Moshi Campus News – 22 Sep 2019

The UWC Mission statement is “UWC makes education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.” For us here this week started with our Peace Assembly and ended with UWC Day which focused on change for the future. 

Currently on campus we are looking at different aspects of how we operate now, and how we would like to operate in the future.  A large part of this is trying to make the school more sustainable.  To do this effectively we need to work together to plan out targets and the required strategies to reach these targets in the upcoming months and years.  Some students, parents and community members have already offered to help us with this planning.  If you have an interest and willingness that could help us, please let me know.

This next week as you can see below there is a large focus on the physical side of life with the Sports Days and Primary sports trips as well as the OP trip leaving on Saturday.  However, the intellectual will not be ignored as we have Harvard and MIT visiting Friday to talk with students.

Please note as well that the M1 to M3 students will start the MAP testing on Monday.

Parents of residential students that need transportation on October 4th, please remember to contact Mr Horne soon so he has time to prepare for the travel.

Bob Cofer – Head of Campus

On Monday we celebrated International Day of Peace with an assembly. Pictures drawn by last year’s M1 to M3 students for the Pieces for Peace project were shown as we entered. Then students from EC to D2 shared what peace meant to them. After being reminded that not everyone has an opportunity to experience peace, all students spent a minute reflecting on what peace means to them. After that we went outside to form a human peace symbol. M1 had marked out the peace symbol and organised the school to come out in the correct order. An article written by them will be in next week’s newsletter.

Our first conferences of the year are coming soon with the PYP conferences on Wednesday October 2nd and the secondary conferences on Friday October 4th.  More information about these conferences and how to sign up will be coming separately.

The 24 Hour Run highlighted that being a teacher at UWCEA is, in many ways, a 24 hour role. More or less every teacher at UWCEA is part of the residential team and, as such, has a vital and significant role to play in shaping and guiding far more than just the academic development of our students. Teaching and working in a residential school is certainly different to teaching and working in a day school. I guess it is the equivalent of a shopkeeper living above the store.

The line between the end of the ‘school day,’ the academics, and the rest of the day is often not clearly defined. What’s more, with many of our teachers also living on campus or very close by, the division between home and work life can also become a little blurred. A teacher’s commitments often spill over into weekends. The students at UWCEA have so many opportunities to be involved in such a variety of experiences only because of the commitment and dedication of the staff who willingly facilitate this. OP trips, excursions, sports, productions, music, debating, service learning, cooking, social events, celebrations and so on. The list is endless and forever being augmented and improved.

Such an involved and all encompassing experience brings great rewards. It is wonderful to be part of such a connected and close community and to feel part of something truly meaningful. Working with students, both in and out of the classroom, allows teachers to build healthy relationships. Most educators still long to inspire students to pursue their dreams and passions and truly value these connections.

However, the flip side is that teachers need to also remember to take time for themselves. To get off campus and experience life in Africa away from Lema Road and environs. Unfortunately, ‘burnout’ is fast becoming a modern day epidemic in the teaching profession. The risk being that undue stress can have a negative impact on a teacher’s well-being and, in turn, their willingness to maintain relationships with the students. If this is the case, we need to do all we can to keep passionate, capable teachers in their roles. It should be a shared goal.

So, this Saturday, if you saw a teacher supporting the activities at UWC Day, running swimming or football clubs or, even, taking part in the Accessibility Walk on Sunday morning, remember, a small thank you goes a long way.

Ben Morley – Deputy Head of Campus

Our Diploma students are well into the flow of the year. For D1 students it started with a meeting with the potential Ujamamas and Ujababas. This is a UWC tradition where local families become hosts to the students. The name comes from the Swahili word Ujamaa meaning extended family. We are still in the process of matching students and families.

The service projects have continued with students going out to Simba Foundation and More than a Drop. The Sparkling Elephant Project held a bake sale and have plans to sell ice cream at Sports Day. The Environment Club sold juice at the Farmer’s Market and showed their Eco credentials by using metal cups and washing them up.  Tuesdays have a large number of student-initiated activities happening. In particular, this week the cooking club made tomato sauce for pasta and the yearbook club started their planning. More details and some photographs of these will be given in future newsletters.

The D2 students have been busy with internal assessments and school assessments in time for their End of Quarter Reports. They are all working on their TOK presentations which will start next week. TOK or Theory of Knowledge is at the core of the Diploma along with Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS) and the Extended Essay. TOK is about how we know, what we know. They look at the Ways of Knowing for example Language and Sense Perception. Their presentation is a chance to analyse different Real Life Situation through these. This is part of their assessment along with an Essay.

On Monday all diploma students got a chance to hear about some US universities with a talk from Stanford, Cornell, Columbia and Princeton. This also covered the admissions process generally and so was helpful for all students. Next week they will get a chance to hear from Harvard and MIT and the following week we have some International Universities.

Margaret Brunt – DP Coordinator

We had another busy week of learning how to create balance with a special moment of experiencing a natural form of stress relief. Mr. Kileo and I continue to be aware of the stress levels that our students are dealing with, and the need to help them explore healthy ways to address the stress. It is wonderful to see students participating in activities like yoga and the arts to help them develop ways to cope through the challenging times that they will experience during the academic year in this rigorous, yet supportive, environment. We want to encourage all students (and adults) to find outlets that allow them to release and regroup throughout each week. Over the weekend, I witnessed some of our students go through the stress of climbing a challenging mountain for the first time, then the relief and joy they felt when they realized what they had accomplished. Let’s all encourage our students to push themselves to do their best, but also help them work on their ability to rejuvenate as they celebrate their efforts along the way. Take a breath and enjoy the stress free view.

Also, we have two more university visits this month that may be beneficial for our students to attend as they learn more about their post secondary options. The presentation this week by four US universities was a wonderful opportunity to understand the unique aspects of some highly selective universities and the holistic admissions process. The students asked lots of great questions as they continue to expand their horizons. Next up we have the following visits:

• 27 September: Harvard and M.I.T.
• 30 September: International Universities

In addition, we are also looking forward to some virtual meetings with university representatives when we return from the October break, so stay tuned for more information coming soon. Preparation is the key to success, and we aim to ensure that all students have the information they need to make the best possible choices for life after UWC East Africa.

Cassandra Ford – University & Socio-emotional Counselor

M2 IDU Trip
M2 class trip to Pangani for an Interdisciplinary learning coordinated by the Mathematics and the Individuals and Societies departments from both Arusha and Moshi campuses ended on Friday Sept 20. Conversations with the teachers on the trip indicated students were enjoying their learning away from the regular classroom.

MAP Tests
The MAP tests for M1-M3 are scheduled to begin on Monday September 23, 2019. The tests will not be done on Tuesday September 24 since we have Secondary Athletics Day. The tests will then resume the following day on Wednesday. MAP Tests are computer-based tests where students are tested in English Language, Reading and Mathematics. M3 students also take a test in Science. 

M5 eAssessment
The M5 students have been given data forms for registration with the IB. All students are requested to return these forms latest by Friday September 27.  As all students submit their Personal Project to the IB we need the forms from each student.  Please remember to contact Mr Cofer to opt in for the eAssessment if you would like your child to be registered for these.

MYP Service
With M2 students off campus for IDU trip; students left in Bee Keeping, Community Garden and Day Care spent much of Wednesday writing reflections about what they have done so far in their service projects. Karanga River, Pamoja Tunaweza and Eco programmes continued with their normal planning and activities as usual.

David Ochieng – MYP Coordinator

It has been another action-packed week for students residing on campus which, as ever, has kept them busy.

The school week began on Monday with a World Peace Day whole-school Assembly involving a number of different presentations and culminating in the making of a human peace symbol, consisting of staff and students, outside of Karibu Hall on the school green. This was recorded by some really clever aerial photography taken by a drone owned by the father of one of our students.

Monday also saw visits and presentations by Ivy League Universities which was well attended by our D1 and D2 students, and Black Box Theatre school play auditions held by our new Drama teacher Mr Coldwell.

During Monday evening a successful Link Parents Meeting was held to which new members of our D1 resident students were also invited. This new venture headed by parents and friends of our school aims to forge links between themselves and our overseas students, providing our resident students with a valuable opportunity to take some time out, off campus, to relax and socialise. I look forward to seeing how this venture develops over time, and would like to thank all the parents and friends of our school who have volunteered to become part of our Link Parents Initiative.

On Thursday auditions were held for Primary students who were wishing to be considered for a place to perform during our official UWC East Africa opening ceremony.

This week Mr Owain our Early Childhood teacher very kindly hosted our Primary resident students at his home where they had fun playing games and learning about how to create a garden. After dark this week our Primary Residential Parents arranged a bonfire for our Primary residents which kept them nice and warm during a chilly evening, and gave them the opportunity to roast and eat maize.

During Friday afternoon friendly under 9 and under 11 football matches took place at school between our school and another local school.

Today saw all resident students involved in UWC Day, which began with a short assembly hosted by students with the theme of environmental change, and the viewing of a very interesting presentation made by Ms Laura Tarimo, one of our new Teachers, about the making of her environmentally friendly mud-constructed home. Students and staff then split off into groups which were involved in various environmental initiatives, including the tidying up of the Community Garden, the labelling of trees and the creation of a UWC hedge.

There is never a quiet moment here at school!

I would like to remind all Parents and Guardians to forward me the travel details of your child/children as soon as possible, and in time for me to arrange their school transport at the end of this Quarter and the beginning of the next.

Ian Horne – Head of Residential Life

Last weekend, 30 D1 students and 8 staff from both campuses began their quest for OP level 1B – North Pares Mountains.  The effort, the enthusiasm and the drive to not be defeated by this peak were all wonderful.  Even some of the singing was ok!

Everyone made it up the 2000ft climb and down the 3000ft descent by traversing 17km over two days.  Camping on the ridge at the top was magical, even if our starry night gave way to a very foggy morning.

One of the most impressive aspects of our journey was the fact that only 2 people in our large group have ever taken this route before.

The teaching staff would like to thank Isack, Isaac and Salimu for their leadership and experience and for keeping us safe and on track from beginning to end.

To the students:  You were an incredible team who perservered, supported one another, and were a joy to spend the weekend with…see you on Hanang!

Good luck to the students representing our U9 and U11 soccer teams on Tuesday the 24th as they travel to Kennedy House for their first tournament of the year and also to our Primary and U13 UWCEA Moshi Leopard Sharks who travel to Kennedy House for the first swim meet of the year on Friday the 27th.

Tuesday we will be holding the Secondary Sports Day, all M1 to D2 students will be off timetable and on the field competing or cheering for their houses. So come down and support our athletes.

Wednesday the 25th September we will have all Primary off timetable and competing in the inter house Athletics day. Please come and support our young athletes.

Upcoming Sports Events

Community Events

Don’t forget the Rugby World Cup has started on Friday the 20th Sept. Keep up with all the action here https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/.

Robin Marsh
Activities and Athletics Coordinator

Last Saturday, 4 children and 7 parents wearing bright orange shirts representing the UWCEA Moshi Campus took part in the Arusha Rotary Triathlon. It was a hot but fun and exciting day with everyone from our team making it up onto the podium! Special mention goes to Anna Bachmann (swimmer), Hugo van Zwetslaar (cyclist) & Doris van Zwetslaar (runner) who came 3rd in the U19 Team event and, to Maria Bachmann (swimmer) who, together with her team member, Vincent Goldberg (cyclist & runner), came 1st in the Amateur Team event!! The money raised through the entries was donated to the Watoto Foundation –http://www.watotofoundation.nl/en. Many thanks go to our fan club: Rieke, Sara & Zane.

The week began with our Peace Day assembly. The children were a vision in blue and white. They very much enjoyed having their photo taken by a drone whilst they stood in the peace symbol on the green.

The P4, P5 and P6 students completed their online MAP tests this week. Many thanks to Ms. Grace and Mr. Peter for their technical support. The results of these assessments will be emailed to you shortly. The data will help your child’s teacher plan the next steps in his/her learning.

This weekend is a busy one. On Saturday  UWCEA celebrated its first UWC day. There were many fun activities planned and lots of the PYP children took part. On Sunday the PYP children who work with KCMC as an after school activity will participate in the Day for Tomorrow walk.  The 2 km walk around Moshi will start from the Shree HIndu Mandal temple at 7:30 AM. Well done to these children for demonstrating caring behaviour and raising awareness of the difficulties faced by people with disabilities.

There are a lot of sporting events next week. Tuesday sees our soccer team heading for SCIS and on Friday there is a swim meet at Kennedy House. Wednesday will be the PYP athletics day. All children should wear their house shirts and appropriate footwear. They should put sunscreen on before coming to school and be sure to bring a hat and a water bottle with them.

Congratulations to those PYP students that took part in auditions for the opening ceremony. They all demonstrated courageous, risk-taking behaviour. The judges will let us know who has been selected to perform at the opening ceremony. All audition participants will have the opportunity to share their performance with a PYP audience.

The early American educationalist John Dewey wrote that teaching “must be flexible enough to permit free play for individuality of experience and yet firm enough to give direction towards continuous development”. The PYP has a series of coordinated units. Each has a ‘Central Idea’ and a small handful of ‘Lines of Inquiry’. Exactly how each unit is planned or unfolds is left very much to teachers and children as they negotiate needs and interests. This terms framework for EC has been:

Central Idea:     

• Every day we can learn to do more for ourselves.

Lines of Inquiry:                  

• How we grow and change
• Things we can learn to do independently
• Ways we can help others

Dewey believed that providing opportunities for connected and worthwhile experience (educative) versus disconnected and chaotic ones (miseducative) would be essential to a well-developed and progressive education in the future. He was particularly interested in experiences that help develop a sense of self-control. Clearly, many human impulses and experiences (often seen quite clearly in the interactions between our littlest ones) can be gratifying without being useful:

“It may be a loss rather than a gain to escape from the control of another person only to find one’s conduct dictated by immediate whim and caprice; that is, at the mercy of impulses into whose formation intelligent judgment has not entered”.

We’ve been working on the children’s interests and guiding them in their growth and change. The older children are beginning to take control of their own independent learning. The younger ones are starting to play and interact with others in a fair and equitable way with decreasing guidance. As we come towards the end of our unit, some children will be helping others by providing mini-lessons on what they have learned. Others will be beginning to understand that through helping friends to play and explore together -by sharing and thinking about others- their own experiences can also become more fruitful and fun.

Owain Evans

The P2 students have been exploring ch, sh, th and wh diagraphs this week. They have been sorting pictures, reading through words and reading guided readers to look for words with these diagraphs. We have decided that we need to look more closely at the th diagraph and we will be doing so this coming week. We read a book which had a lot of apostrophes and used it to model our writing. We know now how to show things that belong to us in a sentence. P1s have been continuing to cement their knowledge of consonant sounds. Some have already begun to form and read three letter words. It is an exciting time for us all.

In math, we have been counting on using number lines, number squares, fingers, and cubes. ‘Aha!’ ‘I got it!’ ‘Yes!’ These have been some of the shouts across our classroom this week. We will continue with addition for the coming two weeks. P2s are now using www.extramath.com to work on their addition math facts. If you would like them to continue at home, please let me know and I will share their passwords with you.

Mboka Mwasongwe

It’s hard to believe we’re a week away from the end of our first unit of inquiry! The students have been busy working on completing little parts of work that will be compiled to make up their summative assessment. This week students have been talking to various PYP teachers and EAs and gathering information on what they did after school as children. P3 will now compare this information with what they do after school in order to take a look at the similarities and differences in lifestyles over time. They will depict this information in a Venn diagram which they will then present to their peers at the end of next week.

We have been looking at verbs in class this week, and this easily falls into place with activity choices after school. We have been talking about mathematical problems with doubles addition, as well as problems with doubles +1. It has been another busy week in class!

I have added a video onto Seesaw that we made this week about what peace means to the students. Please take a look at the video, or email me and I will share a link.

A reminder that next Wednesday is Athletics Day and students should come to school in their house t-shirts.

Elisha Jaffer

It has been great to read about all the activities that happened during the week and how the community got together for the Peace assembly as well as tending to the community garden.

The  P4s  have been winding up with prime numbers, repeated addition as a form of multiplication and a little touch in Estimation in Math. We tried to identify prime numbers from a hundred number square. This work on the number system has set a good base for them to work on bigger numbers as we move forward.

In UOI we were able to finalize our research on heroes and the positive and negative impact they had on the society.  We also shared our UWCEA heroes information with the P3. The children also enjoyed working on a book reflection and went further to draw the  characters, setting, problems and solutions in the story.

In the coming week we will be celebrating our unit by exploring key literary works done by world heroes. We will be looking at the writing process and different graphic organizers that help us in the writing  process. I am sure the children will be keen to share their experience of their first MAP test and this will give us an opportunity to review Math concepts covered and set targets for the goal setting conferences.

Cathy Wambua-Saha

Testing is done, and the P5 did a great job staying focused and respecting the testing environment. The class is also working to complete their unit posters to share for presentations. Next week we have quite a few sports activities both in school and away, so our presentation day will be on the 3rd of October at 8:00. Next week the class will work both in class to organize their personal summatives, and do some additional research at home.

Wednesday is Athletics Day for the Primary. Please encourage your child to drink water before coming to school. They also need to remember to wear their team shirt, as well as bring a water bottle and hat. Sunscreen is encouraged as the days have been getting sunny. The class enjoyed their swim time this week, as it allowed a refreshing break from the hot day. If your child is attending sporting events, please ensure they are well rested and prepared.

Sarah Brummel

The highlight of the week in P6 was our primary gathering on the theme of exploration. Thank you to all parents and boarding parents for your support. The children’s costumes and their homemade artefacts were wonderful and they addressed the audience with confidence. I am looking forward to their presentations next week in K Hall (Thursday 26th September, 8:15 – 9:00 AM.) We hope to see many of you there. This week the children took their online MAP assessments in Reading, Language and Maths. The results should be shared with you soon and will give us clear goals of what the next steps in learning should be. Next week we will bring our exploration inquiry to a close. Many of the children will be travelling to sports fixtures on Tuesday and Friday. We also have Primary Athletics day on Wednesday – please remind your child to wear a house shirt on that day.

Deborah Mills