Term has started! And I am still alive!! 🙂

Friday saw 63 new pupils arriving, with their parents meeting the staff, and the Head of the Maths Department making sure they were all allocated to the correct course.

Lesley cheekily modified the department sign from MATH (note the American influence) to MATH(S). Unfortunately we didn’t get a photo of her graffiti….

Saturday saw the other 400+ pupils arrive, and then on Sunday there was a service in the Elementary School sports hall.

Monday saw the beginning of classes. There are seven 45-minute periods per day, with a break between Periods 3 and 4 for Chai (Kenyan tea) and Chapel, and then between Periods 5 and 6 for lunch (a very leisurely 80 minutes, to allow time for some extra curricula activities such as Band). At the end of the day there is a 25 minute Period 8, used to give extra help, or to recall pupils who have violated some school rule (such as not completing their homework on time).

I have Periods 1 and 2 free (much to the envy of my department colleagues), which is a mixed blessing since I am normally an early riser. However, we are still adapting to being in Kenya, so I am glad not to have to be at school at 0740 for the first lesson.

I am teaching Algebra, and I have been enjoying taking the classes through the number system, from Natural Numbers, through Integers to Rational Numbers and Irrational Numbers (which of course together make Real Numbers), and ended up touching on Imaginary and Complex numbers.

But that’s enough Maths for today (which is probably what the pupils are saying at the end of my lessons).

The pupils are very well behaved, some even thanking me for the lesson as they leave. There is a broad range of ability, but the school has a lot of schemes in place to help any who are struggling.

As I suspected, now that school has started, it is like a machine which keeps running, whatever happens. Pupils turn up for classes, whether you are ready for them or not! Fortunately, my Head of Department wisely insisted that before term started we prepared all the necessary lesson plans for the first six weeks (until half term) and also did all the homework. I followed his advice, so I am now in fairly good shape from a preparation perspective – next to tackle is grading the homework, which is set every day (!).

So although only two days into term, first impressions are good. I have been praying a lot, and asking plenty of advice from my colleagues, and both these approaches seem to have been paying off.

Kenyan Elections

The atmosphere over the past week or so has been calm, as the legal battle over the election result has been heard in the Kenyan Supreme Court.

This afternoon the Supreme Court ordered that the votes from 14 polling stations should be recounted, and the ballot boxes should be provided to the Supreme Court. The recount must be finished by 1st September.

We will have to wait and see how this unfolds, but for the moment, everything is peaceful.