Arusha Campus News – 18 Jan 2025

Our M4 students have settled back down into their studies and this week they took their work outside to learn how to create the perfect camp fire as part of their XP curriculum

Thu 23rd-Sun 26th Jan – OP Peaks Adventure to Mt Meru

Fri 24th-Sun 26th Jan – Hoops for Hope Basketball at Arusha Campus

Mon 3rd-Thur 13th Feb – Diploma 2 Mock Exams

Mon 17th-Sat 22nd Feb – OP Peaks Challenge to Mt Kilimanjaro

Mon 17th-Fri 21st Feb – OP Plains Challenge to Serengeti

Thu 20th-Tue 25th Feb – Mid-term Holiday School Closed

The P5 Scientists present their outstanding projects at PYP Share Time this week

Welcome back everyone and lets hope for a new year that brings peace to the world and better news for the environment.

We have to hope that the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza come to a swift end but spare a thought for the horrendous violence that is being perpetrated in Haiti, Venezuela and Sudan to name just three around the world. Its the fact that so many peace-loving civilians get caught up in these conflicts, with the result that lives and families are destroyed. The conflicts are an epitome of selfishness. I have just been looking at a rather dismal website https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker whose name says it all. Our job as a UWC institution in peaceful Tanzania is to provide a refuge for students and teachers from conflict zones. To provide a safe and caring environment that enables our students to discuss uncomfortable issues and to then become beacons of hope to the world and their conflicted homelands.

Anyone who came to Share Time this week will agree with me that it showcased some incredible science projects in P5 – well done Mrs Bowen and her class!

Have a great weekend.

Phil

A big thank you to everyone who donated to the Kafika House Christmas Bags and to Kasia, Olivia and Ella for organising the project. We did this just before the December holidays.

Welcome back to 2025!
Here are a few important dates for your diary.
Tuesday 21st January – CCA Fair 2.00pm
Friday 24th January – Relay Gala @KHS (selected students)
Monday 27th January – CCA’s Start
Monday 10th February – 100 days of school

Friday 14th February – Valentines Assembly
Wednesday 19th February – World Mother Tongue Day

Friday 7th March – World book day
Saturday 8th March – Hockey @ SCIS (selected students)
Friday 14th Primary – Swim Gala @UWC Arusha (selected students)

Friday 21st March – Interhouse Fun Swim

Saturday 22nd March – Cricket  @ Kennedy House run by AruMeru (selected students)

Friday 28th March – CCA’s end
Wednesday 2nd April – Student Led Conferences

Friday 4th April – Last Day of Quarter 3

Amanda, Head of Primary Years Programme

Our MYP students learning about considering others’ boundaries in our Wellness Workshop on Monday,

It was great to see (almost) everyone back on campus this week! Some were not quite ready to return to school as they busied themselves climbing Africa’s highest mountain, Mt Kilimanjaro. Pictured below is Blake (M4) at Uhuru Peak, bravo!

The rest of our MYP students started on Tuesday morning with a workshop led by Ms Lina who is a school & wellness counselor from Linden Education. The workshop focused on pushing your own boundaries of understanding and awareness of other people’s feelings. Of course this is a serious topic, but the workshop was also active and fun as demonstrated by Pierre, Ethan, Khalif and Erik (in the picture above)

Miss Anoek, Head of MYP

Blake Sendze (M4) on the roof of Africa during the holiday!

Lina Paumgarten delivers her workshop on Mentoring in the Performance Area to the staff of Arusha and Moshi campuses.

At the start of each semester, the teachers return to campus a day or so earlier than the students and we take the opportunity to engage in organised professional development to improve our skills in edcuation. We usually meet together with the staff of Moshi Campus. This January we met on Arusha Campus and we organised a visiting workshop leader, Lina Paumgarten from Linden Global Learning and Support. Lina led a workshop entitled ‘Creating Impactful Connections: Empowering Staff in Mentoring, Boundaries, and Strengthening School Cohesion’.

The experience was extremely rewarding and we hope to implement some of the strategies and things we learned in the coming semester.

All last semester a big group of secondary students, from M1 to D2, have been working and playing together; learning about escape rooms, solving puzzles and finally designing and putting-together an escape room of their own. Their creativity and efforts have been rewarded by the official opening of “Disast-Air in the Jungle”, which is open for members of the UWCEA community to come and play – whilst making money for the scholarship fund. We hope to have the room available for the first few weeks of the new semester.

Congratulations to the Escape Room Team!

If you’d like to get a jump start, you can watch this 18 minute TedTalk with author Dave Evans. Just click on the image above. 

I am excited to get to know the D1 students and parents better and to work closely with you as you plan for life after UWC East Africa! I will start working closely with you in this second semester.  I’ll save the info from all of my emails to you in this document https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yF5BlNcBJh-u6dXkUMnJAPctFVe5nAculeAr99hJvY0/edit?usp=sharing,

just in case you ever need to find something that I have shared.

I know it seems hard to believe, but 25% of your Diploma Program here is complete. Here is a quick reflection activity: Take a moment and think about where you were a year ago today, in mid December of 2023. Who were you spending time with? What were you excited about? What were you worried by? And how much have you learned and grown since then? I think it is worth pausing to reflect a bit as that is the heart of this journey – reflection. You will, of course, continue to grow and develop as a person. And the next several months will push you to think about who you are now and who you want to be in the future. It will be a time of immense growth. I feel privileged to be part of that journey with you.

Some important announcements and next steps:

Shared Folder: Students, by the time we return to school in January you will receive an email from me with a shared folder. This is where you will share important documents with me including previous schools’ transcripts. Please make sure you save this in your Google Drive.

Timeline and Deadlines: The Internal Deadlines – Class of 2026 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-ys-ot8MJRKlWWIeTn5cshLjq_kWMzh0srS1wIhfF0o/edit?usp=sharing

 has lots of important key dates and steps embedded in it. Please make a copy of it and save it in your shared folder so that you can customize it for yourself.

Beginning the Reflection Process: Beginning the Student Strengths Form – Class of 2026 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y1PyTYNIVlRvW_-dR_ccV18MMCDxlce8lhP7H4CYFlM/edit?usp=sharing is the first step in the “Internal Deadlines – Class of 2026” (above).

Setting Up Your First Meeting with Me: Please follow the instructions in the “Internal Deadline – Class of 2026” document, students, and set up an initial meeting with me sometime after January 20, 2025.

New UWC East Africa University Counseling Website: We have revised the UWC East Africa University Counseling Website https://sites.google.com/uwcea.org/uwceauni/home. There are lots of great resources here. Check out the “Student Resources” folder, for example. We will continue to add and refine this site. Please bookmark this for yourself. 

Suggestions for what you can do to get the ball rolling:

Have a Family Discussion: Talk about expectations. What are you thinking of studying? Where do you think you might want to live and work after university? What is the family budget for university?

Start Doing Researching: If you go tour Counselling website you will find a document called, Tips on Researching Universities – UWCEA, which is your one-page guide to getting started with university research.

Workshops: This semester, I will be leading workshops to help you plan for your future during DSS classes. Some will be required for all D1 students and some will be optional depending on the topic (e.g. applying in the UK). Our first workshop will be required for all and will be on Designing Your Life – the idea that anyone can deliberately create a life that is meaningful, fulfilling and joyful. 

I look forward to working closely with you in 2025.

Warmly,
Mr. Kendis

Adam K, University and Career Counselor

As we return for the second semester, a chance to remember the last, hurried days of the December quarter. Jacaranda came together one last time to celebrate Christmas together. Our Boma Leaders had organised a lovely Secret Santa and all Jacarandians had a chance to offer and receive a little gift from each others. A warm and joyful moment.”

Also, a biref reminder about our Host family Program. The Host Family is a program that gives our international residential students a chance to be linked to a family who live around Arusha and discover Arusha and Tanzania differently. We are hoping to give our students a sense of “home away from home”. This year, about 75 students have expressed the desire to join and there are over 30 families who have agreed to host them. We are very grateful to the families you are taking the time to meet and support our Residential students. Your care and help is greatly appreciated. We would still appreciate more host family volunteers. If you would like to find out more please email Miss Coralie on coraliebouillaut@uwcea.org

Coralie, Head of Residential Life