Moshi Campus News – 29 Aug 2026

As we come to the end of August almost all students are on campus now and our routines are coming back fully despite a holiday break on Tuesday. Clubs in PYP started this week and our secondary Service and Activities programs are starting up as well.

Outdoor Pursuits is off this weekend on two trips, A plains walk at Makuyuni, and a Peaks trip to North Pare. Next Saturday the plan is for our Volleyball and Ultimate Frisbee teams to travel to Arusha Campus to play. As we move further into the semester you will see more sports, activities and Outdoor Pursuits on the calendar.

Last Tuesday, the campus leadership from both campuses met online with the members of the CIS (Council of International Schools) team that will be visiting the school on September 21st to 25th. This online meeting was the most recent step in our reaccreditation process. We will be sharing more about their visit in upcoming newsletters. CIS as an organization uses teachers and administrators from member schools as part of the reaccreditation process. Several members of staff across our campuses participate in this process and in early September I will be visiting another school in India and Ms Dowie will be visiting one in early October.

This Tuesday, September 1st at 7:45am we will have a Coffee Morning to welcome parents to the new school year. All parents are welcome and local parents should have also received an invitation emailed to them. On Wednesday September 2nd at 4pm EAT we will be having a similar event for our many parents who cannot attend on campus. All parents of residential students should have received an invite with the Zoom link earlier in the week. If you do not see the link in your inbox or spam filter please email me.

Parents of secondary students please remember that through our “Life” portal you can interact with many aspects of your child’s education, including seeing their schedule, assignments, assessment marks and contacting teachers and residential parents. This is one of the best ways to keep track of their “Life” here at school.

Bob Cofer – Head of Campus

The work on our K-Hall floor was completed yesterday and the students wasted little time before trying it out. The durable coating should ensure many years of use by our teams.

In a special edition of the hash, the 607th edition will start at Moshi train station, at 3pm on August 30th and explore the history of Moshi. This hash is a collaboration of our students with longstanding members of the community.

If you missed the signup and are keen to get involved please direct any questions to Liz Elger via email at ujaprogram@uwcea.org.

There is some information about expectations here. Our first event will be Tuesday, September 15.

This week, I’ve been thinking about  the UWCEA value of Personal Challenge. Across the Diploma Programme, students are being encouraged to step outside their comfort zones, ask difficult questions, and take responsibility for their own learning.

For our D1 students, the first weeks of DP are already bringing new challenges. Students have begun diagnostic assessments in some subjects, giving teachers and students a clearer picture of where they are starting from and where they may need to focus their efforts. In Theatre, students have been exploring Verbatim Theatre, using real voices and experiences as a starting point for some big questions about life, death and what might come after. It has been a thought-provoking way to begin their DP Theatre journey.

For our D2 students, this week marks an important milestone as they submit their Extended Essays. This is a significant piece of independent work that requires sustained effort, organisation and perseverance. Students who do not meet the submission deadline on Friday will attend Lockdown on Saturday. Lockdown is not a punishment; rather, it is an opportunity to remove distractions, focus their attention and make meaningful progress towards completing their work. Thanks to Mr Matt, Ms Grace and Mr Finn for helping support at lockdown. It is another example of personal challenge in action: recognising what needs to be done and taking responsibility for getting it done.

Across both year groups, we are seeing students learning that challenge is not something to avoid. It is often through tackling difficult questions, unfamiliar tasks and demanding deadlines that meaningful learning takes place.

Catherine Dowie – Head of Diploma

Dear UWCEA Community,

The first weeks of a year always feel like they will last forever, and then they don’t. Routines have now settled. Friendships that were tentative in week one now come with in-jokes. The new students who arrived looking slightly overwhelmed are now the ones giving directions. The year is off to a good start.

WHAT OUR TEACHERS WERE DOING LAST FRIDAY

While the students enjoyed a sleep-in last Friday, our teachers were attending different workshops. Some of our teachers were in a workshop on trauma-informed classrooms, pastoral and advisory care, led by Lina Paumgarten, a counseling psychologist, coach, and consultant focused on emotional wellbeing and international education.

It was the kind of session that changes how you listen. Lina walked us through what it actually means to sit with a student who is carrying something heavy; how to notice it, how not to rush past it, and how to respond in a way that steadies rather than startles. Much of it was practical: what to say in an advisory meeting, what to ask, and, just as importantly, when to stop asking and simply be present. We are grateful to her for giving us both the framework and the language.

AND ON A SATURDAY

The residential team returned the following morning for a workshop on suicide awareness and prevention.

This is not an easy subject, and we did not treat it as one. But it is precisely because our team lives alongside our students, sees them at breakfast, at bedtime, on the good days and the difficult ones, that they need to be equipped to recognise when a young person is struggling, to ask directly and without fear, and to connect them quickly with the right support.

We share this openly because we think you should know how seriously we take it. Our residential parents gave up their Saturday for training that we hope they rarely have to use, and are ready to use if they ever must.

As always, if you are ever worried about a student, your own child or someone else’s, please tell us. We would far rather hear about a false alarm than miss a real one.

SIP, PAINT, REPEAT

On a much lighter note: Student Government has officially opened the dorm activities season, and they began with a sip and paint.

Coffee, hot chocolate, tea, a stack of blank canvases, and rather more paint than strictly needed ended up on those canvases. Students drifted in from across the dorms, claimed a spot, and spent the evening talking, laughing, and producing artwork of genuinely varied quality. Some of it was lovely. Some of it was ambitious. All of it was better than the alternative of a quiet evening spent scrolling alone.

That is really the point of these evenings, not the painting, but the mixing. Students who might otherwise pass each other for a whole term ended up sharing a table and a paintbrush. Our thanks to Student Government for organising it, and for setting the tone for the term ahead.

Best,
Adnan Mackovic – Head of Student Life

House captains: Thank you to the P5 and P6 children who stood as house captains on Friday. All of the candidates demonstrated risk taking behaviour by making a speech. The photo shows the Primary school house captains for the school year 2026 -2027.

• Kibo: Ewan and Gianna
• Mawenzi: Hanyah and Noah
• Meru: Kenaelle and Adrian

Clubs: Clubs have started smoothly. Ms. Mboka and the new Student Voice (see photo) are already making plans for playground buddies later this quarter.

Swimming: Swimming will start for P1–P6 next week. Please send your child with a swim kit even if the morning is chilly because by the time of the lesson, the weather has often warmed up. If your child feels cold, they will not be expected to stay in the pool. Coaches Patrick and Collin will always allow a child to leave the pool and have a warm shower if they are feeling cold. All children are expected to swim unless they have a note from home. EC swimming will not begin until after the October break.

Athletics: The P1 – P6 children are working on athletics in their PE lessons this quarter. There is an athletics event at Kennedy House on Tuesday, 15th September. Coach T will invite children to attend through Life. We are only permitted to enter two athletes per gender in each event, so unfortunately, not everyone will be able to participate. However, we have our own PYP athletics day on Wednesday, 28th October, and the children will be able to choose a selection of track and field events to participate in on that occasion.

Babygroup: For those with little ones, you are welcome to attend the UWC Baby Group on Wednesday mornings from 8-10am. For ages 0-3 years, baby group provides a relaxed, welcoming environment for kids to play, explore, and learn freely. There will be plenty of age-appropriate toys, books and activities to encourage learning and connection. A parent or caregiver must attend the class with their child. The first meet up will be Wednesday, September 2nd in the small gym and outside area near the primary playground. For more information, please reach out to Katie Lesyna (ktlesyna@gmail.com).

Primary Gathering: On Friday, 5th September, the P5 class will present in the primary gathering. This will take place at 7:40am in Rafiki Hall. You are warmly invited to attend.

Deborah Mills – Head of PYP

Our students had an exciting and joyful learning experience through mud, water, and mud kitchen play. They explored the textures of mud and water, mixed imaginative recipes, and experimented with natural materials. With great enthusiasm, they added grass, leaves, and sticks to their creations, transforming simple materials into wonderful dishes. The children poured, scooped, mixed, and splashed, developing creativity, sensory awareness, communication, and collaboration while having fun, getting messy, and connecting meaningfully with nature.

Next week, we will begin our first unit, Who We Are, exploring the central idea: “Our choices can keep us safe and healthy.” We will inquire into safe and unsafe choices, healthy habits, and how we can take care of our bodies and feelings. Through play, stories, discussions, and hands-on experiences, the children will explore how the choices they make can help them feel safe, healthy, and happy.

Manal El Dahwish

This was an interesting week with a holiday in the middle, but we managed to fill it up with interesting activities. Thank you to all who helped the children bring in their ‘application forms’ for class jobs. If they have not done so, they will be randomly assigned a job. In the coming week, we will be continuing with our team-building activities. We will explore the word ‘goal’ and how having one helps the team make a plan before working on an activity. The activities planned include making a tower and a bridge. It should be a fun week.

This week, Ms Miriam joined us for art class. I have shared a photo of her working with the children. We are very excited to have her in the class and look forward to all the art lessons.

Mboka Mwasongwe

P3/4 have been busy exploring timelines; they have been hard at work thinking about their personal timelines and how they have grown and changed. The children will continue to have an opportunity to present their personal artefacts to their class next week. In Math we have been revising skip counting by 2’s, 3’s (P4) and 10’s. This will be in our home learning next week.

Sarah Vrontamitis

This week the children have investigated air resistance. They predicted whether a parachute with a large surface area would fall more quickly or slowly than a parachute with a smaller surface area. This activity involved measuring, timing and fair testing. Next week we will continue to work with fair testing and will get ready for our primary gathering (4th September) where the children will share the work that they have done so far on forces. Yesterday, the children cooked alphabet pasta vegetable soup as a follow up to our reading the book, “Martha Blah Blah”. Thank you to Ms. Miriam for helping us with cooking and reading.

Deborah Mills

This week, P6 became historians, investigating different sources and learning how evidence and perspective shape stories about the past. Next week, we will explore oral history and how interviews, memories and stories passed through generations help us understand past events.

In Art, students are exploring Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits before creating their own portraits using colours, objects and symbols to share something about themselves.

A reminder that P6 will be MCing next week’s Primary Gathering. We will also host and present at the PYP Gathering on 11 September. We look forward to sharing our learning with you!

Elisha Jaffer

If last week was about settling in, this week has been about getting down to business… the good kind! The questions are getting bigger, the thinking is getting deeper, projects are beginning to take shape, and students are already being asked to explain, defend, create, investigate and occasionally rethink what they thought they knew. Across the MYP, things are well and truly in motion. Students are moving between scientific investigations, novels and language activities, mathematical problem-solving and diagnostic challenges, artistic experimentation, music explorations, research, presentations and plenty of opportunities to question, discuss and create. Beyond the classroom, Service is kicking into gear, clubs are getting underway, Personal Projects are beginning to take shape, and students are learning to juggle the many opportunities and responsibilities that come with MYP life.

We are also reaching that point in the year when “I’m still new” is becoming slightly less convincing as an excuse. Routines are settling, expectations are clearer, and students are beginning to take greater ownership of their learning, their time and, hopefully, the whereabouts of all their belongings! There is plenty more to come! The year is no longer warming up. We are in it!

M1 Integrated Sciences
Who says scientists have to feel like people from another world? This week, our M1 students set out to find a “Scientist Like Me”, researching a scientist they could make a personal connection with. Perhaps they share a nationality or language, were born in the same month, have similar interests, or simply have a story that sparked their curiosity.

Along the way, students explored what scientists actually do, the kinds of questions they ask when investigating the world around them, and some of the research skills they will need as they begin their MYP science journey. They researched their chosen scientist’s background, education, scientific work and achievements before bringing their findings together in their own carefully designed posters. A lovely way to begin Integrated Sciences, discovering that science is not just about facts and experiments, but about curious people asking good questions… and that scientists might have more in common with us than we think! We might have a new scientist in the making! Keep a lookout for their journey!

M3 Integrated Sciences
Our M3 scientists have been busy exploring the incredible systems that keep the human body working. Working in small groups, students are investigating different body systems, researching their functions, main organs and how those organs work together. Importantly, they are also looking beyond each system in isolation and investigating how body systems interact and depend on one another to keep us functioning. Their research is being brought together through group presentations, developing not only their scientific understanding but also their research, referencing, communication and presentation skills.

Students completed a visual note-taking activity, capturing key information and making connections between what they have discovered so far. Turns out, keeping a human being up and running requires some impressive teamwork!

M5 Language and Literature English
This week, M5 students were pushed beyond the familiar territory of identifying techniques and explaining their effects. Their challenge was more complex: to consider meaning as something deliberately constructed through the relationship between writer, perspective, audience and context. They began with a deceptively simple choice: Which is more powerful: “I belong here” or “We belong here”? There was no correct answer to find. Instead, students had to build and defend an interpretation, then test whether it still held when the speaker, audience or circumstances changed. The words barely changed, but suddenly, the meaning did.

Students then applied this thinking to Langston Hughes’ I, Too, examining how shifts in voice, structure, tone, position and power allow the poem to enact change rather than simply describe it. Moving to an extract from Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream, the analytical lens shifted again: not simply “How does this text construct meaning?” to “How does a speaker construct a response?” Students considered how language can be deliberately shaped to make an audience remember, feel, agree, imagine, hope and potentially act.

Finally, students brought the texts into conversation, comparing how perspective, purpose, voice, structure and audience operate differently while searching for the larger conceptual connections beneath those differences. The expectation is becoming clear: analysis is not about finding the “right” answer or collecting literary devices. It is about noticing, interpreting, questioning, connecting and ultimately constructing an argument that can be defended. I think I can safely say that M5 Language & Literature is proving that challenge and fun can absolutely belong in the same classroom!

M5 Personal Project
The M5 Personal Project journey is officially underway, and at this stage the possibilities are wonderfully wide open! Students are brainstorming, questioning, researching and exploring ideas connected to their own interests, and some of the ideas emerging already are seriously cool.
Importantly, students are learning that the Personal Project is not about magically arriving at the perfect idea. Changing direction, rejecting an idea, discovering something unexpected and starting again are all part of the process and all of it belongs in their Process Journal.

With their first checkpoint due on September 1st, students are now beginning to work towards Criterion A, turning those initial sparks into clearer learning and product goals and thinking carefully about what they genuinely want to learn, create or achieve.
And then comes the fun part…

Shark Tank: Personal Project Edition! Students will soon prepare short pitch videos designed to convince prospective supervisors that their project is the one worth choosing. They will need to sell the idea, communicate their enthusiasm and make a pretty convincing case for why a supervisor should want to join them on the journey.

The ideas are brewing. The pitches are coming. Supervisors, you have been warned!

MYP Dates to Remember

• September 28th to October 2nd – MYP Week Without Walls
• 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

Last week we highlighted this award in the newsletter. For those that would like to know more please use this link and you can see a picture of all the recipients, including Dimitrios here.