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.  While 2022 will no doubt have its challenges, the year has started with a great new energy.  May it be a sign of a positive year ahead!

Looking back to 2020 and 2021, I am both proud of and 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 have persevered through the shocks and strains 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 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 (January 2021 in South Africa, July 2021 in Kenya).  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 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 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 increased 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 commitment and care of our students, teachers, and support teammates alike; as well as for our parents’ generous and steadfast partnership.

However, we have more work to do.  Through 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, in 2022 each Nova Pioneer School will refresh its Individual School Strategy with an eye to:

• Enriching and expanding student opportunities to pursue their interests and connect with others, both inside and outside the classroom (including across our schools and enabled by technology).  Nova Pioneer schools each currently offer a range of extracurricular and cultural opportunities, some of which may differ for each school.  While Nova Pioneer schools are made consistent by our shared mission, culture principles, and educational approach, each school is a unique community of students, faculty, and families, in a unique local context.  That offers each school unique opportunities.  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.  Organisationally, 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.

• Operating as efficiently as possible to defend affordability and value for families.  Even as we continue to prioritise educational excellence, we must remain vigilant on cost-effectiveness for families in the face of rising economic inflation.   This may require making some judicious choices to focus on what matters most to our student’s education, and to communicate clearly and openly with our families about those so that we remain aligned on expectations, and can then deliver on them.  

• Ensuring school fiscal health and growth.  Each Nova Pioneer school has been founded as an institution to serve generations of children.  As we plan and build together for the long term, we ask for your support as our partners and strongest ambassadors to grow our schools.

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 [4] our vision of learning, where every Novaneer discovers that she or he is fundamentally capable.   By doing those things we will be able to further grow our students’ achievements; shine brighter as beacons, and deliver on our mission to develop the innovators and leaders who will shape the African Century.  

With gratitude and best wishes for a positive 2022,

Chinezi Chijioke

Founder and CEO, Nova Pioneer