Last year Riziki started at Mtwapa Elite in KG2, as an 8 year old she was already much older than her classmates but her inconsistent schooling meant that she was unable to manage the work for a higher class. At the time, her teacher even expressed some doubt that she would be able to progress into KG3 at the end of the year. Prior to 2017 Isaac had been studying at Victory academy - a community school close to where he lives with his mother and brother. Once Isaac completed all of the classes Victory had to offer he took the entrance exam for Mtwapa Elite and was accepted into KG3 at the start of 2017.

We are now a year on from when Riziki joined the school and 9 months in to Isaac's first year and I'm pleased to say both are doing so well.

Riziki's confidence and ability has grown leaps and bounds and in her most recent exams she was top of the class - something which we absolutely did not expect and something which she should be very proud of. Mtwapa Elite is a huge school compared to Victory Academy and this seemed to overwhelm Isaac at first but he has now settled in and he is also right at the top of the class.

We would like to say a big thank you to their class teacher Madam Margaret who has provided all of the support they needed to make this fantastic progress. Riziki also received some extra tuition from Madam Emma at the end of 2016 which gave her the best start to her school life and helped her progress into KG3.

Madam Margaret with Isaac and Riziki

This has been a big year for our youngest sponsored child, Isaac, as he has started at BIG SCHOOL! Isaac was previously attending Victory Academy, a small local kindergarten run by a wonderful woman named Madam Susan. Madam Susan runs the kindergarten (for around 80 children from 18months to 5yrs) out of her home and cares for all the children as her own. Isaac has now graduated from Victory Academy and is ready to start big school for the first time!

To read more about Isaac or Victory Academy check out our other blog posts:

Blog Post - Isaac

Blog Post - Local Schools

Isaac was very excited when he moved this January into the Kindergarten class at Mtwapa Elite! He has his posh new school uniform and is feeling pretty smart!

Isaac is joining Kindergarten 2 at Mtwapa Elite, which is an excellent primary school, currently leading the way in the examination results for the whole of Kilifi County. He will be among family, since 8 of our milele sponsored children already attend this school.

To find out more about Mtwapa Elite, check out our previous blog post:

Blog Post - Mtwapa Elite

Isaac is settling in really well and we are starting some extra tuition for him with his kindergarten teacher to help him catch up with his reading skills. He has already made lots of friends and is in the same class as Riziki, another of our Milele sponsored children. Riziki and Isaac are neighbours and are already firm friends!

We look forward to hearing more about how he is getting on at big boys school - stay tuned!

Hi All, As you may have seen in one of our earlier posts we recently moved our children who are attending primary school to Mtwapa Elite Academy. This is quite a change so I thought it would be good to tell you a bit more about it and show some more of our photos.

Mtwapa Elite is the best primary school in Kilifi county, their average mark for children graduating from Standard 8 is 368 out of 500 (over 73%).

The school and compound are amazing. The school is a three story building which is impeccably maintained and has lots of great facilities for the children to use including a computer room, library and sports field.

They also have a fleet of school buses (which Saidi and Pendo use daily) and offer both Swimming and Judo as extracurricular activities.

Whilst we were in Kenya we met with the head teacher of the primary school and the class teachers for all of our children. Despite our children having only been part of the school for a few weeks all of the teachers knew the children well and spoke of specific areas where they thought the children was performing well or could improve. This is really useful as Rieder can proactively monitor these areas and provide extra resources or tuition if needed.

This was a big change for the Milele children but I am glad to say they are all settling in well.

We really hope Mtwapa Elite is going to help the children to reach their full potential!