Proof of the pudding

Apologies for the long delay since my last post. Unfortunately I have been ill with a viral lung infection. This was enough to keep me in bed and out of the classroom for a week, and also put paid to my plans to walk up Mount Kenya, which is challenging enough due to lack of…

Since the end of the Easter holidays, I have been helping out with the RVA Robotics team. In February (before my time), they won a regional competition in Nairobi, and were invited to compete at an international competition in Morocco, against nearly 70 teams from around the world. The team of seven (mostly Year 7s…

Term 3 has started, and after a week in the classroom, I think I am back into the swing of teaching again. Over the Easter holiday period we had a wonderful time with Peter, Leandra and Sam, who came to visit us. We spent the best part of a week at the coast in Mombasa…

Term 2 has finished! Peter and Leandra have arrived to spend a couple of weeks with us over the holiday period, and Sam will join us at the beginning of April. The last week of term was unusual, since the Grade 11 and 12 students were all away on cultural field trips. For me this…

Those who have been at RVA for some time tell us that the second term is the hardest, and we certainly feel that some endurance has been required over the past few weeks. In mid-February I celebrated the two-year anniversary of the NASA rover Perseverance landing successfully on Mars. Around 30 students and staff came…

Two weeks since my last blog post, and we have already reached half-term, commonly known here as mid-term. It’s a very short break – as teachers we get a long weekend, with no teaching on the Friday and Monday. Lesley and I took the opportunity to go off with friends to Lake Elementaita. We stayed…

Term is whizzing along – we have just finished Week 4 (of twelve). In algebra we have finished polynomials, and are now learning about the properties of rational exponents. Those with poor knowledge of their times tables are being exposed…. Last weekend Lesley supported the Titchie Water Day. All the primary school children were split…

After a trip to Europe visiting family and friends over the Christmas holiday, we are back at RVA and already well into the new term. My Algebra 2 classes are wrestling with polynomial long division and the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra. Brains are aching, but I have slowed the pace a bit to allow more…

After thirteen weeks of teaching, we have reached the end of Term 1! The last week has been relatively light, since all the teaching for this term is finished. There were a couple of days set as for revision, and then the end-of-term exams. Marking those was a big job, but it was lovely to…

One of the particularly rewarding things about being at RVA (or indeed any school) is what goes on outside the classroom. Important though Algebra is, even I wouldn’t claim it is the be all and end all of life. And the last week or so has seen several things going on which enhanced the life…