18 May 2013 dawned as a cold dreary day. It ended with our boys keeping our cup on home ground. Hu ha.

The annual Reading Competition took place in the library on the 14^th of May 2013. After a short musical performance by the new scholarship students, students from Class 1 showed us how well they can read in less than one year.

There was no vacant seat left in the sports hall and the audience enjoyed listening to a sophisticated and entertaining music programme.

Last Friday all kindergarten parents were invited to join a special programme of each group on the occasion of mother's day.

The following decisions were made:

The teams of the German School Football Centre put up a good show at last weekend's Mini World Cup tournament, scoring plenty of goals and springing at least one surprise.

This year's Art Exhibition was officially opened on Saturday the 27^th of April, accompanied by a large number of members from the school society, as well other art lovers.

Earlier this year class 4, guided by Mrs. Pichler, participated in the writing competition "AbraPalabra". This competition is organized by the kids' studio of the women's museum in Bonn and is addressed to German Schools abroad as well as to schools in Germany.

• A strategy meeting of School Board and School Management has been scheduled for the 20^th of April 2013.

For the last two months, we had been working on the theme of Circus in the Kindergarten. The classrooms had been turned into circus tents, the kids had become animal trainers, animals, clowns, acrobats, and musicians.

• In its meeting on 25^th February, the board approved the employment of Ms. Jennifer Kerstan as school social worker. Ms. Kerstan takes up her duties on April 15.

• The board gave its formal blessing to the establishment of the German School Football Centre. The centre has already attracted more than 60 children to its Saturday morning training sessions, and has played its first round of friendly matches against ISK (for more information, see the sports section).

• As part of efforts to improve the school's finances and services, the board reviewed ongoing work to renovate and upgrade the facilities at the boarding house.

• Much of the meeting was taken up with preparations for the Feb. 26 Extraordinary General Meeting and with security measures related to the Kenyan elections.

Students from Classes 1 to 10 met at the pool early in the morning, to decide once and for all who the fastest swimmers, the fastest classes, the best "board fishers" and the fastest "clothes changers" of the German School Nairobi are!

On Carnival day, carnival revellers took over the helm at the Kindergarten and the Primary School. Teachers and children dressed in fancy dress could be seen all over the school.

What will happen after the Presidential Election on the 4^th of March? This seems to be the most asked question currently, and for this reason,the Resource Centre of the German School Nairobi invited parents and students to a lecture by Dr. Ralph-Michael Peters on the 31^st of January 2013.

Any business in land is currently flourishing. More and more investors are buying fertile land in other countries. Particularly popular land: Africa. How can the African population benefit from this trend? That was the question that the participants of the conference tried to answer on the 30^th of January at the Resource Centre of the German School Nairobi.

• Mr Rizwan Fazal from the finance task force, which is working on this year's budget as a priority, was invited to the Board meeting to present the results of what the task force has done so far.

Storymoja was set up by a group of 5 Kenyan writers, with the aim of facilitating publishing for East African writers.In order to encourage interest in reading, Storymoja organised a "National Reading Record Event." Scores of schools around the country were invited to read a short extract from a story "The Attack of the Shidas",simultaneously at 9.00 a.m. on the 31^st of January 2013. The Primary School of the German School Nairobi also decided to try and be part of this record, and thus 36 students from Classes 2, 3 and 4 met in the library shortly before 9.00 a.m. on this Thursday morning.

Our first official game against an international school loomed ahead of us. In our new jerseys, sponsored by BMW-Niederlassung, not only did we look good, we managed to trounce our opponents Hillcrest 50:27 (22:12).

On the 17^th of January 2013, the German School Nairobi participated in a very touching memorial service for Laura Blanche (Cl. 10), who was fatally injured in a motorbike accident during the Christmas holidays.

In December 2012 the participants of our karate team had their graduation exams to yellow belt. Those who successfully passed the exam received their belts in an official awarding ceremony this week.

Brigitte Lokudu has started working today, 14.01.2013, as school nurse of the German School Nairobi and successor to Frida Brick.

Class 4 has made an advent calendar for the teachers in the art lesson.

The traditional St. Nicholas celebrations were held at the Kindergarten on the 6th of December. The Kindergarten team had put together a programme in which all the children participated. The children acted out a story in which St. Nicholas loses his hat, and must go down to earth to look for it. His journey takes him through four different countries, until he finally finds his hat in Africa.

- The board returned to full strength by voting unanimously to co-opt Michael Koechig as its eighth member. Michael assumes the duties of deputy chair of the school's Finance Committee.

- Together with the German Embassy, the school has applied for financial support from the German Foreign Ministry for measures to strengthen security around the school compound. The ministry is expected to respond to the request quickly.

- The Finance Working Group considering the school's budgeting and fees held its first meeting on Nov. 22 and will re-assemble on Dec. 10. A second working group will work closely with the finance group on possible amendments and updates to the constitution of the school association.

- The tennis club got the go-ahead to install floodlights on our two courts so that play can continue into the evenings. The club expects to cover most of the cost through sponsorship and additional fees.

- Headmaster Boddenberg will personally represent the school at Didacta, the world's largest education fair, in Cologne in February.

- The school is initiating a specific audit of the construction of the kindergarten, as suggested by auditors at the annual meeting. External auditing firms will be invited to bid for the work.

Once a year, 7-10 year old students from the Dutch, French, Swedish, Norwegian and German schools get together for a special sporting event. This day is called “Globall”, owing to the sporting and international exchange that takes place on the day. The German School Nairobi was the host this year. More than 80 children came to our sports fields, from which we formed six mixed international teams.  So the lions played “Brennball” against the hippos, the giraffes played dodge ball against the eagles, and the rhino and the elephants played volleyball. Of course all teams had a chance to play all sports against all teams!

The German School offers again bus tours through different parts of Nairobi for new parents but also others interested. All kinds of useful adresses such as hospitals, doctors but also bakeries, markets, restaurants, coffee shops or sports facilities will be shown. The tours will start at the German School at 8.15 a. m., the buses will return until 1 p.m.. We will meet  in front of the reception at 8.00 a.m. where you can buy the bus tickets for 500 KSh.

The ceremony started with a welcome song from the Primary School Choir, "Wunderbar, ihrseid da", (it's great that you are finally here). With this song, it was very clear to the newcomers how much fun school can be! The Headmaster, Mr Boddenberg welcomed the children and Mrs Zanker, who will be the class teacher of the new children. As new-comers to the school themselves, both Mr Boddenberg and Mrs Zanker received a "Schultüte" (a cone shaped goody-bag, traditionally given to all Class 1 children on the first day of school).

At the beginning of the new academic year, new students, as well as new member of the teaching staff were welcomed to the German School Nairobi last Monday, 27th August.

In addition to having a large number of new students, we have several new faces in amongst the teachers, as well as in the School Management Team. Ulrich Boddenberg took up his position as Headmaster of the school on the 1^st of August 2012. He will be assisted by 2 Deputy Heads, Frauke Ibe and Sven Jeglitza.