Moshi Campus News – 15 Aug 2026

The new school year is off and running. Almost all of our new and returning students are back on campus. We welcome all the new students and families to our Moshi community.

For those of you who are new to the newsletter, this is an opportunity for you to keep up with everything at UWC East Africa Moshi Campus. It is a mixture of staff and student written items that let you know what has happened, and what is coming up. It will have regular sections from residential life and our different programs as well as sections about service, sustainability, outdoor pursuits and sports.

Please read through the items below to see a little of what has happened this week.

In planning ahead over the next two weeks, I would like to highlight three items, one is that Monday at 10:30am we will have the opening assembly on the Green, parents are invited to join us. Second is that on Friday the 21st teachers from Moshi and Arusha will be working together on some different training initiatives so there are no classes. Lastly, on likely the 25th or 26th of August there is a National Holiday, Maulid. As this holiday depends on the moon cycle, we will not know until the day before when it will be. We will announce this to the community as we hear.

Please use the UWCEA Calendar to keep up with events on campus or in Arusha.

Once again, a big welcome (or welcome back) and I hope everyone has a great year.

Bob Cofer – Head of Campus

I’ve asked some of our DP students how the first week went and I got responses from “so chilled” to “very overwhelming.” It’s completely normal to have a range of responses in the first week (and every week after this!)

I walked around the classes this week and saw so many moments of connection. During advisory, D2 students took the D1 students on tours of the school, some played scavenger hunts searching for clues around campus. The D2 Swahili class revised last year’s content in the form of plays, the French classes went outside to begin the discussions on identity. The D1 Art students were experimenting with different techniques, including ink on a string! Both D1 and D2 English classes have started novels, with the D1 Language and Literature students reading the graphic novel, the Arrival which follows the story of an immigrant (much like many of them who have just moved to Moshi.)

D1 students heard more about Project Week which is a week off timetable where they can travel around Tanzania to complete a project of their choice. In previous years we have had students travel to Dar to volunteer at an animal shelter, to Pangani to clean up the beach, to USA River to learn about Tanzanian’s astronomy center. It’s an amazing opportunity to get to know the host country, develop independence and complete a passion project. More details to come.

Next week will look different as the introductions are done and they settle in after the Pamoja walk this weekend. Lockers will be available from next week and students can see me for more details.

Please note there is no school on Friday the 21st as teachers have an inset training day.

Catherine Dowie – Head of Diploma

Dear UWCEA Community,

We made it through the first week, and what a week it was!

There’s a particular kind of energy that settles over campus during orientation. It’s part nervous, part electric, part “wait, where is the dining hall again?” And this week, that energy was everywhere: in the breezeway, in the classrooms, in the dorms as new students figured out which drawer sticks and which housemate snores. By Friday, something had shifted. Strangers had become names. Names had become faces you look for at breakfast. That shift doesn’t happen by accident, and this week, I want to name the people and the work behind it.

Our MYP and DP Orientation Crew carried so much of this week on their shoulders, and they carried it with warmth. These are students who remember exactly what it felt like to be new here, and who chose to spend their first days back not settling into their own routines, but walking newcomers through the basics: where things are, how things work, who to ask when you’re lost, literally or otherwise. That’s generosity. That’s leadership that doesn’t need a title to matter.

Alongside them, our teachers and staff led and co-led workshops that went well beyond logistics. We talked about our school values, not as words on a wall but as choices we make daily. We talked about wellbeing, and what it actually looks like to check in on yourself and on each other before things get hard. We practiced conflict resolution, because community isn’t the absence of friction; it’s what we do when the friction shows up. We built teams, set norms together rather than having them handed down, and kept returning to the bigger question underneath all of it: why are we here, at this school, at this moment, together?

That last question doesn’t get answered once. It gets answered again and again, in a workshop circle, in a hallway conversation, in the moment a new student realizes someone remembered their name.

To our new students: welcome. You’ve already started building something here, even if it doesn’t feel like it yet.

To our Orientation Crew: thank you for leading with your whole selves. You set the tone for everyone who walked in behind you.

To our teachers and staff: thank you for treating this week as more than logistics, for making values, wellbeing, and belonging feel like the real curriculum they are.

Orientation week ends, but the work it started doesn’t. Here’s to a year of showing up for each other, asking the big questions, and building the kind of belonging that lasts well past the first week.

Best,
Adnan Mackovic – Head of Student Life

And We’re Off!
Tuesday through Thursday saw our MYP students kick off the new school year with three busy days of MYP Orientation. The programme was designed to help students reconnect, build new relationships, get to know the campus and community, and prepare for the year ahead.

Across the three days, students took part in team-building activities, advisory sessions, well-being and trust activities, service and clubs introductions, sustainability activities, school expectations, MYP programme orientation, and plenty of opportunities to reflect and connect. New students also had dedicated time to settle in, ask questions, set up their accounts, and get to know how life in the MYP works.

A BIG thank you goes to our amazing Student Orientation Committee, or as they call themselves the “OC”, who did an incredible job helping to plan, lead and support the orientation activities. Their energy, leadership and willingness to step up helped make our new and returning students feel welcome. We are very proud of them!

And now… the seriously fun part begins: learning!
From Friday, students joined their regular classes, and we began settling into the rhythms of the new academic year. The first few weeks are about much more than jumping straight into content. Students will get to know their teachers and classmates, exploring new units and questions, establishing classroom routines and expectations, and beginning to think, inquire, create, collaborate and challenge themselves.

Parents and guardians, please keep an eye out for incoming communication from your child’s Class Advisor as we get the year underway. Advisors are an important point of connection between home and school and will be supporting students throughout the year.

We are excited for what lies ahead and look forward to a year of curiosity, challenge, growth and plenty of learning along the way.

Meet the MYP Team 2026-2027

MYP Dates to Remember

• August 17th – All School Welcome Assembly
• August 19th – Service and Activities Fair
• August 21st – Teacher Inset Day (No Classes)
• August 22nd & 23rd – M1 to M3 Campcraft
• August 26th – Maulid Holiday (Tentative)
• September 28th to Oct 2nd – Week without Walls MYP
• October 7th – Last Day of Q1 After School
• October 8th to 18th – October Break (Inclusive)
• October 19th – First Day of Q2

Have a beautiful week ahead!
Farah Fawaz – Head of MYP

It is lovely to have the children back on campus after the long break. They are setting in, learning routines and making new friends. Thank you to everyone who attended the first Primary Gathering of the year on Friday.

We received some good news over the break. Congratulations to Adrian (P6) and Luke (last year’s P5) who received silver and bronze medals respectively in the South African Maths Competition which took place in May.

On Monday there will be a whole school assembly. This will have mainly a secondary school focus. The theme is “house colours”. For the benefit of new families the house colours are as follows:

• Kibo – blue
• Mawenzi – green
• Meru – yellow

Your child is welcome to wear any clothes in that colour or to wear his/her house shirt (available from the front office.) Wearing these colours is optional – if your child does not wish to participate, that is okay.

The after-school clubs sign up will be shared with you by the middle of next week. We rely on people other than teachers or EAs to volunteer to run a PYP club (2 -3pm) so that we can offer a varied programme. Please consider offering a club. If you are interested, please email me on deborahmills@uwcea.org before Tuesday.

I am sharing a list of useful dates for the semester. These dates are on the calendar but please be aware that some of them may change. Please note that the PYP meet the teacher night will be on Thursday, 20th August at 6pm.  Friday is a teacher INSET day when the staff on both campuses meet for training. I will share the dates of upcoming primary gatherings in a later newsletter.

• Monday, 17th August – Whole school assembly 10:30am
• Thursday, 20th August – PYP meet the teacher event 6pm
• Friday, 21st August – Inset Day with Arusha Campus – no classes
• Monday, 24th August – Q1 Clubs start
• Wednesday, 30th September – Primary Goal Setting Conferences – no classes
• Wednesday, 7th October – Classes end
• Monday, 19th October – Classes start
• Monday, 26th October – Q2 Clubs start
• Wednesday, 28th October – PYP Athletics Day
• Friday, 30th October – Primary Halloween Trunk or Treat (optional)
• Wed 4th – Thursday 5th Nov – PYPx Overnight Retreat for P6
• Monday, 7th December – Primary reports issued
• Tuesday, 8th December – PYP Parent Teacher conferences
• Wednesday, 9th December – Independence Day – no classes
• Friday, 11th December – Last day of classes

Deborah Mills – Head of PYP

New Beginnings, Curious Minds & Happy Hearts!

What a wonderful start to the new school year! We were so happy to welcome our students back to class and see their excitement as they explored our different learning stations.

The children had a lovely time connecting with friends, discovering the classroom, and engaging in play and hands-on experiences. It was a joyful beginning to our EC journey together!

During these first few days, we have also started building familiar routines and helping the children feel more comfortable, confident, and connected within their learning environment.

We are looking forward to a year filled with curiosity, creativity, meaningful learning, and lots of happy moments.

Thank you, parents, for your continued support. We are excited for all the wonderful learning experiences and discoveries that lie ahead!

Manal El Dahwish

What a great start to the school year. We began our unit by exploring why people work together. Through fun team challenges, games, and creating our Essential Agreements, the children discovered that listening, communicating, sharing ideas, and helping one another gets things done. The picture shared is of the children trying to complete a team challenge. They had to take 4 soft toys across the room using only the items given. No team member could return once they reached the other side. It was a great way to learn to work together as a team.

Next week, the children will look at what jobs need to be done in class, design a classroom job roster and talk about how we can choose who completes the job.

Mboka Mwasongwe

It’s been a great first week back for the P3/4’s. We have been working on getting to know each other again and working as part of a team. This week we have done many team challenges, including teacher vs student games, house team games and individual challenges. It’s been great to see old friendships reignite and new ones start to blossom.

Next week we will start to dive into our unit of How our communities and environments help us grow.

Sarah Vrontamitis

Tanisa has joined the P5 class. We hope she will be very happy with us. We spent the week completing a foil embossing art activity, learning new routines, exploring place value and discussing the balanced and risk taker attributes of the Learner Profile. Next week we will start our Unit of Inquiry.

The central idea is: People use forces and simple  machines to make work easier

The lines of inquiry are:

• Different types of forces and simple machines
• How forces affect movement
• How we design fair tests to investigate forces

We will be using a stomp rocket to investigate gravity and an air puck to investigate friction. If you have any plastic bottle lids or old CDs please send them to school as they will be useful for a construction project later in the week.

Please complete the parent questionnaire that was sent home in your child’s folder on Friday and return it to school by the end of the week.

Deborah Mills

Welcome to P6! We have had a fun and busy first week, exploring spelling and maths through games and working in teams to design catapults from a set selection of materials. The challenge was to fling a wet sponge as close to a hula hoop target as possible—with some very creative results!

Please check the class timetable so that students bring the correct clothing and equipment each day. Swimming lessons will begin in September. If you have not already done so, please complete the Google Form shared in the parent handout.

Home learning will begin next week, and I look forward to meeting P6 families at Parent Evening on Thursday!

Elisha Jaffer

On Wednesday, DP students from the Sustainability Committee helped organise an introduction to sustainability for MYP students as part of their orientation. Beginning in Rafiki, the students led a campus tour for the M1–M5 students with questions such as “How do we see sustainability in our school?” and “Which SDG goals do you feel are most important in our community?” This allowed the MYP students to critically engage in what it means to live in an environmentally conscious way in our community.

The tour proceeded from a reminder of the various waste and recycling systems on campus to the kitchens, where Sustainability Committee members explained the importance of “Meatless Mondays” and limiting food waste in our community. The students wound up with a visit to our campus chickens (kukus), whose eggs furnish Dining Hall’s breakfast each morning.

Highlighting the importance of sustainable food production and considering where our food comes from, we visited the community garden and learned about the school’s compost system and the various plants growing on campus with the help of the environmental service and gardening community, from squash to coffee trees.

This experience was a wonderful way for our committee to introduce sustainability in an outdoor and exciting setting for the MYPs, and we hope it will inspire the younger students to be mindful of sustainability in the school community going forward.
– Cara

We kicked off the new school year by familiarising the new D1s with sustainability on campus. Starting with questions and answers between pairs, we also provoked interesting discussions about their past experiences with sustainability fundamentals. However, we didn’t want to be confined to the walls of a classroom, so we led a walk showcasing different ongoing student-led sustainability projects: the waste management system, sustainability initiatives with the food department, the design service, the composting site, and the beehives. The all-time favourite activity for all the groups was visiting the chicken coop on campus and learning about the different species of trees found around campus. The D1s stayed awestruck by both invasive species like eucalyptus and non-invasive species like African tulips; they were shown how, over the past two years, the Sustainability Committee has made active efforts toward planting and maintaining new trees.
– Dimitrios and Erhan

We hope this year will allow everyone to help our school build more sustainable practices, and there is always space for volunteers to come and help. Check your emails soon for opportunities to care for the chickens and work in or organise the community garden!

Join us on Wednesday 19th August on the Green outside K-hall for our annual Activities Fair. We invite all students from M1 – D2 to sign up and join a Club, a Sport and a Service program. The Activities Fair is an opportunity for new UWCEA students to learn about the various after-school programs we offer at UWCEA. Come speak with our student leaders, staff and community partners at the various exhibition tables. The Activities Fair will run two information sessions, the first will be from 14:15 – 15:00 for M1- M3 and then the second session will be from 15:15 -16:00 for M4 – D2’s. We look forward to seeing you on the Green.

Baden Dowie – Service Coordinator

Welcome Back from Outdoor Pursuits!

Welcome back! As ever, it has been a busy first week, and the Outdoor Pursuits (OP) Team is wasting no time getting out into the great outdoors.

We are heading straight into D1 Campcraft, also known as the Pamoja (Together) Walk, which aims to welcome our new D1 cohort and introduce our newest students to the wonderful world of Outdoor Education.

We departed today, and the whole group is undertaking a 3–4 hour hike in Mkuru, a breathtaking wilderness area located just north of Mount Meru National Park. This is a fantastic opportunity for our D1 students to meet their Arusha counterparts.

After a week of settling into a new school, there is surely no better way to finish than with a hike, some fresh air and a campfire. It should be a brilliant opportunity to get to know one another, build friendships and experience some of what makes OP at UWC East Africa so special.

A Busy Year Ahead
The year ahead is once again looking very busy, with nearly 30 OP trips planned across the programme. All students have been introduced to OP during their orientation, but if you would like to find out more about the trips on offer, please visit:

Outdoor Pursuits – UWC East Africa

Here you will find a comprehensive overview of the OP programme, including trip costs, OP catalogues, packing lists and the new-and-improved OP Handbook — your one-stop shop for everything OP (apart from actually remembering to pack your kit!).

MYP Campcraft – Next Weekend
Next week, it will be the turn of MYP Campcraft. If you are a parent of a new MYP student in M1–M3, you should have received an email containing further information.

The weekend will be hosted at Moshi Campus from 22nd–23rd August and will be another great opportunity for our newest students to get outdoors, meet new people and experience the OP programme.

We look forward to another busy and adventurous year ahead!
Mr Andy