‘Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.’ Mattie Stepanek

Malaika Dia (Violin) and Rose Ndeto (Flute) joined 200 young musicians from over 12 prep schools all over Kenya. Featuring for the first time were the Ghetto Classics who performed alongside the junior orchestra.

Upon arriving at St Andrew’s School on Friday night, the children were immediately engaged in intense sectional and full orchestra rehearsals that culminated in a one-hour concert on Saturday night.

Among the pieces that were played by the full orchestra were The Abduction from the Seraglio by W.A Mozart, Star Wars by John William, Radetzky March by Johann Strauss, Finlandia by Jean Sibelius and Ode to Joy by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Just like in a typical orchestral weekend, the string section and wind section battled it out to see which section would have the best pop song performance. The strings played Gangnam Style arr. By Robert Longfield and the winds did justice to Bruno Mar’s Uptown Funk arr. by Michael Story.

As the children played Finlandia, the audience joined in singing the chorus ‘We rest on Thee our Shield and our Defender.’ The concert was culminated with an encore of Bruno Mar’s Uptown Funk! We all left wanting to hear more!

Year 7 and 8 pupils thoroughly enjoyed spending a few days at Tambuzi Farm, using the environment to inspire sketching.  Observational skills were progressively developed through extended opportunities to draw from real life.  Gathering of items from the natural environment and setting up a still life allowed pupils to feel an affinity with their drawings.  Sketching became even more challenging when attempting to draw moving animals.  It is interesting that the brain takes over when we stop looking at the image we are drawing and so constant reminders were needed to keep looking at our images so that drawings became more life-like. 

Printing blocks were created using natural materials like leaves and bark and then used to print onto cloth bags.  The pupils talked about using these bags for shopping as an alternative to the recently banned plastic bags.

Our final activity was to create a flower bouquet considering colours, shapes and scents.  Something to take home to parents.

An additional benefit of being on a farm was the opportunity for the pupils to milk Rose the cow.  A first time opportunity!

The last day of the first term at BNIS is the most exciting and much looked forward to in the term.

Christmas carols graced the morning followed by a picnic lunch with Santa coming into school in his usual style - a chopper bearing gifts to all.

What an exciting way to end the term! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to each and every one of you!

This year was the first time that BNIS was able to compete at the Braeburn Athletics as a full participating team. This meant that we were able to compete in the sprinting track events that involved using lanes. These events were the 75, 100,200 meters as well as the relays. 

We had 26 children on our team competing in U9, U11 and U13 categories. All our children performed very well and in the relay events we made the finals in U9 boys as well as U11 girls. In the individual events Julia (75M), Theo (75M), Lois (200M), Edith (100M) and Noah (200M) made the final. 

 This year we took three medals. Lily-Sue won a bronze in the girls U11 800 meters, Joseph won silver in the U13 boy’s javelin and Luca won gold in the U9 boy’s ball throw. Fantastic results by all out athletes. Well done to our team who made Braeburn Nanyuki proud.

During Art Week, the children worked in teams to design a Didgeridoo using Australian Aboriginal Art. A Didgeridoo is an aboriginal musical instrument made from hollowed out stick that is beautifully decorated with Aboriginal Symbols and patterns.

They contributed to discussions on aboriginal culture and beliefs considering how this culture is different form theirs. They had to be resourceful thinkers in these sessions asking the questions ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘what if’ questions; using their imagination to thin of ideas; suggesting different ways to tackle the problem.

They contributed to a collaborative piece of art done in the style of the aboriginal art with a message of TOLERANCE.  These are now hanging beautifully along our school corridor.