Last year has seen countless opportunities for, and achievements by, the students, of Nova Pioneer both inside and beyond the walls of the classroom. The founder of the school Chinezi Chijioke recounts what made last year remarkable for them.
“We have seen a Novaneer achieve the world’s top IGCSE score on Cambridge exams, and seen our internationally benchmarked Cambridge checkpoints exceed global expectations. Seen students shine on stage, excel on the sports field, and step into leadership roles or develop new creative solutions. We have seen students build friendships, support each other, and receive the support of others.
“It has been a year full of our cultural principles: the joy of learning, greater together, high expectations, solutions first, always growing, and servant leadership. We have seen all of those every day in our lesson planning and lesson leading; in our community building and skills coaching, in our parent partnership and teammate development, in a shoulder or an ear offered to a student or teammate who needed it, and in all areas, in our growing 1% better each day, so that we are all more and better today than we were 12 months ago.”
Thank you for all you do each day to bring growth and joy to every Novaneer student. I wish you a festive and well-earned holiday season, he added.
He said the school has achieved a lot this year but what made it extra special was when a Novaneer alumnus from Nova Pioneer Ormonde’s first graduating class in 2019, wrote to me to let me know that he had just received an offer from one of South Africa’s leading law firms to do his legal articles.
“In addition to his own tremendous dynamism and work ethic, he had taken advantage of the Nova Pioneer network to explore, develop, and ultimately seize this opportunity. I believe that our success will best be determined by the lives of our graduates, and this was a moment that reminded me of just that.”
It was not at all smooth sailing. “2023 has of course brought many challenges for our community and each of us individually. They may be challenges of a challenging subject; or of a family facing new difficulties in making ends meet, or a fractured friendship, or the loss of a loved one or a close friend’s move to another city. There may be challenges of growth, as we work to improve systems to serve our growing Novaneer family with increased simplicity, responsiveness, and care. These have at times introduced hardship and strain, but I am proud of how our community has met each of them and grateful for the growth that has been offered.
“I look forward to welcoming Novaneers new and old to campus for another year of learning and growth. I look forward to seeing the programmes in which we are investing come to life in the experience of our students: our expanded competitive sports programme and facilities – particularly in football and basketball, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence as a thematic area in our Innovation and Leadership curriculum.”
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