Another successful week has come to an end with the BKIS scouts gearing up for their camp out in the school compound. Scouting has become a very popular club with members as young as seven years actively participating in the activities on offer. According to the club’s patron Mr. Yamo, the Camp will give the children the opportunity to build friendships through participating in group activities, equip the scouts with basic knowledge of scouting, survival skills as well as participating in games and activities to foster critical thinking.

Our boys and girls are excited and ready for the experience and we hope the weather will also be favorable to us. According to the plan the scouts will end their camp tomorrow by 12:30pm after undergoing First Aid Training.

 Toyota Dream Car Awards

Our boys and girls participated in the National Toyota Dream Car Art Contest this year. For the first time, we registered many participants in various categories. As I had mentioned earlier, for the U8 category, all the top three positions were taken by BKIS students; Dhara, Bashar and Malaika Fillinger. Because of this, the Toyota Kenya led by their MD Mr. Arvinder Reel will be in BKIS on 25^th May 2018 during our assembly to present the awards to our three winners. Once again, we are proud of the hard working students who have ensured that BKIS has once again demonstrated that the learners enjoy success.

Mater Heart Run

There is no better way to show how internationally minded we are as BKIS community than participate in this Year’s Mater Heart Run through the display of the value of CARING. We have always extended a helping hand to the needy in the society.

We appeal to you to come out in larger numbers and support this noble cause. Your participation will go a long way in saving hundreds of children with heart ailments from economically disadvantaged background.

‘‘Touch a Child’s Heart’’

The deadline for submission of the Sponsorship form is next week Thursday 24^th May.  We have always emerged as top contributors in the region and I am hopeful we are still going to remain at the top as TEAM BKIS. Already T-shirts , caps and wrist bands are on sale at the school office.

Primary Disco

The much awaited disco for the Primary children will be held next week Friday as a climax of the first half of the term. The children seem excited about it. It will run from 6pm to 8pm.The programme of the event will be sent out next week.

The value of internationalism was well captured in our today’s assembly when the discussion was on characteristics of internationally minded individuals. It was great to hear from the students’ body listing the desirable characteristics of thinkers, communicators, risk takers, reflective, balanced, knowledgeable, inquirers, principled and open minded. When all these are displayed, then the Braeburn Circles of Responsible Citizens, Learners Enjoying Success and Confident Individuals are automatically realised. It is our hope that the BKIS products will always be broad minded individuals with sole aim of making a positive impact in the society.

It was also an occasion to remember how Time, Opportunity and Spoken Words never come back when gone. As team, we agreed to always make good use of our time in school, grab this golden opportunity to maximise on the positive experiences offered at BKIS and thoughtfully consider the words that come out of us.

FAMILY PICNIC

The annual target of TEAMWORK, led to a successful event last Saturday. It was encouraging to see student led activities which accommodated every BKIS member. A big thank you to all for the support.

  Inter Braeburn Swimming Gala

Two weeks ago, our boys and girls had the opportunity to represent BKIS in the annual Inter Braeburn Swimming Gala. Our team of 25 swimmers comprised did their best despite the cold weather of Nairobi. In our assembly today, we acknowledged the contributions of each and every swimmer and presented the medals to Jesse, Aiden, Don, Pete and Kieran for their exemplary performance.

Mathletics

This is a free fun online competition powered by World Maths Day which is annually held in the month of March. Our students took part in it and were awarded beautiful certificate which were presented during the assembly. The competition measures speed in arithmetic and numeracy skills on the live Mathletics platform. Congratulations to the winners.

  Scouts Camp

The BKIS Internal Scouts Camp will be held next week Friday. Our boys and girls are excited about it and are looking forward to the great experience. The letters on the same have been sent home.  Should you have any questions, kindly get in touch with the club’s patron Mr. Yamo.

Mater Heart Run

As one of the characteristics of internationally minded community, BKIS has always displayed the value of Caring. This, we have annually done through community services such Mater Heart Run. This year, the event will be held on the 26^th May. Already the sponsorship forms have been sent home through the students. Being our tradition, let’s give back to the community through this noble course. For the last many years, BKIS has always emerged among the top contributors in this region and I am sure this time round we are even going to be better.

The week two has come to a pleasant end with the great news to BKIS community of Loice Jobando achievement of securing scholarship to join the African Leadership Academy in September! African Leadership Academy (ALA) seeks to enrol the most outstanding young leaders from across Africa and around the world. ALA is not only looking for young people who are smart and excel in the academic environment, they are looking for young people with the potential to lead and impact the world around them through their courage, initiative and innovation. It is indeed a great achievement for Loice (Our Deputy President to the Students Council) for being the first student from BKIS to get this admission. ALA’s selection process is extremely competitive and for her to make it, we are all proud of her.

Toyota Dream Car Art Competition

BKIS has done it again! The Under 8 Category in this competition had many participants from all over Kenya expressing the wishes to Toyota for their dream cars. From the results, it was like a reserved category for Braeburn Kisumu International School. Dhara S., Bashar Y. and Malaika F. won   Gold, Silver and Bronze respectively. Congratulations to our students. The Toyota Kenya representatives will be organizing to present the awards to our winners in the course of the term.

Scouts Patrol Leaders Camp at Braeburn Imani International School Report.

The scouts departed BKIS at exactly 8:30am for Nairobi. The journey to Nairobi was excellent as the weather was quite favourable. We made one stop at West Side Mall in Nakuru for a short break where the scouts were able to get their lunch from KFC before embarking on the journey to Nairobi and arrived at around 5:30 pm. We unfortunately missed out on the opening ceremony which was set to kick off at around 4pm. The scouts indulged themselves with refreshments provided by the host and later on managed to put up their tents in time for supper as well as the evening activities.

 There was a heavy down pour almost every evening that forced us to abandon our tents for the classrooms throughout our stay at camp. The BKIS scouts lived up to the values and expectations and no disciplinary cases were reported. The scouts received training on various subject areas including but not limited to First Aid and Badge System. Medical and dietary considerations were well factored and considered during our stay at camp.

 We would like to appreciate the team spirit and courage exhibited by the scouts even in the face of adversity.

YEAR 9 IGCSE Subject Options

After a successful week of tests to mark the end of KS3 work, our year 9s are now ready to start the CIE syllabus. The subject options have been arrived at after consultation with the students. These option blocks will be shared with their parents to help in the final choices as we draw a new time table for them. We wish them well in their preparation for IGCSE

 Inter Braeburn Swimming Gala

BKIS has sent a team of 25 swimmers to take part in this annual event tomorrow at BGR. For most of them, it is a first time experience. Mr.Azenga and Ms. Irene have worked with them to build their confidence and we are hopeful that as usual, they will do their best. A big thank you to the parents who have offered to accompany and cheer them up during the Gala.

Family Picnic

As calendared, this event will be held on the 5^th May 2018 from 1 pm. Yesterday, we had a successful ROBS meeting to plan for this and exciting activities are lined up .Thank you all for those who managed to attend the meeting and we are certain that with the great TEAMWORK, this coming picnic will simply be the best. The minutes of the meeting   will be shared out early next week detailing the specific activities of the day.

Welcome back to our last term of this academic year 2017/8. The holiday reports from the students indicate a well utilised Easter break and they seem ready for a packed calendar of events this term. As usual, the success of this term will hugely depend on the great teamwork displayed by the members of BKIS community. Over the Easter break, notable achievements were realised in Swimming and World Scholars.

Swimming

As was mentioned in our Closing Assembly last term, Jesse O. was selected to represent the Nyanza Region in the National Kenya Secondary Sports that was held in Embu. He indeed did his best and posted excellent results. He emerged 1^st Position in 50M free style, 2^nd Position 100m free style and 3^rd Position 4×50m free style Relay. Because of this, he has been selected once again to represent the country (Kenya) in the East African Secondary Schools competition to be held in Rwanda in October. We wish him well even as he trains for it.

  The annual Inter Braeburn Swimming Gala will be held on the 28^th April at BGR in Nairobi. Mr. Azenga has selected a team of 26 swimmers to represent BKIS all the way from Year 2 to Year 9. A big thank you to those who have swiftly responded and returned the consent slip as this helps in the preparation for the Gala. The team will have more training sessions after school next week just to enhance their performance. We wish them well.

World Scholars

Our able team of Scholars have done it again! Over the Easter break, BKIS was well represented at the Nairobi II Round that was held at Brook house School. Below is a brief write up on the same:

Our super scholars took part in this year’s first competition the Nairobi round. The excitement to debate, write and take part in all the challenges was palpable. Each one of them spent a lot of time reading and taking quizzes to learn terminologies as well as research on the topics given for this year’s theme An Entangled World. Day one was a culmination of it all as we battled in various debates and one of our teams (girls’ team) emerged 6^th overall out of all the teams that took place. Our teams also got busy with gruelling writing tasks and we emerged champions in some of the areas. Day two was a beehive of activities as teams took to the scholars bowl and showed their prowess in the subjects given. After the tough competition, we had a fabulous talent show where one of us Dedan O. took part in a choreography with a student from another school (collaboration in action). The icing of events came when the results began to rolling. Our screams could be heard in the crowd even though we had the smallest number of participants. We bagged many medals topped by admiration from various teachers who marvelled at the level of confidence displayed by our two teams.  A huge congratulations to the teams as we all made it to Barcelona!!!!  A huge thank you to all parents for your relentless support to the students. Let’s make this happen. All the way to YALE!!!!

Welcome back to another exiting second half of the term. I want to believe the break was restful. From the stories shared, the students are ready to give their best for the remaining weeks of the term.

As the term is coming to an end, our calendar of event is becoming more packed with exciting activities. Next week we have Book Week and in it there will be World Book day celebration in 1^st March 2018. A detailed programme of the week is attached.

Healthy Me Week

The exciting activities of the Book week shall be accompanied by a Healthy Me focus. This means that next week, students and teachers will be focusing on bringing in healthy snacks and meals for lunch to school.

One of the Core Themes in our PSHE programme across the school is Health and Wellbeing: Under this theme, the students are reminded of:

• What is meant by a healthy lifestyle
• How to maintain physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing
• How to manage risks to physical and emotional health and wellbeing
• How to identify different influences on health and wellbeing.

Our whole school focus for the whole week will be on how to lead a healthy lifestyle through diet .We have had a chat with the students on this and are looking forward to a great week. Suggestions for healthy me week is attached though the list is not conclusive.

Buddy Lunch

We have always emphasised on the values of friendship, responsibility and courtesy as BKIS community.  After a lot of deliberations, as a school we shall have buddy lunch next week. This basically means, the students will have an opportunity to eat together as a class with their teachers and buddies. In other words, we shall excuse our parents from coming to the school at lunch time and have responsible learners take charge of their lunch.

The picnic tables will be arranged per classes and teachers will supervise the whole exercise. In our today’s assembly, it was interesting and encouraging to hear the suggestions that came from the students themselves on how to make the buddy lunch a success:

• They mentioned of packed lunch and have it microwaved before lunch time
• The lunches are dropped in labelled containers before 12:30pm
• Parents/nannies leave immediately after bringing lunch.

It is our hope that a lot of independence among learners will be realised at the end of it and of course we can only achieve this through TEAMWORK.

 New BKIS Members

It is always a pleasure to receive new members of BKIS.  This week, we have been privileged to receive adorable twins in Year3 named Safiya and Amina. We say a big welcome to them! We also welcomed Hiroki back to BKIS community.

 Taekwondo Competition

Over the mid-term break, we had a powerful team of Deven, Dhara, Christian, Kieran and Krit represent BKIS in the Taekwondo friendly competition at Jalaram Academy.  They managed to get position 3 overall despite the fact that they were only five in number! Congratulations are in order for the team.

 ABRSM Exams Certificates

Our last year’s candidates finally received their certificates after a long wait. Congratulations to Dharah, Diya, Maaya, Dedan,Hawi and John for having passed their grade tests.

 Year 4 Assembly: The fall of The Aztecs

We were treated to a well-rehearsed play by the Year 4 on the fall of The Aztecs; a topic the have been covering in their History lessons. Again, our boys and girls did not disappoint. Below is a brief summary of the play as captured by their teacher:

We have been learning about the Aztec community. This has been an exciting journey ending with a lovely class assembly. In our play, Cortes, a great Spanish conquistador cleverly manages to use spies to find out all about Velasquez and uses clever strategies to overcome him. When Hernan Cortes arrived in Mexico the Aztec Emperor, Moctezuma 2, thought he was a God. This caused chaos and disorder in the empire which also helped the Spanish defeat the Aztecs. Additionally, Aztecs got weakened by diseases they caught from the Spaniards. We hope you enjoyed it!