure to have our students join the rest of the world to celebrate this day. 

HOW WE MARKED THE DAY AT OUR ATHI RIVER CAMPUS

Reading is an important skill in every child’s life. Book reading can spark a child’s imagination and stimulate curiosity, help develop the child’s brain, ability to focus, concentration, social skills and communication skills it also helps a child learn the difference between ‘real’ and ‘make-believe.

To underscore the importance of the reading skill among our students and parents at NPAP, what better way was there to celebrate The day of the African Child than to participate in STORY MOJA PUBLISHERS READ ALOUD PROGRAMME. In this, our students joined children from all over Kenya to break the world record in reading.

The aim was to have every child in Kenya read the same text at the same time from their own school. To make this more interesting, our P.T.A class representatives read with the students instead of having the teachers do it. The parents representatives then led the students in asking and answering some questions from the text read. The data was then forwarded to the publisher awaiting tallying to see whether the world reading record is coming to Kenya, we are anxiously awaiting the results! 

Our day in school at NPAP rarely ends without a “Joy of Learning Moment ” and this day was not going to be any different. Our students engaged in  various activities depicting African art work – Face painting, making head crowns decorated with feathers, some bead work and making of African dancing costumes. 

 

 

 

Happy New Year! Hands up if you have already broken your new year’s resolution? I know I have because I did not make any at the end of last year. I chose to work on building a morning routine in 2020. 

Morning-routine stories are all the hype right now in the genre of self-help and self-improvement. The internet is full of stories about how the rich and the famous reveal how they are almost superhuman and energetic based on how they start their day. In those stories, they meditate, run several kilometres, brew the perfect cup of coffee, do some yoga—all before 8 am. The key lesson I inferred from all these articles: a carefully choreographed morning routine is the key to a productive day. These people have it together, the stories seem to imply, and so can you, if you just wake up at 5:30 a.m.

Is this really the case though? The demands of life are different for all of us; kids, traffic, you hate waking up early, and living 20km from the nearest gym sometimes hamper our efforts to model the routines of successful CEOs and Hollywood actors. So how do I become as successful and create a routine that sets me up for success?

I have been working on using my time in the morning to accomplish activities that are personally meaningful or require discipline but are not necessarily related to my work. For me, that has been prayer and meditation. For others, it is exercise or spending time with family or writing for a blog. Things that are personally meaningful tend to be healthy habits that set you up to have a good day.

Creating healthy habits

“Routines are very much linked to habits,” said Martin Hagger, a professor in the School of Psychology and Speech Pathology at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Hagger studies self-regulation – in other words, how people control their behaviour. His research has shown that creating a routine can be an effective way to create healthy habits because it decreases the effort that comes with decision-making. Hagger has applied his research in his own daily life. He gets up most days by 6 am to exercise and eat a healthy breakfast before arriving at work at 8 am. He said that if he leaves exercising until after his workday ends, he knows he will be too tired or be tempted by other distractions to fit it in. So, before he goes to bed, he lays out his workout gear and sets his alarm for the morning.

But, there are no hard and fast rules. Experts say there is no one ideal time to start your day – every person has different goals, schedules and life situations – they key is to set aside time for a morning routine that works for you. And, if you’re struggling to get up, set your alarm slightly earlier each day until you’re in the habit of waking up early enough.

How to go about building a healthy habit

Building a habit is easier than you think. And if previously you struggled to build one, as one author puts it, when building a habit “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” 

A habit loop was first mentioned in 1938 by B.F. Skinner in his book ‘The Behavior of Organisms’ as ‘stimulus, response, reward’. Charles Duhigg popularized the concept of the habit loop in his widely popular book ‘The Power of Habit’. In the book, he presents a habit loop formula, that helps you understand and build any habit and basically consists of;

CUE + ROUTINE + REWARD.

What is a cue?

A cue could be anything from a place, time of day, location to smell, sound or emotion. Basically, anything that triggers a certain action or thought and puts your mind and body into the mode of performing a certain routine.

For example, getting into the darkroom, which automatically triggers your habit of looking for a light switch. Or taking the toothbrush and applying toothpaste the way you always do.

What is a routine?

A Routine is an actual behavior, ritual, action you perform that will turn into the habit once performed frequently enough. Thus, turning on the light, applying toothpaste, going into the kitchen. The actions that follow the trigger.

What is a reward?

A Reward is a feeling of satisfaction you get whenever you successfully finish the routine. It sends a positive signal to your brain saying ‘Doing this feels good, you should do more of it!’.

To follow the examples already given, it’s the feeling of being able to see things clearly in the room and feeling of freshness in the mouth when brushing the teeth.

How To Use Habit Loop To Build A Morning Routine?

Firstly, I’ve tried the habit loop formula myself and it works. My own morning routine looks roughly like this:

• Wake up 6.00am
• Pray and meditate for 10min
• Make the bed
• Take a shower

Would you like to have more structured mornings too? Then, follow these 5 steps.

1. Write down things that you do every morning already
   Waking up, grabbing a phone, stepping out of the bed, taking a shower, heading to the fridge and so on. Be as detailed as possible. This is NOT a place to judge yourself or write a routine you WANT to have. Just write things out as they are.
2. Choose a habit you want to add into your morning routine
   The key to building a routine is started by adding habits one by one. Choose a habit your really you want to have as part of your mornings and then go to step 3.
3. Stack new habit right on top of one of your current habits
   For example, if you take a shower every morning, you could say: “after I take a shower, I will meditate for 10mins”.This concept is called habit stacking and has a simple formula: After/Before I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].
4. Make it easy, set small targets first
   So small that you could do it even if you’re late to work, sick or have no energy. For example, meditating for at least 3 minutes every morning no matter what. This way you will not feel overwhelmed by the whole mission of building your personal morning ritual and will be more likely to stick with it long enough for it to become a habit. Don’t make a mistake most of us do – starting big with a mentality of ‘all or nothing’, just because we have this sudden boost of motivation and willpower. It’s a short-sighted strategy that fails 9/10 times because life gets in the way.
5. Track it
   Download one of the habit tracking apps or print this habit chain sheet we’ve prepared for you. By tracking your habit, you will shoot many birds with one stone – you’ll make it satisfying by seeing your progress, you’ll be motivated to keep going and you’ll get an additional trigger to perform your routine.

After a couple of weeks, this will become more and more automatic for you. And a couple of months later you won’t even remember life without your new habit!

Written by: Moses Wachira, Growth & Expansion Manager at Nova Pioneer.

Task batching is a time management system that maximizes concentration, productivity, creativity, and mental sharpness while minimizing distraction, stress, and fatigue. Do any of these sound familiar?

Basically, task batching is where you group a long list of similar tasks together to complete during a dedicated time period with no interruptions. This cuts down on the time it takes for your brain to switch and refocus between different tasks. The logic behind this is that it takes time for you to get into a rhythm with whatever you’re working on. If you constantly start and stop that process, you’re wasting time getting back into your rhythm or catching up to where you left off.

If you are like me, you are always doing a million things at once and my mind moves like a formula one race car. I used to take pride in my ability to multi-task. I’d like to think I  am insanely passionate about my work, so every task is urgent and I want it as soon as possible. Before I started task batching, I’d switch from task to task in an exhausting never-ending loop. All of this switching comes at a cost. Your brain needs time to refocus on the task at hand – about 25 min to be exact. If you’re anything like me, distractions are everywhere. Our workflow is regularly interrupted by emails, meetings, fires, texts, calls, coffee breaks, driving, errands… life. We end up letting these distractions take priority over what we really want to get done.

Once your brain is focused on a certain type of task, capitalize on that focus until the task is complete. It’s the effort it takes our brain to switch between tasks that make us tired, stressed, and unproductive… not the task itself. That’s why task batching is like therapy and meditation for your workflow.

With task batching you stay focused on a certain task and can achieve flow: a mental state where we get “in the zone,” distractions dissipate, and the work becomes easier.

HOW TO START TASK BATCHING RIGHT NOW

1. Pull out your to-do list. (If you don’t already have one, get it together.)
2. Group similar tasks logically by their function and location 
3. Split your day into segments and assign each task category a dedicated window of time

TASK BATCHING REALNESS

A few things you should know:

• Life happens. Things come up, and I can’t always stick to my task batching calendar; you have to give yourself some wiggle room. If you need to adjust, just move that task to another timeslot and readjust your calendar. Don’t go back to multi-tasking!
• Task batch planning takes time. So you’re going to need to task batch that too.
• You can make it fun! use different colors on your Google Calendar for different tasks.
• You need to do everything you can to minimize distractions. I turned off email alerts, and often put my phone in another room. It’s such a relief to not check my email and socials constantly – like a burden has been lifted. I make fewer careless mistakes. I feel in control rather than disoriented.

How can you use this in your day-to-day life to learn how to improve productivity at work today?

• Instead of spreading out data entry and reporting tasks throughout the week, set a block of time to knock it all out at once
• Set meetings with colleagues back to back in the afternoon
• Use the “2-Minute Rule” to knock out small tasks and beat procrastination
• Work in 90 minute increments
• Respond to emails for a chunk of time in the afternoon

Here’s to getting stuff done and improving your productivity!

Written by Moses Wachira, Growth & Expansion Manager at Nova Pioneer.