Academics

Our academic programme is anchored on the Kenyan 8-4-4 system of education. NLA will offer all the obligatory subjects on the 8-4-4 syllabus, plus several electives. The choice of electives will be collectively guided by our students’ ambitions – enriched with guidance from parents, teachers and career development advisors. By understanding the respective strengths and weaknesses of each student, we will advise and prepare them for the best subject options to suit their future career options.

Parents and students are advised that our academic programme – as with other programmes – will call for excellence,  which is honestly earned. Our ambitious goal is to to deliver a 10+ average in the 2019 KCSE examinations and beyond.

Our faculty will engage our students collectively and individually, and we encourage parents to also take a keen interest on how the students are performing. We will organize regular PTSA (Parent Teachers Students Association) meetings where parents can have one-on-one sessions with class tutors so as to track progress of their daughters in school.

Cognizant that our students will not all be at par academically, our academic program has been designed to be considerately participatory so as to encourage understanding as opposed to cramming. NLA will have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each student to monitor everyone individually. In areas where a student is struggling, we will offer mitigation to ensure no one is left behind.

Most academic & instructional institutions – up to the highest level – are primarily Teacher Centered. In this model, a teacher is the “expert” with all the knowledge and the students/listeners must unavoidably feed from him/her. The assumption is that learning is an inevitable outcome of “good teaching”, and thus is more heavily focused on the development of teaching skills. This in turn has translated into purely performance-based, exam-oriented institutions – with numerous activities but negligible learning.

NLA recognizes that the human mind is NOT a vessel to be filled, but a FIRE to be ignited. NLA will therefore adopt a Learner Centered facilitative approach. Focus will be on what the students are learning, why they are learning, how they are learning and the efficacy of learning conditions/environment to facilitate their learning. It also lays emphases on whether the student is retaining and applying the learning, and how the current learning positions the students for future learning.

The students will be actively involved in every step of the learning process, so as to create a learning community through instilling a learning attitude.

We have created a career guidance programme that enables each student discover purpose and align them to their abilities in the context of global opportunities and challenges. In order to be effective leaders and entrepreneurs, the students should be able to discover this about themselves with guidance from the teachers but also invited guests who come and share their professional experience.

Parents will be an integral part of the process, so that they can support the students accordingly both at home and school.