Arusha Campus News – 7 Nov 2021

Eben (M3) with two of the performances of the day on Saturday as he won both his middle distance events, running from deep and timing his winnng surge to perfection both times.

This newsletter is punctuated with images from our two athletics days taken by our star photographer Miss Emmyrose. Above is another picture of Eben, this time in the high jump.

Happy Divali everyone! The fireworks were not just reserved for the Festival of Lights it seemed as we have had an action packed weekend here on Arusha Campus with the annual Northern Tanzania Schools Athletics Association track and field championships. Eight schools competed in the full portfolio of events to vy for the crown of overall champions. On Friday, the Primary age bands competed and it was our neighbours, St Constantine’s who ran out eventual worthy winners. The following day, our Head of PE, Miss Caitrin, got us up again bright and early for the secondary competition. This time it was Orkeeswa School who won the day. A big thank you to our amazing PTA and all the volunteers from our community, students, parents and teachers who came along to help out.

On the subject of sport and Rhinos – I have placed an appeal in this newsletter for any unwanted purple sports t-shirts. If you have grown out of yours and don’t have a use for it please could you donate it to us at Reception. There are always students who need extra shirts and this is a fine example of recycling.

You will also see in this newsletter our first recycling report. The recycling station at school is proving a great success and the Recycler Company generate a report for us at the end of each month so we can see what we are recycling. In a week when the world’s leaders have gathered for the COP26 Enviro Summit, we at UWC East Africa Arusha organised our first Environmental Committee meeting in a team made up of students and teachers. We would like a parent representation on that committee so if you are interested please contact me. We meet over lunch and are making plans to compile a baseiline audit of our institution’s carbon footprint. One thing we have realised is that the time for action is now and that as a UWC we have no excuse not to lead drastic and effective action to reverse the environmental collapse that is going on around us. It is my hope that we can share our ideas with the whole community and that as a unified group we can act together to make a difference.

Have a super week.

Phil

The Primary athletes (above) in action at their sports day on Friday

The D2’s had reason to celebrate this week. The completion of their IO’s! IO stands for Individual Oral and is an integral part of the assessment for English A Language and Literature. It is usually taken in the first term of the final year of the Diploma.

Thanks for another stellar week UWC Arusha community!

Work continued on our school’s updated Strategic Plan at our Whole School staff meeting on Tuesday. Staff were presented with our 9 goals and brainstormed action items that will help us achieve these goals.

Value #5 – Innovation over perfection within a supportive community where learners are motivated to embrace personal challenge and reflection.
After weeks of preparation and rehearsal, the D2 English A students complete the final Individual Oral exams. This is an intense, recorded exam where they need to analyze two works they have studied in the course. D2 students who take the School Supported Self-Taught course will complete their oral exams this week. It is a very challenging exam and we are very proud of the hard work they put into it. Don’t forget, semester one reports for the D2s will be released on November 12th.

Value #8 – A shared responsibility and a collective duty of care for ourselves, each other, and the environment.
Mr. Ali, Ms. Sue, Ms. Elsa, Ms. Jennifer, Mr. Phil, and D1 Olivia L. (Student Government Ambassador) met for the first time as our new Environmental Steering Committee. This dedicated group will meet regularly to set goals, update procedures, and suggest a path forward for our school to improve our campus environment. I’m sure they would welcome parents or alumni who are interested to share their ideas and expertise. If that sounds like something you would be interested in getting involved with, please do let me know.

In addition, Mr. Phil has been keeping us all up to date with a daily summary of the COP26 summit and challenging us all to think of ways our community could have an impact on the important climate change issues being discussed.

Value #9 –  a healthy lifestyle and active pursuits
As I’m sure you will see elsewhere in this newsletter, Ms. Caitrin put on two fantastic NTSAA athletics tournaments this weekend for both Primary and Secondary students. The students, teachers, and parents worked very hard to make these tournaments a success – which they most certainly were! Great job everyone.

Cheers,
Ms. Christy

Images (above and below) from the NTSAA Athletics Championships on Arusha Campus 

The P6 class have been learning about electrical circuits and created their own electrical art (above)

The P6 Electrical art this week showed creativity, collaboration and problem solving. The students produced a diverse range of products to illustrate how circuits are created using motors, wires, batteries, bulbs etc. Problem solving comes in many forms. This was a great example of how art and science can be connected across the subjects.

Problems can be big or small and they can be related to any area of life. Children need to be taught how to solve problems. https://www.verywellfamily.com

1. Identify the problem. Stating the problem out loud can make a big difference.
2. Develop at least five possible solutions. Brainstorm possible ways to solve the problem.
3. Identify the pros and cons of each solution. Identify potential positive and negative consequences for each potential solution they identified.
4. Pick a solution. Pick a solution.
5. Test it out. Try a solution and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, you can always try another solution.

Miss Amanda

P2/3 creating food art. It looked great and tasted delicious!

On November 8th -12th, M5s will have familiarization sessions for on-screen exams from 7:50 to 09:50 am in the IT lab in English, Maths, Sciences, I&S, and Interdisciplinary. The aim of the on-screen exam familiarization sessions is for M5s to practice using the IT tools and to familiarize themselves with the type of questions and format of an online exam to manage their time in a 2-hour exam. This will be a formative assessment and therefore their grade will not count towards their report. They will do an official mock exam in March. These sessions will give M5 an idea of what to expect in May 2022 when they will be doing the official on-screen exams.

Mr Hamid

D2 Geography students took to Arusha town on Tuesday afternoon (see image above)  as they collected data for their IA on urban stress symptoms. Starting at Clocktower roundabout, the students collected a range of data at different points along Sokoine Road and into Sanawari and Moshono. They will present and analyse data on land use, traffic congestion, noise pollution and soil quality in their written report that will be submitted to the IB. The Geo IA emphasizes fieldwork and helps student gain a better understanding of what it is like to work as a geographer.

Mr Andrew’s Business Management students doing  presentations on the missions, visions and ethical statements of the various organisations that they investigated.

Pictured right is Alaa (Iraq) presenting his talk about Greenpeace.

If you have any unwanted purple Rhinos t-shirts at home  (like the ones pictred above) please can you consider donating it to us so that we can use them again with some of our residential students.

We will have a collection box in Reception.

Thanks for helping out.

This weekend’s OP Trip is Level 3 Reefs where many of our students have been several feet under the waters of teh INdian Ocean attaining their PADI Dive Qualifications. They will be back tomorrow with news of the trip. In the meantime here is a reminder of what they did on Reefs Level 2 a few weeks ago.

“A month after Level 1, here we are back in the bus, heading to Fish Eagle Point for Reefs – Level 2. This time again, we had a busy program but what a great week-end! Between cleaning up the beach, kayaking against the wind or moving heaving coral balls, what an active OP trip we had. We also were lucky enough to admire beautiful fishes, shells and corals during our swim and enjoy a nice ride on the dhow (some of us even saw dolphins !), not forgetting the beautiful Full Moon and the delicious food prepared by the students.”

Jessica, Jennifer and Coralie

Parents, alumni, and students are invited to share their culture through a performance on November 25th. If you would like to sing, dance, act or present some other performance that highlights your culture, please send an email proposal to the House Council by November 19th – but sooner is better! Let us know what you would like to perform, how long it will be, and any other details we may need to know.

Not a great picture but what a fun night! Our Boma gathered the Jacaranda students and teachers for our first Jacaranda get-together. The goal: to spend some time together, get to know a bit more about each other, and share some pizzas & cakes! Through the game, for example, we  learned that 2 roommates share a fear of chickens, that some of us have met presidents or astronauts, and even that some teachers own 100s of pieces of jewelry or have a passion for weird, disturbing dolls!
To end with the night, every group had to write a song or a poem about Jacaranda! We will never forget how Amr, Amza, Akshita, and Njeri made us all chant to the tune of “SpongeBob SquarePants” or how Ravi, Sadra, Grecia, Areg, and Miss Jessica rapped a unique new version of “Baby Got Back”!
Thanks to all Jacaranda Teachers who took the time to be with us and thanks to every Jacaranda student for being so awesome!

Here is another group of recent graduates celebrating their arrival at St Lawrence Univerisity in upstate New York. Pictured above are Brandon, Michelle, Katanu, Nadine, Phillip, and Al with their Moshi campus colleague.
We are very fortunate at UWC East Africa to have universities who partner with us to celebrate and support our students
In their next adventure. St Lawrence is one such institution.

Click on any month (below) to link to the live School calendar on our website