Nova Pioneer has for the past 9 years delivered its unique learning approach using best practices from across the world. In Kenya, Nova Pioneer has delivered the National Curriculum (8-4-4 & CBC) and in South Africa, we have delivered the Cambridge Curriculum. 

Over the years, our families have requested that we consider delivering Cambridge Curriculum in addition to CBC and we are excited to announce that with the experience we have from delivering Cambridge Curriculum in South Africa, we are launching Cambridge curriculum as an option at Nova Pioneer Cambridge open to day scholars. Cambridge Year 7 (equivalent to CBC Grade 6) will be offered from September 2024. The plan from 2025 would be to make additional years and expand the curriculum across other years (not just limited to Year 7).

What is Unique about the Cambridge Curriculum?

Cambridge is rigorous and requires students to engage in depth with the content and skills of each subject they take. The ability to succeed in this curriculum is determined much more by the attitude and mindset of the student, and their ability to engage with course material, not only inside the classroom, but independently as well. Students that can apply knowledge and skills learnt, have the potential to do very well in the Cambridge curriculum.

Cambridge has designed its curriculum as an enquiry-based one, and therefore it is an excellent fit for us and our teachers who teach in Nova Pioneer schools that also have an explicit enquiry-based approach. 

Cambridge AS- and A-Level phases are specifically designed to prepare students for the academic rigours of university. For Cambridge AS- and A- Level, students take between 3 and 4 subjects normally, but are expected to delve into them in a far deeper way than they would be required from students in other curricula, where students may take seven or more subjects. At A-Level, much of the content covered is at first year university level, and consistent feedback from our SA-based Cambridge alumni is that they are certainly at an advantage in terms of content covered and academic ‘fitness’ than their counterparts completing other curricular.

More About The Cambridge Curriculum?

The Cambridge curriculum is an educational framework developed by Cambridge Assessment International Education, a part of the University of Cambridge. It provides a structured and comprehensive approach to education for students from primary to pre-university levels. Kenya is the 4th biggest market for Cambridge in Sub-Saharan Africa. (Zimbabwe #1, Nigeria #2, South Africa #3, Kenya #4).

Here’s why you should choose Cambridge:

 

	Cambridge Curriculum	CBC The Nova Pioneer Way
Flexibility for Individual Growth	✔	✔
Innovation in Teaching	✔	✔
Practical Applications	✔	✔

 

Flexibility for Individual Growth

Recognizing that each student is unique, Nova Pioneer offers a flexible framework that allows for individual growth. Tailored to accommodate a range of learning styles, the curriculum empowers educators to create personalized learning paths that cater to the needs and interests of each student. This approach not only enhances engagement but also encourages students to take ownership of their education.

Innovation in Teaching 

Nova Pioneer merges innovative concepts with the educational systems by integrating modern teaching methodologies; exposing its students to dynamic learning experiences. From interactive digital resources to collaborative projects, Nova Pioneer equips students with the skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Practical Applications

Whether Cambridge, CBC or 8-4-4, Nova Pioneer puts emphasis on knowledge being applied to real-life situations. Lesson delivery places strong emphasis on practical application, encouraging students to connect theoretical xconcepts with their practical implications. This approach not only enhances understanding but also equips students with the tools they need to address real-world challenges with confidence.

Above all, Nova Pioneer seeks to instill a lifelong love for learning in both Cambridge and the Kenya National Curriculum by nurturing curiosity, creativity, and a hunger for knowledge; going beyond mere academic achievement. Nova Pioneer prepares students to embark on a journey of continuous learning, empowering them to adapt, innovate, and contribute meaningfully to society throughout their lives, and most importantly aligning so perfectly with Nova Pioneer’s core values; High Expectations, 21st century skills and a space for nurturing innovators and leaders.

Cambridge Curriculum Proven Track Record

Our students from our Ormonde campus recorded  remarkable achievement with one of our students achieving top position in Cambridge International Award by being top position globally for Cambridge International IGCSE Business Studies in November 2022.

An impressive 83% of our Ormonde graduating class achieved University Exemptions. Notably, Nova Pioneer students surpassed global subject pass averages in English, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, Business, and History. 

Learn More

Are you interested to learn more about Nova Pioneer’s Cambridge Curriculum offering in Kenya? Sign up here and a member of our Admissions team will get in touch with you.

Counseling Sessions

 

The New Academic calendar has brought fourth changes in the school programs. At Nova Pioneer, we have ensured students adjust to these  changes. Each of our  campuses has a qualified  counselor who provides individual and group counseling sessions for our students.

Teenage years remain to be the most crucial years of a child’s life. Being a child and trying to build a sense of independence in a world that is changing so fast is a major task for them. As a parent, you influence your child’s basic values, like religious values and educational choices. The stronger your relationship with your child is, the more influence you will have, because your child will be more likely to seek your guidance and value your opinion and support.

The change of the school programs in the last few years has challenged the family system’s active involvement in our children’s development, and therefore intentional collaboration with the school promotes successful support to the students. 

Individual counseling sessions continue to be the primary way through which major counseling issues are addressed. This is done throughout the week and on the weekends.

As our students grow up, we have been able to note a need to talk about various challenges that they are facing. 

The different personalities and experiences they have plays a major role in causing conflicts amongst themselves. Group counseling provides a safe space for them to listen to one another and be able to empathize with each other even as they learn. This term we have been able to discuss various addictions including drug and substance abuse. 

 

Family Meetings

 

The family is the basic unit of society. Families also foster a sense of belonging to something greater than oneself. As the Nova Pioneer community, we strive to maintain the sense of connection and belonging in our students even when they are away from home. 

And this is why we have families in the school. Each family has one teacher who is the parent to eight to ten students.  The families have scheduled sessions that take place every Wednesday from 7-7.25 am. Spending 25 minutes at the start of the school day to help students talk through issues they may be having and practice social and emotional skills can have a positive effect on their academic achievement. 

We also work with our parents who continue with the conversations during holidays.

Click here and submit your application today for the 2022 academic year. You can also find Virtual Tours of our campuses here

Dear Novaneers,

 

Happy new year!  I am writing you this letter from Johannesburg, where the final rainy week of December has given way to a new year’s weekend of sunshine and brilliantly clear blue skies.  I am thankful to have been able to spend the December holidays with family, and to have rung in the new year together as a family.  While 2022 will no doubt have its challenges, the year has started with a great new energy.  May this early sunshine be a sign of a positive year ahead! 

Looking back to 2020 and 2021, I am incredibly proud of – and deeply grateful – for the Nova Pioneer community: for our students, families, and teammates.  Your commitment to our students and to our culture principles of Greater Together, Solutions First and High Expectations, enabled us to reach new educational heights, even as we persevered through the shocks of the pandemic.  In 2021, Novaneer students published books, won gold and silver medals in the Yale World Scholars Cup, placed 1st and 3rd place nationally in Kenya’s Junior Achievement Entrepreneurial Company Programme, travelled internationally, organised inspiring campus programmes, conducted community service, studied diligently, supported each other and experienced great personal and academic growth.  Across all our secondary schools, our graduating students in 2021 built on and surpassed the exam success of their predecessors. In Kenya, the May 2021 graduates of Tatu Girls and Boys Secondary schools did us all proud by achieving an 8.0 composite average, including a number of superlative individual results, and doing so in their 1st and 2nd KCSE sittings respectively.  Well done to all our students and teachers, and to the families and teammates who support them!   

So what lies ahead?  In 2022 we will continue to focus on the intention we set 12 months ago: to build every Nova Pioneer school into a Beacon of Excellence and Value.  Here is what we wrote last year:

In 2018 former South African President Kgalema Mothlanthe visited Nova Pioneer and challenged us to become beacons of excellence, demonstrating what is possible in African education.  The transformational power of institutions of excellence resonates with us.  They stand out for doing distinctively good work and are beacons of possibility. 

Being Beacons of Excellence and Value means sharpening our focus on educational excellence, with an attentiveness to understand what our students and parents value.  It means making clear choices about which of those we can best serve and how, and then visibly delivering on it.

That vision served us well in 2021 and the early feedback from our families was very positive.  Twice a year we seek our families’ feedback and voice through a biannual survey.  In 2021, across Kenya and South Africa, our family positivity rating grew by a remarkable 50%, from an already strong base!  

Through those surveys, Novaneer families told us they valued [1] Nova Pioneer’s academic rigour and 21st century preparation, [2] the care and individual attention shown by our teachers for each of our students, [3] improvements in communication, and [4] the way our schools and teachers adapted to the pandemic, ensuring safe and continuous learning.  Once again, I am grateful for the deep commitment and care of students, teachers, and support teammates alike; and especially for our parents’ generous and steadfast partnership.

However, we have more work to do.  We must work to further grow our students’ achievements, shine brighter as beacons, and thereby deliver on our mission of developing innovators and leaders who will shape the African Century.  As we do so we also need to do what we can to protect affordability for families, by striving to be even more efficient in the way we work and judicious in prioritising what matters most to our students’ education.    

In the 2021 surveys, our families asked that we stay focused on excellence in each of the areas mentioned above, and that we expand the opportunities that our students have to explore and develop their interests and talents beyond the classroom.  Informed in part by that feedback, a few points of focus in 2022 will be:

• Invest further in our student experience. Specifically, we will [1] selectively expand the opportunities our students have beyond the classroom to pursue passions and connect with each other (including across schools and enabled by technology).  Nova Pioneer schools currently offer a wide range of extracurricular and cultural opportunities, some of which may be specific to your school.  Therefore I will defer to your school to communicate over the course of this year about the opportunities that are available, and any new ones that become available as a result of further planning.   [2] We will invest in our Post School Success programme and personnel so that we continue to give Novaneers a ‘leg-up’ in preparing for tertiary and other post-school opportunities.  
• Refresh each Nova Pioneer schools’ Individual School Strategy. Each Nova Pioneer school will review its medium term educational programme plan (including the points noted in above); while also planning for long-term fiscal health and school growth.  While Nova Pioneer schools are made consistent by our shared mission, culture principles, and distinctive educational approach, each school is a unique community of students, faculty, and families, in a unique local context.  That offers each school unique opportunities to manifest our shared vision for Novaneers, and so we will identify, prioritize among, and pursue those.  
• Operate efficiently. Even as we continue to prioritize educational excellence, we must remain focused on value for families.  We already see the signs of growing inflation in both Kenya and South Africa, and we are likely to see that inflation accelerate as economies work back from the effects of COVID-19.  While protecting our commitment to educational excellence, we will seek out opportunities to work even more cost effectively, to mitigate the impact of inflation on families wherever we can. 

As we do all that, we will keep true to our foundations as Nova Pioneer: [1] our mission to develop innovators and leaders, [2] our culture that is built on our six culture principles; [3] our commitment to academic excellence; and [3] our vision of learning, where every Novaneer discovers that he or she is fundamentally capable.

With gratitude and best wishes for a positive 2022,

Chinezi Chijioke
Founder and CEO, Nova Pioneer

The first five years of your child’s life is critical, as this is the period in which early childhood development takes off. Parents can find it difficult to decide on when the best time is to send their child to school. No one wants to send their child to school prematurely, neither do they want to send them to school too late.

One of the things parents need to know about school readiness is that it involves two types of indicators: an eagerness to learn and an enthusiasm for school. School readiness is thus a measure of how prepared your child is to succeed at school. Check out these 5 key indicators of school readiness to look out for in your child:

1.Physical and Motor Development:

If your child is able to crawl or walk, it means that they are getting ready to explore their physical environment. Parents can look out for gross motor development, which includes running, skipping and standing on one leg. Furthermore, parents can look out for fine motor development in their child. When your child is comfortable using a pair of scissors, successfully able to use zips and buttons and they are able to use cutlery, this is an indicator of school readiness. Moreover, visual as well as auditory development and your child’s ability to take care of themselves by being able to go to the toilet alone, is another strong indicator of school readiness.

2.Emotional and Social Development:

A child who is emotionally well-adjusted has a significantly greater chance of early school success. Your child is most likely ready for school when they get along with their peers. They are ready for school when they can interact within a group, they show an interest in other children and they willing help others. Also, if your child can express feelings and needs, can sit still long enough to listen to a story and can concentrate on a task for a reasonable amount of time, they are most likely ready to be placed in a school.

3.Cognitive Development:

Every parent knows that mental ability is essential in the cognitive development of a child. How a child thinks, makes independent decisions and figures things out for themselves is a good indicator of school readiness. It is the ability to take direction and following instructions that helps children navigate the world around them and that also encourages an interest to learning.

4.Language Development:

A child is ready for school when they can express themselves through speaking and vocabulary as well as literacy and listening. Furthermore, they should be able to communicate effectively in their home language, be able to sequence or recite a story or a set of events comprehensibly, and identify similarities and differences between objects.

5.Emotional Development:

Last but not least, your child is most likely ready for school when they show emotional maturity. When your child can reasonably control their emotions and handle separation well, that means they can handle being in a school setting with other children. Other emotional development indicators include confidence, independence and displays of being responsible.

Sources:

https://helpmegrowmn.org/HMG/HelpfulRes/Articles/WhatMotorPhysicalDev/index.html#:~:text=Motor%20development%20means%20the%20physical,and%20touch%20his%2Fher%20surroundings.&text=Motor%20development%20is%20important%20throughout,tied%20to%20other%20development%20areas

On March 15 2020, the Kenyan government announced a national school lockdown in response to the rising cases of Covid-19 in the country and this caused some disruption to the Kenyan Academic Calendar. The students were at this time approaching the end of the first time and looking forward to the April holiday.

Six  months later  Grade 4, Class 8 and Form 4 classes re-opened while other classes awaited their start dates. The disruption to on-campus learning resulted in a change in the Kenyan academic calendar. Schools, students and parents were now going to face a new norm with new term dates.

The ministry of Education announced the new term dates late last year (2020) and this was in an effort to cover the remaining 2 terms from 2020 with the aim of stabilising the school calendar by December 2022. The changes to the calendar may be confusing and this post is written with the aim to help understand what these changes look like practically.

 

Concluding the 2020 Academic Calendar

Term 2 began on January 4th, 2021 (which in the past would have been Term 1 for the new academic year) and ended on March 19th, 2021.  Term 3 for the 2020 Academic Calendar will commence on May 10th and will close on July 25th. The 2020 calendar will close out on July 25th

 

Starting the 2021 Academic Calendar

The first  term of the 2021 calendar will commence on the  26th of July 2021 to 1st October,2021 after which the students will break for a 1 week holiday that will transition them to Term 2 which will start on 11th October,2021 to 23rd December,2021 this will be followed by a 10 day holiday and reopen for Term 3 as from 3rd January 2022, to 4th March.

 

Working to restabalise the calendar

Holidays to mark the end of 2021 Calendar will begin March 5th 2022 and end April 24th, 2022.

The KCPE period will begin March 7th 2022 and end March 10th, 2022. Then finally, the KCSE period will begin March 11th  until April 1st, 2022.

We look forward to welcoming students for the new 2021 Academic Year in July. Nova Pioneer is currently still enrolling for grades in both our Primary and Secondary Schools. To apply for Term 1,  click on (link) To begin the enrollment process for the 2021 Academic year beginning in July, please submit your application here (link)

We continue to follow the Government’s directive on COVID 19, to ensure our students and teammates safety while they are at school. (Link COVID preparedness blog)