Our highlights for the sixth week of the term were: Mzee Moi’s burial, Mid-term assessment, Valentines’ Day and Mid-term break. Teacher Justus Kishoiyan, being the teacher on duty, was quite engaged with the learners throughout the school days.
Learners were excited to have a break on Tuesday after it had been declared a public holiday, for the country to mourn the death of Mzee Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi. Some of the learners were able to make it to Nyayo Stadium where the State burial was to be held. They even got to share in the bread and soda which had been promised to 30,000 early birds. Parents were amazed that their kids sang along to some of the songs which were sang on that day. These are commendable efforts by Teacher Justus who teaches them these songs during Scouts meetings.
Mid-term exams commenced on Wednesday, 12th of February. A total of 8 students were absent on the first day of the exams. Approximately six learners missed the exam entirely. Nevertheless, the assessment went by quite smoothly with Mathematics being the first paper done in most classes. The new comers in PP1 were really excited about the exams being that it was their first time. All the learners were provided with brand new pencils and rubbers which they used during the exams. One challenge experienced was by Teacher Lilian who noted that most of the exams in her class took longer than the stipulated time. Her students particularly had a problem in reading and comprehending the instructions given on the exam papers. In Mathematics exam, some of learners had a challenge following the instructions given. Webstar Kabochi, who sat a special exam also didn’t quite perform as well as she may have hoped.
By Thursday afternoon, all exams had been completed. Marking and revision was done in between Thursday afternoon and Friday. Performance was as follows:
Teacher Pauline observed that; the learners who did not have text books did not perform so well in their assessment. Some of her students like Beretta Lesly in Grade 2A did special exams. She was graded differently from the rest because of her learning disorder. She is gifted differently and her love for co-curricular activities especially football is on another level. However, she has a dyslexic condition that has greatly affected her fluency, decoding, recall, writing and spelling skills to an extent of not being able to copy things from the white board as they appear.
Unfortunately, Joseph Lola Sanya a student with learning difficulties in Teacher Justus’ class (Grade 1A) did not sit for any of his exams because his family had to move away after being locked out of their home for failure of paying rent that had accumulated to a total of three months. In addition to that, his mother was said to have been sick and admitted at a local healthcare center.
Otherwise, we wrapped up the week beautifully with Friday being Valentines’ Day. Kids were encouraged to spread joy and love to fellow learners. Some also had the privilege of using pencils that had special Valentines’ message during their examinations. Further revision on their exams was recommended to learners with the help of their parents. In addition to that, we also advised that they should be allowed to watch a lot of good kid content on TV both in English and Kiswahili, under proper parental guidance. This is important for their language development. Hopefully that will keep them busy through the mid-term break. Other than that, we wish that the learners take time to rest and spend time with their parents.