The Centre for Character and Leadership (CCL) together with the School Principals and teachers in some of our Character Oriented Schools were privileged to host Adam Seldom, UK -based teacher and author. Adam was on journey to understand what makes a good school and the purpose of education as he is writing a book that its titled “Around the World in 80 Schools”. At CCL, we champion the development of good character that helps the learners to flourish in life beyond the school. Accompanied by the Director of Character Education Programme, Peter Kingori and Justina Ndunge, Programme Assistant from CCL; Adam visited 3 public Secondary Schools namely Ruai Boys Secondary School, Dandora Secondary School and Buruburu Girls Secondary School. The visit included a series of interviews with the school principals, teachers and students majoring on how the school teaches character, school culture and identity, and how the school shapes behavior and the wider educational development of the child. Additionally, the visitors spent some time as they attended classroom lessons with an intent to deepen their understanding on how teachers integrate values such as honesty, diligence, caring and respect during subject lessons.
Notably, Principals shared valuable insights on why educating for character and academic excellence are intertwined and inseparable. At Ruai Boys Secondary School, Principal and teachers attributed teaching of character and values to students modelling good behavior and excellent performance. They shared a story of hope and success by giving an example of the top students who scored grade A- and the most improved students in the last 2 years in
national examination. The schools have documented several Character Promising Practices including virtue of the week initiative, branding of school vision, mission, motto and core values, and integration of values during subject lessons.
At Dandora Secondary School, Principal shared his personal perspective on the purpose of education and stated that ‘a great school should aim to bring up a holistic child who is competitive in academics but has admirable character.’ He attributed teaching of character within the school to an improvement in the number of students who qualified to join university after they sat for national examination as he compared KCSE results for the past two years. This included 12 students in 2023 to 31 students in 2024. One noticeable activity
which the school have used in teaching character is the ‘adopt a tree and tag a virtue’ initiative.
At Buruburu Girls Secondary School, CCL team together with Adam were impressed on how teachers integrate values during subject lessons as they attended Kiswahili and Christian Religious Education lessons. Besides that, several classes have written their classroom values on the wall and students are keen to practice and model the virtues. Additionally, school culture includes an aspect of identifying a key virtue from distinguished visitors and
planting a tree that it’s tagged with the virtue and name of the visitor. Students tend to inculcate those virtues as they take care of the trees.
In each school, Adam delivered a speech to the students, offering valuable insights on how to be successful as a student. Key points of his message included having resilience and effort, focusing on what matters, early study and revision, developing a reading culture, having interest and values over wealth and modelling gratitude.