coast academy Tag

5 Things Coast Academy Does To Encourage Parent-Teacher Relationships

 

1. Regular Communication

At Coast Academy, we believe in the key of Communication.  We have open communication so that the parent can reach out to the school at any time. We also keep them in the know through newsletters, emails, and calls where need be.

 

2. Parent-Teacher Conference

With regular Parent Teacher Conferences, parents get an opportunity to stay up to date on their child’s progress at school. It is also a great opportunity for both the teacher and parent to lay out any issues or questions they may have.

 

3. Taking Advantage Of Opportunities to Connect

Frequent class presentations, special performances by students is an excellent opportunity to invite parents to come and watch their children perform. Parents love getting opportunities to drop by their child’s class and relate to what the child does in school. This not only brings parents joy but also makes them feel included in their child’s life at school.

 

4. Build Confidentiality And Positivity

The basis of effective communication with parents also starts with trust. It’s essential for parents to trust their child’s teacher. When speaking to parents, any sensitive information shared between the teacher and parent remains confidential. Putting in a positive correspondence about the child goes a long way.

 

5. Being Friendly And Professional

A little friendliness goes a long way, in terms of building relationships with parents, it is important to maintain professionalism to avoid overstepping on individual boundaries. At Coast Academy, we respect different cultures and family dynamics.

 

 

 

Read More

8 Ways to Support Your Child’s Mental Health and Well-Being

As parents and caregivers, there are ways we can support our children to give them the best chance to stay mentally healthy.

Parents play a huge role in teaching activities that promote good mental health. The ability to label and manage emotions, identify needs, and ask for support are worth building for everyone — especially since these skills may help protect against future mental health concerns. You can help a child to have good mental health

1. Listen to Your Children’s Concerns

It is essential to listen to your children’s concerns. Let them feel heard and understood.  Have a one-to-one conversation with them and listen to any concerns that might have. Once your child feels safe with you, they learn to trust you in every situation which is essential for their mental health.

2. Encourage physical activity

Physical health and good mental health are strongly correlated. Encourage your child to get exercise regularly or engage in other physical activities such as swimming, cycling, or whichever activity they love doing. Such activities uplift their energy, mood, and mental health.

3. Teach Your Child The Art of Positive Self-Talk

Teach your child how to engage in positive self-talk with themselves. This changes how they view the situation and help manage their feelings and response behavior. For example, “Come down, It’s now worth getting into an argument over this.”,  “I am going to relax and it will pass.” and “I can do this.”

4. Encourage Your Child to Build Meaningful Friendships

Encourage your child to make new friends at school and around the neighborhood. You could also enroll them in a summer camp or classes of activities that they enjoy such as skating and swimming. Meet their friends and get to know the kind of influence they will have on your child.

5. Discipline Without Labeling

Practice gentle parenting. When disciplining your child, avoid using mean words like stupid, dumb, or calling them bad. This leads to the child feeling like they can’t do anything right or that they are not good enough for you. Instead, correct your child’s wrong behavior by explaining why their action was inappropriate and encouraging them to give it another try when they feel ready.  This gives them the push to want to correct their mistake and do better.

6. Be Generous With Praise

Make it a point to always praise good behavior. Praise your children more than you reprimand them. Constant criticism will only lower your child’s self-esteem and make them feel like they can’t get anything right which is detrimental to their mental health. Praising your child whenever they have done a good deed boosts mental health.

7. Journaling 

Journaling is an excellent coping strategy when dealing with big emotions. It may also help improve your child’s social skills by encouraging self-reflection from a young age. It could be as simple as writing three things that they are grateful for at the end of each day.

8. Get Professional Help If Needed

 

It is very important to spend enough time with your child so that you can easily recognize when they need professional help. Most parents tend to shy off when they notice that their child might need more help than what they have to offer. Addressing mental health concerns earlier on in life is the best thing you can do for your child. Children who grew up with good mental health tend to become responsible adults who know how to manage their emotions well.

You can also read 7 Effective Classroom Management Strategies at Coast Academy

Read More

7 Effective Classroom Management Strategies at Coast Academy

Managing a classroom requires skills. A good teacher needs to connect with kids and keep them focused on the lessons. Below are 8 habits for good classroom management to ensure that the class feels safe, comfortable, and pleasant place for everyone.

1. Build A Relationship With Each Student

Our teachers are required to get to know each student as an individual and to Identify and praise individual milestones. Days begin with a greeting and a reflection of the previous day and end with a wave of goodbye while they leave for home.

2. Establish the Rules

Each teacher has individual classroom protocols in place to handle routine issues that occur in every classroom. These involve how to raise concerns in class, how to ask for permission, and general dos and don’ts in class. All children are familiar with these rules and when a student breaks a rule, they own up to their mistakes and act accordingly. We maintain a light atmosphere where students feel free to work and thrive, to try, laugh, and learn.

3. Modeling Way Of Ideal Behavior

Our teachers act as the ideal model of what is expected of the learners. Children learn best through modeling or copying so they are most likely going to act as they see the adults close to them act. At Coast Academy, we encourage the students to:

• Maintain eye contact
• Let one another speak uninterrupted
• Raise concerns about one another’s statements in a respectful manner

4. Have A Plan

All our teachers have work plans that they share it with their students, too. A plan can be simple “You have 10 minutes to practice on your own, after which everyone will make a presentation.” Going through the day’s agenda hooks the students interest from the word go and lessens the chances of misbehavior.

5. Engaging The Learners

Good teachers are enthusiastic about the subjects they teach they encourage classroom participation by asking questions and giving them discussion topics.  They walk around the class interacting with the children and offering assistance where needed.

6. Show Love and Kindness

Students are most successful when they feel liked.  Our teachers show care and compassion towards the learners. A smile goes a long way. Good work is applauded and Children are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. This in turn improves academic and behavioral performance.

7. Be Fair and Just

Favoritism is completely forbidden at Coast Academy and all children are treated equally. In cases of behavioral issues, applicable disciplinary measures are applied that do not involve public shaming.

8. Hold Parties

Our termly classroom parties act as an acknowledgment o students’ hard work throughout the entire term, motivating them to keep it up, breaking classroom monotony, and creating room for the students to mingle, share and bond and have fun.

 

 

 

 

Read More

Why The IGCSE System Is The Best Option For Your Child

Why the IGCSE system is the best option for your child.

4 years after the introduction of the CBC curriculum in Kenya, most parents are yet to comprehend and understand its structure and what it entails.  With most parents not ready to embrace the CBC curriculum, many have started looking into the IGCSE system in trying to decide which of the 2 is the better option for their children.

Below is why IGCSE is the best choice for your child.

1. IGCSE is internationally recognized

IGCSE is an internationally recognized system developed by Cambridge University and considered the baseline for employment in most countries. It consists of early years, junior school and senior school. IGCSE certificate is recognized in any part of the world which makes it excellent preparation for further study in any University worldwide.

2. A wide scope of subjects to choose from

IGCSE offers a broad scope of more than 70 subjects to choose which are both applicable in life and offered at the universities such as law and psychology. Among the 70 subjects, 30 are languages. Learners select their subjects of choice based on their interests and abilities.

3. IGCSE is ability based

Unlike CBC, where all learners are equally tested, IGCSE exams cater to different learning and interpretation abilities as it considers that milestones are different in every individual. The exam board separates questions as per difficulty level.

4. Extended curriculum

IGCSE offers its learners an option to extend the curriculum. It mostly applies to students that are academically advanced and wish to take a supplement paper to support the core subject. This makes them become more advanced.

5. IGCSE is multicultural

Being an internationally recognized system, students from different cultures easily fit into the IGCSE system of Education which offers 30 different languages to choose from. Children whose English is not their first language are allowed more time to familiarize themselves with it before sitting for the exam.

6. Development

Learners gain skills that include listening skills, problem-solving skills, logical thinking skills, and practical skills among many others which they can apply in their day to day lives.

7. University scholarships to the UK

The IGCSE certificate is given preference in UK’s university placement. It is held with high value among the European Universities thus, increasing the chances of being selected to pursue higher education in their institutions.

 In conclusion, the IGCSE education system offers an all-rounded, in-depth, internationally recognized and quality education for learners of all abilities.  It is easy for a child to transition into IGCSE from the CBC curriculum since it is learner-based and the child is allowed to pick subjects that they have an interest in and would wish to pursue in Universities. IGCSE nurtures students into capable and fully equipped individuals ready to take on the world.

You should also read is the 844 system better than IGCSE?

Read More

3 Reasons Spending Quality Time With Your Children Is Important

Once again, the half-term break is here with us.

For students, it is usually a time to relax, meet up with their friends, catch up on their favourite shows, go for their favourite recreational activities and lastly, binge eating junk food. On the other hand, most parents find half-term to be unnecessary in terms of time and money because of the fear of truancy.

But the real question is how do you spend quality time with your children?

Half term is meant to be a time for bonding, reflection and relaxation for families.

However, most parents dread half-term breaks as it means them having to dig deeper into their pockets to finance the activities for the short break. For other parents, their main concern is the amount of unsupervised time that their children get during the half-term breaks, considering most parents are either full-time employees or have their own businesses to run, which translates to not enough time to keep an eye on the activities of their children.

Below is why you should spend more time with your child not just during half term, but all year round.

1. Cognitive development

The term cognition means the ability to use your conscious and subconscious parts of the brain to think, reason, remember and make decisions. Spending positive time with your children improves their Problem solving and decision-making skills.

2. Mental development

In this time and era, mental illness has become a global pandemic. Absent parenting is among the leading causes of mental health illness in school-going children. According to the Institute of Health Equity “lack of secure attachment, neglect, lack of quality stimulation, and conflict, negatively impact future social behaviour, educational outcomes, employment status and mental and physical health”.

Children’s exposure to neglect, direct physical and psychological abuse, and growing up in families with domestic violence was particularly damaging. This can all be restored through positive parenting, being there for your children, praising them, encouraging them and most importantly loving them. This in turn boosts their self-confidence and desire to succeed and make you proud.

3. Socio-cultural and spiritual development

The home being the first school, children learn the art of interaction through observing their parents. They tend to copy a lot from their parents and that is why a healthy and peaceful environment is needed at home, to build them up with good values and morals. Teach them to pray, to be thankful and liberal in such a way that they accept everyone regardless of their race, colour, religion, heritage or social status.

Considering that these are young developing minds, parents’ involvement in their children’s life is key to their growth . They should fully embrace the half term as it creates an opportunity for families to spend time together. Take it as an opportunity to understand your child’s wants and needs, listen to them, guide, support their goals and aspirations and also engage in activities that involve every member of the family such as board games.

Celebration of little wins and words of affirmation go a long way! As the old African proverb states, it takes a village to raise a child. Therefore if the parents and teachers work together, the society will become a better place.

Read More

10 Photos Of The Coast Academy’s 51st Anniversary You Need To See!

The Coast Academy recently celebrated its 51st anniversary and it was fantastic.

Students, parents, teachers and other stakeholders gathered together on the 26th of February 2022 to celebrate the many years in the education industry. The program was well implemented by teachers and students who showcased their knowledge in various subjects and colourfully displayed their talents to parents and alumni. From junior school to senior school the theme was “save the planet” all students excitedly presented projects that showed different ways we could save the planet. Alumni’s praised the teachers from Coast Academy that contributed to their success, the board of directors were thanked for their support and the longest-serving staff were appreciated for their commitment to the school’s success.

Here are photos of the event:

1. Innovative scout demonstrating how he would save the planet.

2. Coast Academy senior school student conducting electricity.

3. Coast Academy junior school student demonstrating how to save the planet.

4. Senior school student wowed the crowd with a Turkish song.

5. Coast Academy student drumming!

6. The Coast Academy music band played for the event.

7. Coast Academy student being interviewed.

8. Coast Academy students dancing.

9. Students presented a beautiful poem about the school.

10. The celebration was finalized with a cake-cutting ceremony.

The Coast Academy celebrating such an important milestone was a chance for others to see just how great we really are. The students and teachers worked effortlessly to make the day a success, the alumni’s such as Kim Jin Woo a retired Coast Academy olympian swimmer graced the event and reminded the students that all their dreams were indeed valid.

Other people who attended included the board of directors, Mr Mumo Mwendwa, Mr Vonza Mwendwa, Mr Nzambu Mwendwa and Mr Mwatu.

Additionally, two representatives from the Academic Services Limited Joshua Wandaya and Vanessa Waithera were present at the event and the head of sister school St Austin’s Academy Mr Simba Song’e was also there.

Read More