Friday night, was movie night at BNIS and our heads were “filled with the brightest colours” as a “million dreams kept us awake” after watching The Greatest Showman.  We were blessed with a beautiful evening with a clear sky full of stars.  Thank you all for coming, we hope you had a good time!

What an insightful Open Morning in Early Years! The parents got a chance to know what happens in their children's year groups as well as get a feel of their children's learning environment first hand by engaging in various activities.

 Hog Charge is a mountain Bike  event  aimed at school children to get them actively involved in Conservation fund raising and in so doing, they would learn about the efforts to conserve the forests of Kenya, how to inter-react with sponsors, learn team work and also give them a challenge when they took part in the event. Parents and teachers are also encouraged to take part.

In this year, we had some of our children taking part in the event and did us really proud in winning in their categories. These included:

Under 12 girls team that included Edith Hobbs, Elsa Dyer, Lois Dekker and Olivia Horwood.

Robin Bebbington and  Noah Dekker’s team won the Under 14 boys event as well at the Under 14 boys gauntlet!

A big well done to the boys’and girls’ team

‘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!