Moshi Campus News – 5 Mar 2022

As we move into March this is a key time for our second year Diploma students. They will be working through the last of the class work that must be submitted to the IB. They are completing the oral exams in their languages classes and they now completing the last of the material for the exams. After the holiday they have about 10 days before the exams start and so from now forward you will see them using the feedback from their Mock Exams to plan their review work. At the same time more and more of the university acceptances are coming in.

The IB Diploma Program is a long-standing program and we have been running it for over 40 years. We know that these students will be successful sometimes but it can be hard for them to see it for themselves through all the events going on. So please offer them your support and encouragement over the next 8 weeks.

In other areas you can see that students have been out and about in the OP trips recently and over the coming weeks many of the PYP students will also be out in the wild. Closer to home we have both the Woman’s Day assembly and TEDx over the next week.

Thank you to parents that came this past week to the Coffee Morning on campus and see below about a few other parent events.

I would also note that you may here from our PTA soon about the International Day on April 23rd as they seek support from parents, teachers and students. It sounds like they have a full afternoon and evening for us.

Lastly, this past week I sent out a plea from two of our students for humanitarian support. They would really like to see the community support the humanitarian groups helping in the Ukraine. Please check your inboxes for this email and further details.

Bob Cofer – Head of Campus

On Tuesday at 7:45am our MYP Coordinator Farah Fawaz will be holding a session discussing the requirements of the MYP Service as Action program and how this attempts to link traditional service with classroom learning. Please join us if you are interested. If you would like to know more but are not in the area, please contact Farah directly and she can arrange a time to talk.

On Wednesday March 16th at 4pm we will have a Virtual Coffee for parents that would like to chat about life on campus but are not here. Please mark this time on your calendar and look for the zoom invite for the event.

Bob Cofer

Please remember the TEDx Event on Saturday Marth 12th.

In between deadlines, orals and ongoing revision, our D2s are understandably thinking a great deal about the future at the moment. So, as they approach their final weeks at UWCEA, the Life Skills teachers invited them to focus their attention on the past, to look back over their time here and consider their legacies. The notion that when a person moves on, the mark that individual leaves behind represents their legacy. A legacy can reflect the richness of the individual’s life, including what that person accomplished and the impact he or she had on people and places. The writer, trainer and motivational speaker, Sylvia Baffour  talks about the concept of “emotional aftertaste.” The idea that you leave a taste behind for everyone else. The D2s were asked to think about how they wish to be remembered.

Last week’s ‘Legacy Project’ presentations were a way for our D2s to showcase these legacies to their D1 counterparts and teachers. They were tasked with connecting their legacy to our Guiding Statements and referencing how they feel they have helped us move a little closer to them during their time here and how they might have added value to our community.

Many students worked by themselves whilst others decided to work with a partner or in a small group. The legacies on show were a true testament to the power and impact of a UWCEA education and the holistic experience of being a student here. Students spoke with passion and verve about Service projects, Clubs, OP Trips, sports achievements and so on. Many shared legacies that were less tangible, focusing on how they have built bridges or relationships with people from diverse backgrounds or cultures. It really was an impressive spectacle and one that I hope highlighted just what a unique and special school we are all privileged to be a part of.

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world” Gandhi

Ben Morley – Deputy Head of Campus

Although it has been a short week, it has been an intense one for the D2 students. They have been completing their English orals. The English A students had to select two extracts from the works they have studied with a global issue linking them. They then talk for 10 minutes about these followed by some questioning by the teacher. For the English B students are given a choice of two extracts from works they have studied when they arrive and are given time to prepare some comments before going into their exam. Due to the reduction in papers because of the Covid situations these orals can be worth as much as 45%. Next week we proceed with the orals in other languages.
 
A few students are still juggling some submissions but I have been working with the residential team on how to support them. The first set of work is due to IB next week. By now the only work left to submit should be the Mathematics IA for all and the final Economics Portfolio, Music, Visual Arts and Theatre portfolios for some students. The final CAS interviews take place starting March 21st.

The D1 students have been thinking about their subject choices for the Extended Essay. Over the last few weeks they have heard in different subjects and then had a chance to talk to the teachers individually. The choice of subject form is due on Tuesday, they need to say why they want to study a subject and why, they have had support with this from the Diploma Success Skills teachers.

On Wednesday the students who participated in the EAMUN a few weeks ago went out to celebrate their successes.

This weekend we have Diploma students playing netball in Arusha or basketball here and preparing for next week’s TedX. On Monday we have the women’s day assembly which is being organised by three different groups and is representing a variety of viewpoints.

Margaret Brunt – DP Coordinator

The long weekend afforded our residential students a well-deserved break and whilst we had almost 100 students off-site, we had many stay on campus relaxing and participating in many fun filled events.

Kimbilio:

They embarked on many joyful events as they visited courage café, kili-wonders, hosted movie nights and even had a tie dye competition where they created their own wonderful designs for new t-shirts. One student commented that, ‘it was so much fun and so nice to have engagement from our older peers.’

MYP:

Kivuli and Kiongozi too had their own share of excitement as they had an excursion to Arusha where they shopped and went to the cinema. They had pool parties, movie nights themselves and what I was so impressed by was their new design for a social area between the two houses that will give them privacy and a much needed area that is truly theirs. The design is stunning, and we are hopeful we can implement this new build over the summer break.

DP:

Whilst many had signed out with their lovely Uja families or OP trips, we had a large group who mixed their academics with sleep and down-time. In addition, we took over 50 students to the stunning Maji Moto Hot pools for a day filled with swimming and mixing with their peers.

I must extend my thanks to Durriyah, Grace M, Grace Y, Linda J and Emmanuel who kindly looked after our residences so our residential parents too could have a rest themselves. Asante Sana

Simon Johnston – Head of Residential Life

MYP Success Stories
Growth Mindset Episode #16
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” ~ William Butler Yeats

This quarter has been and continues to be a very interesting quarter for our MYP team (learners, educators and parents). Rumor has it that this is the longest quarter of the year, and yet we are enjoying every moment of it and have not even realized its length. Lots of learning is happening in our MYP classrooms, and the shift in how we approach teaching and learning is evident.

We have a challenge for you! We want to explore our IB learner profile in contexts outside the school. Here’s our one-week experiment:

Reminder:

Fabio F in is still collecting donations to begin redesigning his Maasai house as an extension of his Personal Project: https://gofund.me/0f5584f9

Farah Fawaz – MYP Coordinator

What a long weekend for our OP staff and students!

The Plains L5 was a huge success even with the breakdown of cars, which were all expertly fixed by Mr Phil “Fundi” Bowen and local mechanics. I had the pleasure of joining them for the first night between the Shifting Sands and Nasera Rock right in the middle of the Wildebeest migration in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Surrounded by the herds, sitting around the campfire, enjoying the wide-open spaces, staring at millions of stars sparkling in the sky. This is what the students thought.

Although the name sounds very plain, this OP trip was extremely exciting. We started out on our trip and just after entering Ngorongoro Conservation Area one car’s radiator blew up. However, we went on with the other cars and visited Olduvai Gorge with the accompanying museum. Sadly, we didn’t have time to hike so we went straight to the camp. Sitting at the fire eating smores from Mr Marsh in the middle of the wildebeest herds more than made up for the missed hiking opportunity. The next day we hiked through the wildebeest to Nasera Rock, a 100m high rock. Later in the afternoon we climbed up this rock, some of us being very confident and others finding it an extremely frightening experience to hold on to the almost vertical rockface. However, everyone got down safely. The next day we continued our hike on the plain, some of us got very sunburned…

On the fourth day we headed into the Olkarien Gorge, and we had a very eventful walk, during which we had to slide down through waterfalls, got stuck in quicksand and walk in the river. At the end of the gorge the sky was filled with hundreds of vultures, as we reached their nesting site, which was both beautiful and fascinating.

On our way back on Tuesday we visited the Ngorongoro crater. It was a wonderful experience, and we saw many animals, including buffalo, elephants, rhinos and lions.

All exhausted from the long day, we drove back to Arusha campus in the dark, and spent a final night there. We all made amazing memories on this unique trip, that will for sure stay with us for a long time.

Kinga, Johannes and Anh D2

Peaks Level 4 Ngorongoro hiking trip took on the 3rd highest peak in Tanzania, Loolmalasin, before making their way through the conservation area. This trip was also filled with adventure and challenges with rumours of 2 Cheetah stalking the group and tough terrain during the summit. Here is what Thomas from D1 had to say.

The tropical, sweltering heat by day. The penetrating wind and howling hyenas in our camp by night. “Over there! Is that a baboon?”

These are things we experienced on a daily, during our Peaks Level 4 Outdoor Pursuits trip. It led us through the Ngorongoro Crater and then through the wonderful conservation area and to the top of the 3rd highest mountain in Tanzania, the stunning peak of Mount Loolmalasin.

Climbing the mountain of 3,682 meters on the first day, we proceeded to trek from camp to camp, following summit day with a 22km trek, after which many students claimed to have had the best sleep of their life. After that we descended the mountain range on frightening steep slopes, slipping and sliding step by step, until we reached our trusted yellow lorry. Cheers of triumph could he heard, as internal battles of perseverance were rewarded with a night’s stay at a lodge, with a beautiful view and swimming pool.

Thomas D1

Last weekend was a prime example of why we do this at UWCEA.
Note: Rides Level 4 on the 11th of March will not occur as we need to run the postponed level 3 trip first.  Once we have worked out the scheduling of the rides trips we will inform students and parents. 

This weekend we have the Peaks Level 2 trip going out to South Pare. With many students hoping to successfully complete the trip and take on Mt Hanang at the end of the month!

Robin Marsh – Experiential Learning Coordinator

Sport provides unique opportunities for students to learn things that they wouldn’t learn in the four walls of a classroom. To this end, this month promises to be a busy sporting one for our students. Our PYP students played football friendly matches against PPA on Friday, while the U19 Boys and Girls are hosting schools from Moshi, Arusha and Dar in Basketball. Our Under 13 mixed basketball team is traveling to Braeburn for the NTSAA competition, while the Under 15 and Under 19 girls are competing in the NTSAA netball competition at the Arusha campus. We can hope that the lessons learned and the skills utilized will prepare our students for life beyond school.

Upcoming events

• NTSAA U13 Basketball Tournament at Braeburn on Saturday March 5th
• HOPAC U19 Boys and Girls Basketball Tour to Moshi on Friday 4th & Saturday March 5th
• NTSAA U15/U19 Netball Tournament at Arusha campus on Saturday March 5th
• NTSAA Primary Swimming Gala at UWCEA Arusha on Friday March 11th
• NTSAA Secondary Swimming Gala at UWCEA Arusha on Saturday March 12th
• PYP Inter-house Swimming Gala on Tuesday March 15th (10am -12:15pm)
• Secondary Inter-house Swimming Gala on Wednesday March 16th (10am – 12.30pm)
• NTSAA U19 Boys & Girls Basketball Tournament at Braeburn on Saturday March 19th
• NTSAA U15/U13 Boys and Girls Football Tournament at Braeburn on Saturday March 19th
• Blue Sand U19 Boys and Girls Basketball Tournament at St. Jude on Saturday March 26th.

Whenever possible, please come and cheer on our budding athletes. Your support goes a long way.

Gilbert Kaburu – Sports & Activities Coordinator

Last weekend 9 swimmers aged 10-18 took part at the TALISS Invitational swimming gala held at the IST pool in Masaki, Dar es Salaam. With very fast qualifying times for the events and the fastest swimmers in the country competing, it wasn’t an easy competition! We were delighted at the results our tiny team produced: 8 Silver medals and 9 Bronze medals!! The men/boys pulled in 302 points placing 5th out of 9 overall and, the women/girls scored 90 points placing them 7th out of 9 overall. The hard work and training paid off and many new and fast personal best times were made. The next upcoming swimming galas will be hosted at UWCEA Arusha Campus on the 11th and 12th March. Please come to watch and support your children swim – it does help them to swim faster!

Thank you P3/4 for an informative gathering about explorers on Friday. We appreciate that you took 3 days to prepare for it and very much enjoyed your presentation. We wish you a great camping trip as you head off to explore Mkomazi this Wednesday. P6 are also excitedly heading off on a camp to Marangu Falls on Monday.

Well done to our footballers who played a friendly match with Paradise Primary Academy (PPA) School on Friday. Many thanks to Coach T for organising this event.

Thank you to the TEDx team for leading the scavenger hunt for PYP this weekend.

• Women’s Day Assembly (The P5 class will be presenting) – 7th March
• PYP Inter-house Swimming Gala – 15th March (10am -12:15pm)
• Student Led Conferences – 24th March – more details to follow
• Book Week – begins 28th of March (Monday will be dress as a book character day)

Deborah Mills & Mboke Mwasongwe – PYP Coordinators

The P1s have been learning to work with playdough and they added another dimension to their creations this week. They have created various scenes which are now glued to poster sheets. Hopefully by the Monday next week, they will have dried, ready for them to add paint or another medium of their choice. They explored symmetry in maths, drawing symmetrical halves of little creatures as well as identifying items that have lines of symmetry. As this is a new area of learning, please talk more about it at home.

We welcomed Mbate Almas to our class this week. He is an intern who will be working in EC/P1 from this week. You are welcome to come and speak with him in the morning or during pick up times. We are looking forward to having an extra pair of hands and eyes in our class. I am sure the children will spend this coming week asking him a lot of questions and getting to know him.

Mboka Mwasongwe

What a fun week we’ve had! We’ve learned about day and night, the different seasons, and gravity. We’ve thought about what we would take to space, created clocks, finished painting our clay planet models and heard stories about being chased by monkeys and chickens (disclaimer: these incidents did not take place in school). There’s been laughter, lots of it, and I can say we’ve thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Here’s a challenge for the parents:
Stand with your feet apart, your head, shoulder and one foot touching the wall. Then try and lift your other foot! Have a chat with your child about what is going on!

Elisha Jaffer

It was a full week in P3/4 with a whirlwind of research and hard work. Students did an amazing job with presenting at the Primary Gathering about the lives of famous explorers. It was fun to watch them putting together their learning and they were very proud of themselves after the presentation. I think that a humming of the Val-de-ree song was heard for the rest of the day!

We had the chance to work on our compass skills and also to learn how to put up the tents that we will use on the trip next week. As you know, the plan is to leave at 7:30 on Wednesday morning and we should be back at school by 2:00 on Thursday. I’ve sent out an email with a reminder to send in the checklist on Monday about the items that your child will need to check out from the OP shop (the available items are: sleeping bag, sleeping mat, head torch, a backpack and a lunch container). Remember to either email me with the needed items or send in the list itself. A 10,000tsh deposit is required for checking out items. Many of you have already sent that in.

On Tuesday, we would like for students to go ahead and bring in their bags so that there are no surprises on Wednesday! This is the typical routine for overnight trips at school.

The kids have been brimming with questions so feel free to be in touch if there’s anything that you’d like to know. Students will not receive normal home learning work this week but Monday, Tuesday and Friday will be regular school days.

Kacey Buckley

This week the P5 children performed their puppet shows for the EC/P1 and P4 classes as part of our inquiry into the different ways that we can use our voices. They have started researching different vocal traditions, building on work covered in Music lessons with Mr. Samuel and will be using this information in a Google Slides presentation. In maths the children have completed fractions pre-assessments and will do further work on this area next week. They have been writing a book of similes which we plan to share with younger classes and next week will work with metaphors, onomatopoeia and personification in writing.

The P5 children will be honouring their mothers in a presentation during Monday’s International Women’s Day assembly.

Deborah Mills

We’re all geared up for our camp on Monday. We’ll be camping at Marangu with hikes to the waterfalls and to the Chagga Live Museum. We’ll look at how they used to live and how that has developed as part of our current civilisations topic. We’re all really looking forward to it and will share photos next week. For our unit this week, we have investigated the religion of Ancient Benin. We also looked at how tribal history has been passed down via oral storytelling; we roleplayed the story of Eweka as an example and saw how versions can vary.

In maths, we’ve looked at averages starting with the mean values and we’ll move onto mode, median and range next week. We finished one class novel and started another: we’re focusing on speculation and prediction as a higher order reading skill.

It’s a busy weekend with children taking part in football and basketball matches and a Scavenger Hunt too!

Hywel Davies