Arusha Campus News – 28 Jan 2024

This weekend saw the Kilimanjaro Trails Festival take place in West Kilimanjaro. The rain stayed away, the sun came out and everyone – young and old, had fun!

Mon 29th January – CCA’s start

Tue 30th January – Blood Donation Day

Thur 1st February – NTSAA Primary Athletics at Arusha Campus

Fri 2nd February – NTSAA Secondary Athletics at Arusha Campus

Tue 6th February – 8am PTA Open Meeting

Wed 7th-Fri 16th February – D2 Mock Exams

Mon 12th February – D1 Project week

Mon 12th February – MYP Week Without Walls

The spectacular opening to Ol Karien Gorge, venue for our Plains Challenger option coming up in February

The new year has started with all hands on deck. In Diploma, extended essays are being submitted and Internal Assessments completed. Our MYP5 students are working hard on their personal projects and e-portfolios whilst Primary are getting ready for a plethora of exciting events as listed in Amanda’s column below.

A quick sports announcement. Our swim suit order has been revaluated and we are going to use an alternative supplier. To that end if you have made payemnt already for your child’s swimsuit please see Grace for a refund and await details from Caitrin about the new option.

Our OP programme continues unabated and this last week I made a dash to the Serengeti Plains to carry out a risk assessment on one of our upcomimg trips. The high inundation of rain means we needed to plan a possible alternative ‘final day route’ in case rain ends up spoiling play on Plains Challenger. This has been done and we are all set. I felt very lucky to do this as part of my job but it was a timely reminder to myself of the ‘behind the scenes work’ that our OP team and teachers and sports staff carry out on a weekly basis to ensure that our students benefit from the most fullsome of educational programmes.

Roll on 2024!

Phil

Please see the following important dates for your diary.
January
29th Jan CCA’s start
February
1st Feb Interschool Athletics tournament (Selected students)
6th Feb 100 days of school
16th Feb Valentine Share Time
21st Feb Mother Tongue Day
22-27th Feb Mid term break
March
1st March Inter School Swimming Gala – UWC Arusha (Selected Students)
8th March World Book Day Celebrations
9th March InterSchool Hockey Festival – SCIS (Selected Students)
22nd March PYP Interhouse Fun Swim Gala
22nd March CCA’s finish
27th March Student Led Conferences (Non Teaching Day)
28th March Last Day of Q3

Amanda

Even though secondary education usefully organizes learning into disciplinary compartments, our ever-changing world also demands education that empowers people to integrate disciplines in novel and creative ways. Our MYP interdisciplinary units give students the opportunity to bring knowledge and skills from different subjects together. And what better way to learn in a real-life, out of school context! Preparations for our Week Without Walls are in full swing. The M3 students in particular could be found all over campus this week as they were writing and rehearsing their drama scripts which will be performed in Swahili.

M5 students are about to complete the products they set themselves as goals as part of their Personal Project journey. On Thursday, they presented a broad variety of products to peers and some teachers. We enjoyed their enthusiastic presentations of their woven artwork, anti-acne skin care products, self-composed piece of jazz music on the piano, a self-built drone – just to name a few! The next few weeks are for finishing touches. The final Personal Project exhibition will take place on March 20th!

Anoek

Barbuchi demonstrates his aptitude in Arabic language in Miss Leah’s montage. Click on the image above to see the whole video.

In our French DP Language B class we have been looking at Identities and how languages help define us and give us a sense of belonging. To celebrate the languages spoken across our campus, students went out with their cameras and took videos of students repeating the same message (Diversity is what makes us unique/Hello, how are you?) in their mother tongue. The 2 montages created brought a huge smile to my face which I’m sure they will do to you as parents also!

You can watch them on the following link which will take you to a google drive with both videos there.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AJW_BTe76EpR7owYdBmRpNt1-z8tPify?usp=sharing

Miss Leah, DP Language B French

Appreciating our Alumni

We can’t thank our alumni enough for being a part of our annual January event. This year’s theme was Jumuika nasi katika ya wiki ya Alumni (Connecting with Alumni Week) as we emphasized the importance of creating connections and building your network through engaging with alumni. Our alumni answered the call (email, Google, WhatsApp, etc.), and were open to answering a slew of inquiries from current students who wanted to know more about their on campus experiences. One tool for this that we discussed was LinkedIn, which is reemerging as a popular platform for establishing professional connections. I shared with students a recent blog about how high school students can utilize LinkedIn, which was written by an outstanding University Counselor who I am fortunate to have in my network. As our alumni community continues to grow, it is exciting to see how far the connections will go. Asanteni sana to our amazing alumni for staying connected and sharing your expertise. Please continue to keep the lines of communication open! We also thank Nero for expanding our network by establishing an Instagram account for the College and Career Counseling department. Stay tuned for more images and information coming your way via @fursafari_uwcea.

What’s Next For M4-D2

This quarter the work of the College and Career Counseling department expands. I will work with students from M4-D2, and look forward to exploring what the future may hold. Here is a brief overview of what is to come:
M4 and M5: Career Exploration in Life Skills (I introduced this to M5s on Thursday morning, and will start with M4s when they finish their current unit.)
D1s: Post-Secondary planning process and first one-on-one planning meeting.
D2s: Preparing for What’s Next in Life Skills and DSS (please see recent DSS Toddle announcement). Also, stay tuned because soon we will start celebrating the offers of admission and scholarships received so far by the Class of 2024!

Here’s what is coming our way…

UPCOMING College and University Events

29 January: Time TBD King’s University College at Western University (Canada) https://www.kings.uwo.ca/ in person visit

2 February: 12:40 PM EAT Sommet Education https://www.sommet-education.com/ representative during lunch to share information about hospitality schools across the globe

6 February: Time TBD University of Alberta https://www.ualberta.ca/index.html and the changing landscape for international students

Please make sure you are checking the calendar on the UWCEA Careers website for a slew of virtual programming that is available across the globe.

Take care and enjoy a restful weekend after the first day back to classes!

Cassandra Ford

College and Career Counselor
cassandraford@uwcea.org