Skills for Life

A friend chanced upon me this week in a nearby cafe with a long list before me, and hands running through dishevelled hair.
'What's up?'
'I'm trying to put together a list of the skills we need to make sure that twelve year old Firstborn has learned before she goes off to school in UK. The bits she's probably missed because we've been here since she was just ten. The bits you'd just dripfeed if you were in the same country, but we might miss. So we can aim to learn them together over Christmas.'
A long list, because then I thought nine year old SecondBorn shouldn't miss out either.

Reading bus timetables. Reading bank statements. Paying in cheques to the bank. Managing money.
Planning journeys. Booking train tickets online. Comparing routes and prices. Reading an A to Z.
Cooking simple meals and puddings.
Changing beds. Putting on duvet covers.
Mending punctures.
Enquiring politely and complaining politely. Returning goods.
Sewing on buttons. Sewing up hems. Sewing on nametapes. Mending tears.
Using a washing machine. Sorting washing. Ironing.
Personal safety.
Removing splinters.
Skyping.

Oh my. It's not that she's clueless. It's not that she can't do some of these anyhow. Would learn by error. But some of them, in a strange country, without an adult next to her, could be tricky. Could add to the strain.

But the list of basic skills for life in Kenya are different.  At school they run a life skills course for the thirteen year olds after exams, after they've returned from their expedition climbing Mount Kenya - already a major challenge.  Parents come in and share their skills for independent living in Kenya, where you're often too far from skilled support.

Setting a broken arm in a splint. Basic first aid. Heart massage.
Changing the wheel of a car
Yes, making a bed - 'But why would I need to do this?' queried one child last year. 'My maid does that.'
Cooking
and also I'd add
Unblocking a sewage pipe
Bargaining in a market
Making a fire
Putting up a tent. Building a longdrop toilet.
Sending money by mpesa
What to do in a power cut
What to do when the water runs out

We've been here before. Two years ago the school announced they'd be doing sex education with the year sixes in the following week. Great. Except of course prevalent attitudes in Kenya are very different from what I, we, believe at home. From what we'd like her to understand about sexuality, gay relationships, how we celebrate civil partnerships in UK, from how we'd like this introduced to her.  Buckle your helmet FirstBorn, we had a whistlestop tour through sexuality and sex education as we'd hope it would be taught. From the basics via contraception, oral sex and difficult choices like termination, to the twiddly bits.

Next week she comes home from school.
'Well MrT the Scienceteacher didn't go into half as much detail as you did Mum.  We just did about sperm and eggs.'
'Oh.'

So I don't want to overshoot by a mile again. What do you think are the essential skills for young people to learn as they become independent?  Answers in the comment box below very welcome. Thanks/

School visits

Tom and I both went to our local comprehensives, great hulking 1500-student schools. I don't remember a school visit beforehand. The choice then, for me, was the local comprehensive, or learning Welsh, my mother's mother tongue but not mine, from scratch and opting for the Welsh-medium comp, a bus-ride away.  Those comprehensives then did well by us, though maybe less so by others. They gave us some inspirational teachers and helped us to good exam results. I do remember feeling scared, overwhelmed and dwarfed for much of the first two years there. It wasn't human scale, but it met many needs. It's what we imagined for our children too.

I did visit schools for sixth form. An only child, I'd decided I'd like to board if possible. Visited five liberal leftie boarding schools, was offered a scholarship to one.  Remember the school visits, all over the country, as an interesting, exhilerating experience. Not threatening. But it's different as a parent. Or different now.

Since then I've visited many prospective schools at different transitions for our kids. UK state primaries and secondaries, Kenyan private prep schools and high schools. And this week, UK boarding schools. Oh my. Recap of last year's installment here. http://onthethresholdafrica.blogspot.com/2010/10/dreaming-spires-sweaty-fantasies.html


It was all simpler when the kids were little. Suburban small towns don't offer that many primary schools your child might get into. I was enthusiastic, EagerBeaver Personified, visited all the possibles the toddler group suggested. Eliminated one candidate because of spelling mistakes on the teacher's displays in the reception classroom.  Steered clear of another where Ofsted said a third of the children were on Social Services's at risk list, anxious yes about how we would manage carefree playdates in the supervision of other parents. Was bowled over by a tiny village school, academically less stunning, in which the inspirational head bade year 6 volunteers take prospective parents on a tour of the school. What confidence in your ten year old pupils. What a willingness to take risks. What great exposure and experience for your pupils. THIS is what we want. Please.  (One prospective parent told me with relish how she had been taken round by a lad fascinated by fire extinguishers. How her tour had led uphill and downdale in search of the full complement of fire extinguishers. Possibly frustrating if you had clear, adult-focused objectives you wanted answered. But a beautiful testimony to a loving creative school.)

Then six years later, last year, we toured Kenyan British curriculum high schools for FirstBorn's transition.   Felt keen on the options. Picked a first choice. Relaxed.  And then realised with a parental doubletake around six months later that actually, while that was the preferred choice for lots of her mates too, of course we wouldn't be here then. We are here in Kenya for Tom's work. And before FirstBorn finishes GCSE we'll be elsewhere, also abroad, in a yet to be defined location, but most likely, mid-GCSEs, in a country where the schools are not a patch on those in Kenya or UK.  Oooeeer.

So over the summer I researched UK boarding schools. Received snooty emails back from Registrars called Priscilla, informing that my (nicely spelled, appropriately apostrophied) correspondance sent a year and three months before FirstBorn's potential entry was in fact three years too late, and that the list for her yeargroup had been closed for the last year.  There are different stratospheres of parental organisation I discover, again.

I combed through prospectuses. Weighed up reports from the Good Schools Guide. As a family we spent a Sunday afternoon perched in a row on the sofa watching promotional DVDs from different schools.  Bland. Largely uniform. But so telling in the minor details.  One focussed mainly on the boys and the boys' sport, with scant female airtime or focus on parity of provision for the fairer sex.  Another was packed full of young men wearing cityboy ties in their freetime, drawling confidently in upper class accents.  Compulsory cadet corps. Is this what we want? Can't we just find a setting where Firstborn, we, might be acceptable as we are, with the beliefs, accent, class we have? Honeystoned buildings. Polished, practised orchestras in olde worlde chapels.  Jangly jarring feelings on the sofa.

Fellow expats in Kenya were going through the same process. The bits which seem so alien from a Kenyan reality:
'We watched a school DVD where the pupils were wearing thirteenth century costume. How interesting. Must be for a special festival or celebration, we thought. But after twenty minutes we realised this WAS the uniform. Oh dear, not for us.'

Fast forward to the visits themselves. A frenetic tour of five schools in five days, all over the UK.
'Where have you come from today?' a kindly icebreaker.
Blank dazed unresponsive expressions from the whole party - another day, another cutprice Travelinn (£19 the room!) reached by satnav on another identical industrial park or service area of another motorway.

What do you wear to visit these schools, when you're coming from Kenya where the seasons are precisely opposite to those in UK? Where fashion lags a good five years behind, where new clothes are bought via the mitumba market - leftover secondhand castoffs from UK charity shops - and where here completely acceptable floaty cotton blouses and skirts would, as FrankFriend noted:
'label you as a real country hick with straws in your hair, love. Better not.'
Wintercoats dumped as we moved to Kenya, we'd opted not to fork out £400 on warmish coats for the three of us to wear during this week alone. But as we shivered, bejacketed but coatless, in the drizzle, round Northern split sites, we'd guess they wondered quite why we were so idiotic. Martyrs to fashion if not to commonsense.

We met some brilliant, listening, thoughtful and thought provoking, inspirational headteachers.  Signs of sparky teaching. Mannered pupils. Robust houseparents who've been round the block many times before. Some schools which we loved, but which had so few full-time boarders one knew Firstborn would be rattling around alone at the weekend, one lone isolated gooseberry while others returned to the bosum of their families. And then some schools in a premier superleague. Sparkling amazingly resourced teaching facilities, with super expensive kit, for which the well-resourced nationally renowned UK new university at which I recently worked would have given eye teeth. Wind tunnel. Electron microscope. Observatory. Multiple drama studios. Recording studios. Design & technology studios with professional kit, professional spec welding equipment which pupils may use in free time, for example, to build their own cars from wasteyard scrap.  Amazing extra curricular activities. Pupils who canoe 125 miles in competitive races down the Thames.  Beekeeping clubs, cryptic crosswords, computer animation, codebreaking, Model United Nations. Pupils, considering studying Chinese, who are supported to do work experience in China. Or those interested in Drama who do work experience in the West End.  It's what we'd hope for for our children.

Or is it?  We hadn't thought we were small-minded parents of narrow vision. But doubts emerged. How would a child for whom every stimulating educational luxury has been afforded cope with the realities of first jobs or of no jobs? With the mundanity of filing, with necessary but repetitive tasks, or with getting up in the middle of the night, again, sleepless, again, to change a filled nappy? Brilliant, life-enhancing opportunities, but leading to a sense of unrealistic entitlement? Who knows.

The pupils we met were uniformly great. Enthusiastic, informed, thoughtful, kindly ambassadors, well aware of their good fortune. Well educated. And its not that we don't believe in excellence. But some schools seemed so aware they were grooming for excellence that if your - the child's - vision of what you might want from life differed from theirs, and they thought you could get them brownie points, an Oxbridge place maybe, well it would be hard to stand out against it. Conformity. We know best. And I'm sure, in many things, they did.

For Firstborn, coming from Nairobi's restrictive security where she's not allowed to a mall alone for fear of potential bombs, the thought of occasional Saturday afternoons in NewLook is a major plus point of returning to UK. But it turned out to be a acid test question.
'It isn't safe for her to do it in Kenya. Would she be allowed into town with friends on free Saturday afternoons?'
At one school our adult tour guide's lips curled at the question. As if we'd asked whether recreational drugs were on offer in the storecupboard, whether noserings were permissible at High Table.
'She won't have free Saturday afternoons.  All the teams, down to the H team, have fixtures each Saturday. If you're not in a match, you're expected to be there to show your support.'

But being a teenager, for us, is also about the freedom to make mistakes and to learn from them. About space to hang out with friends - yes in NewLook or to lounge on a streetcorner or in a busstop - not about having every minute of every day organised, CV building though this may be. About downtime, space for reflection, experimentation with clothes and hairstyles and identity, and mistakes and recalibration.  About a diversity of pathways to a happy, satisfied life, not about one sole pathway, Endorsed by Authority, acclaimed by allcomers.  And while some schools seemed to see it like that too, others, particularly the very high achieving ones, were clear that they begged to differ.  If education is about good results alone, it was clear which schools were TheBest. Why then don't we want TheBest for our babe?

Wandering in tears round Bath after our final visit, clutching FirstBorn's hand in a way I hadn't in public since she was old enough to tell me not to, thoughts crystalised.  If she has to go, we want her to feel valued for her individuality, the way we value her at home.  We want a place where she'll be valued for her quirkiness not just for her officially endorsed and sanctioned prowess on the oboe.  Yes, teaching and educational stimulation matters. A lot. But so too does willingness to follow a child's lead, to support them to explore what matters to them, blind alley or potential money-spinning endeavour alike.  It's not we're shy of success. But that success, in life, has many facets. We want to support our children to be self motivated, to follow their own leanings, to prioritise according to their bent. To help them to become who they want to be, whether high-achieving conformist or quirky misfits like their parents. And the way you learn to do that, is by giving them some space, not by following a high protein, high altitude diet, defined by Olympic coaches though it may be.

So we've chosen together. Reached unanimity. Are yet to submit the forms. Feel reassured by our choice. Hope she'll yet pass the tests. And are conscious that this is another rite of passage in parenting, premature in our case, but which I'd guess most go through. Preparing as best you can. Trying to do the best you can in the situation in which you find yourself. Being clear that the child knows, whatever happens, you are there for them. Rehearsing scenarios, together.  And then, tearfully, fearfully, standing back, and letting them take control.

Good better best

KCSE - the Kenyan A level - results came out a few days ago. The broadsheet front pages - and the next five - in all the major papers ranked schools nationally, according to how many of their pupils were ranked in the top 100 pupils and published the names of the top 100 grade scorers in rank order. Not a peep about value added or skills gained, all the focus on the top century, as they call them here.

I've been preoccupied for ages about perceptions of worth.  How my caring colleagues keep talking about 'the best' student intern that we have, on the basis that he came third in the national rankings a few years ago. 'The best at exams' I say dourly, trying to reframe the discussion. 'The best', they say again, hammering home their point to the dozy foreigner.   I try to explain that, for me, there are many ways of being best at things in life.  Maybe he's not so good at customer service?  But that's not how it works here. Pecking orders, rankings, have massive power.  A colleague explained today how university entrance works.  You choose your subject preference (say Medicine, Engineering, and fallback Theology), and put your highest ranked first. Then, on the basis of the KCSE results, the central clearing house sends the ranks 1-20 who get the necessary grades to the top university, numbers 21-40 to the next one, and so on. If you get the grades for Medicine (straight As) then all the pressures are against you opting to study your true preference requiring lower grades (say IT or Commerce).  Better a depressed demotivated doctor, than a happy software developper runs the assumption.

And I've been musing too about what makes 'a good (university) education'.  In particular, what makes 'a good education' when people don't have economic security if they miss a step? I'm an enthusiastic advocate of the joys and benefits of study abroad. I had a lyrically happy - and educational - 18 months in West Berlin, before the Wall came down; and a demanding, if fulfilling 5 months in France.  The official line is that study abroad helps resilience, independence, cultural awareness, language learning, flexibility, problem solving. Thats all true.  But what I learned, in spades, was about difference. New influences, new ways of doing and saying things. New things that matter, there. How good friends in Berlin, wanting to drop round for an impromptu coffee, would phone to check it was ok from the phonebox outside my flat. And then arrive, producing a wrapped box of chocolates (never arrive without a Mitbringsel gift). My German law lectures, in which the judge who taught us was in his mid 30s, and had long hair in a ponytail and leather trousers.  Living right next to the Berlin Wall & its razor wire. Visiting friends in the East. How dry history became personal. The study tour as sole foreigner with a group of Berlin students to Minsk, which had been razed to the ground during WW2 by Nazi troups.  How hearing us speak German on a crowded tram, one woman burst into tears, and visibly distressed, switched carriages. How a friend descibed his mother's forced flight in that period on foot, with her younger brother, across current-day Poland and eastern Germany. The rapes and the violence. How even then in the 1980s, when GoodEgg Gorbatschov came on tv, she still had to change channels, too upset to watch.

Study abroad is lifechanging, if demanding. Why wouldn't you have a go?  But that's from the perspective of someone responsible at that time only for herself, a girl with a small parental economic safety net.  But what would you advise a Kenyan student, who'd achieved the massive accolade of say number 88 in the national rankings?  An accolade with a half life which erodes if you go and study abroad.

Ok, the benefits of study abroad are still obvious if you get a place, say, at Yale. Full scholarship, marvellous resources, world-class university, brand recognition back home too.  But I know that it isn't always the universities with lofty names which offer the best quality of learning or education. That esteemed professors shuffle off the burden of teaching undergrads onto their overburdened research assistants.  The creative innovative courses which respond to cutting edge market needs, are founded by savvy experienced ex-practitioners in under-ranked ex-polytechnics. That some of the most valuable learning happens at the breakfast table in the student flat not in the lecture theatre.  But I can understand that our students want to bet on a certainty, need brand recognition to bolster their choices if they're opting against the security of national ranking. It's not worth upping sticks if they aren't offering 'better' than you'd get in Kenya.  But at what point would you say the intangible benefits of exposure to another system and country are outweighed by the potential risks of running against the herd? 

There's so much to weigh up:
- will the degree you get be recognised and accredited back in Kenya?
- will the degree cover the topics you need to cover to practise in Kenya?
- what about social integration in the new country? China may be a global player with good quality universities, offering scholarships, and future potential to work with the Chinese investors coming to Africa. But how might many young Kenyans, fervent churchgoers, feel studying in a country where local Christians are persecuted?
- what about finding work after graduation? How is the host economy?  Might the host country offer the chance of work at professional levels to a good Kenyan student?  Or if not, which employers, in Kenya, will value the degree from and exposure to this country? Are they likely to offer employment, - or might they too, reserve posts for candidates of their own nationality?
- how does finding work in your desired sector work in Kenya? Will you need to study under a Kenyan professor to get the contacts and momentum for the next step?
- how much does it cost? What are the scholarship opportunities and the competition? And worst case, how likely is it that your funding will run out before you can complete your degree?

As a UK careers advisor, I remember appointments with students from China and India who told me, in tears, of the financial pressures they were under. How their village had clubbed together to send them to university in UK. Of their worries on how they were to repay this loan now that the economy had crashed, and they realised the faint hope of access to a UK graduate job was truly just a glimmer.  To have asked them 'But are you enjoying it?' would have been to miss the point.  Maybe better 'But do you think its worth it, being here? Would you recommend it to someone else?'

For me, study abroad added such breadth and depth to my life, but did it add value, in the monetary sense valued by my students?  I believe there's far more to academic study than increased earning potential. But I would, wouldn't I, having studied Languages not Econometrics?  Career guidance is about helping clients make the choices which are right for them. Yes, helping them see the alternatives, and the self limiting views, but being guided by them. And my students don't see themselves as in the fortunate position to place their bets on a degree abroad which MAY, or may not, repay their investment.

It's my experience that time spent away from a driven objective-oriented to-do list repays itself in spades in creative opportunities and chance discoveries. Newton was sitting under the apple tree when he discovered gravity. Archimedes was wallowing in a bath. But I need to help my clients follow their light as they see best.  However, I'm reminded of Inge, a very grounded, wise 80 year old East German Quaker, with whom I stayed for a week during my time abroad.  She'd been a teenager of Socialist parents during the Nazi time. Had arrived home during the Nazi raid which had scooped them up, but thanks to her quick thinking, had herself escaped. And continued to make her home in Dresden, later East Germany.  Quakers in Britain had been supportive of refugees from Nazi Germany.  Had invited home German soldiers stuck in prisoner of war camps. Some, later in positions of power in East Germany's Communist party, remembered this support with gratitude, all the while 'knowing' Quakers to be naive and wrongheaded.  Inge spoke of using the access that she, and the other East German Quakers had, to represent their views. Of annual appointments, over a thirty year period. Of going unheard. Of persuading herself that this was drip drip drip on a stone. And then, one day, hearing her main contact, the Minister, in an interview on state radio, repeating her views, the words that, when she was in the room with him, he had rebuffed so coldly. 

We can't know, whether, if, or when our words will be meaningful or take hold for another. But for me there is more to learning and to education than teaching to the test, than performing well in an exam or than adding an extra £150,000 to your lifetime earning potential.  And while I'll continue to help my clients meet their objectives, - and understand why they have their perspective - I'm going to carry on talking too of my perspective, and of the occasional value of less programmed paths.  Highways and byways, sabbaticals and study abroad, time picking daisies and sitting under apple trees, - who can say, in the end, what counts?

Widening Participation, Kenyan style

AimHigher was a major initiative to get 50% of UK youth into higher education. In particular it targeted those who'd be the first generation in university in their family, whether Bangladeshi young people from Tower Hamlets, white working class men, or those from the lowest socio economic groups still least likely to consider university education.  We ran summer schools to show the fun and interactive side of university, sent staff to our nearby mosques to calm the fears of elders, and thence their parents, so Bangladeshi girls might be allowed to take up their places, supported first year students to return to their sink-school comprehensives to run workshops to encourage younger students.  It was an inspiring programme, even just as a staff member. It changed futures.

Widening participation in education in Kenya is a whole new ballgame.  The groundbreaking introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) in 2003 opened basic education to those who, previously had been unable to pay the school fees.  Children who'd been forced to drop out, re-enrolled.  Children who'd been forced to drop out, re-enrolled, undaunted by the fact that they were now adults.  There are 1.3 million more people (some 15% more) in primary education today than in 2004.

On a trip to the National Museum recently I watched a Kenyan school group where some lads, in late adolescence, towered over their tiny preteen classmates.  A 40 year old mother of two, who had been working as a hawker, returned to primary school two years ago, and has just been allocated a place at a girls high school (see picture).  But now this massive influx have reached KCPE, the primary school leaving exam, on which fiercely competitive places for the four years of high school are allocated.

There are almost 750,000 students who took KCPE in 2010.  They are competing for 4517 places at the state funded top performing secondary schools (the 'national' schools).   In the past, though,pupils at private schools are only 15% of all those taking the exam, they've taken 30% of the 4000 places at the elite state schools. 

Even where pupils from state schools have been allocated a place at an Alliance High School or Moi Girls, in practice, the fees (75,000 KSh/term) are far, far, beyond what most families can afford. The government does help out, - it offers 10,000 a term towards the fees, - but still a long, long way short.  So the pupil has to give up their place and opt for a (lesser-ranked) cheaper provincial or local school closer to home.  Several of my students have spoken of their pride, of the pride of their whole village, when the letter came inviting them to attend a national school.  One lad then wrote of his father delivering him on the first day of term, not at the national school he'd dreamed of for years, but without warning at the humble district school which the family could afford. Of him spending the first day at the new school in floods of tears of distress and disappointment.

So this year the government is adopting positive discrimination at selection to seek to redress the balance for state school pupils.  The comparisons are horrific. Where primary pupils in the very best private schools might be in classes of 1:20 pupils, in the state schools a teacher would frequently have a class of 100 primary pupils.  The government is short of 60,000 teachers.  A state school is allocated around 1000 KSh, around £8, per head, per year, for all resources for each pupil.  Hard to compete on equal terms in an exam where students are then ranked nationally, from number 1 at primary level, presumably to number 749,999.  Again, my students proudly quote, five years on, pride still untarnished, their grade at KCPE - 'I got 417/500 at KCPE, I was ranked third in Nyanza Province'.  It matters here, where education is literally the way out of the slum.

So the government is adopting different benchmarks in selecting students from different modes of schooling. In 2011, in a major reversal, only 1224 candidates from private schools will join national schools, while 3293 will come from state schools who have taken most of the children under FPE.  You can imagine the outrage. The letters are about to go out. Pupils report to school on 30 January.  Parents are waiting with bated breath.

Children who've been in classes of a hundred are maybe going to be told that they are among some of the best in the country. Tragic if they can't progress to take up their place, but a source of lifelong pride nonetheless.

And when people in the UK grumble why is money being spent on aid, when the NHS, UK education, councils and social services are being pared to the bone, one of my answers - despite the education fraud here - is the impact of Free Primary Education (which is mainly being funded by the Kenyan government anyhow).  Of the seismic shift for young people, and lifelong learners.  Official statistics show that each year around 200,000 young people still take KCPE and just disappear off the books, into the countryside, as one of my students said sadly, 'To a future of digging drainage ditches and fishing.' But in eight years the numbers going on to high school have increased from 47% to 72% this year.  Sadly, many won't be able to afford to go to their first choice school for which they have won places, - but nonetheless what an achievement to trumpet.  Its a New Deal for our generation to be proud of.  And for each individual, a future with greater hope in a country without safety nets.

Dreaming Spires & Sweaty Fantasies

Educational choices have dominated many chats with mates over the last eight years. Before the kids were at pre-school, we agonised together about primary schools, who got in where, and weighed up how many of the similar-sized kids on the playground would live closer to PrimeChoicesOne, Two & Three.  Then came the long slow burn to secondary school. Faith school, closest comprehensive, exercising furtherflung choice, running the risk of falling short and getting SinkSchool, single sex lottery, or the high wire exams and auditions to PreDreamingSpires?  But then we dodged the secondary bullet by leaving UK at the end of year 5, for the land of prep schools (ages 7-13), and a heady year of naive bliss.

Uh oh, but now, part way through year 7, when UK mates are leaning back, feet under - or even on the table, here, brows are ever more furrowed, conversations heated, and we're back into the fray. And here the dilemmas are more complex still: stay with British curriculum (work towards GCSEs to make transfer back to UK easier, continuation of lots of sports, but either 90 minute commutes each way plus a very long day or weekly boarding); switch to the international school (close, well resourced, but on American system till International Bacc, so no pre-GCSE preparation, and no chance to strut those hockey skills so honed over the last year. American accents and misspellings. And completely completely different holidays, so in the summer ChildOne would be off from Labour Day till mid August and ChildTwo from end July till mid September). Or, Apocalypse Now, out from the nest, boarding in another country - South Africa, UK.

Each camp has its advocates and groupies. And there, like a pinball between them all, I bounce, bewildered by the terrifying implications, which go beyond the colour of the uniform and what-did-you-think-of-the-Head? to our babe-in-arms having compulsory Monday-Friday sleepovers each week.

Get a grip, I thought. Get school visiting again. Why not start smallscale and scope the issues with a talk on Boarding School: the UK perspective run by a visiting marketing director from UK public school at a nearby hotel? We KNOW we're all staying in the same country, so it won't startle the horses in the way the more realistic options might.

But at the posher end of the market choosing a secondary school can become a Lifestyle Choice for Parents, the stuff of glossy magazines and unlived aspirations. Kick off: sushi and smart canapes by the lit swimming pool of DesignerHotel. And I grew spellbound by the pitch and the opportunities. Not that this had been the stuff of my dreams, nor those of FirstBorn: 'we have two shooting ranges, one for claypigeons, one for rifles'... How much can termly extras run to? 'Well, it all depends. Some children bring their own horses, so of course the additional charge of livery on site can be considerable.' But wow, 20 music ensembles. 26 pupils competing at national level in a sport. Truly personalised teaching: a semi-pro icehockey star who is shipped all round the country for his matches and has his timetable fitted around his availability. Stellar exam results for a student body that doesn't take entrance exams. Whopping fees of course. And children leaving home at 13 to spend those weekends when the school is closed with for-profit guardians.  But a pandora's box of a pitch, which opened my mind to lurid never-before-dreamed-dreams of an addled & dangerous kind.

Next morning at work, our highflying students present themselves en masse. They've come to Nairobi from all over the country for the first of their two SAT tests. They've each come top in their district in the Kenyan exams, but high SAT scores would increase their chances of a scholarship to a US university.  Where US students would have been doing practice tests over the last two years, where schools hire SAT coaches and send students on summer workshops to improve scores, many of ours have pushed the boat out to club together in threes to buy one practice manual. Tensions are high. You have to mark your SAT paper with the colleges to which you want your results sent.  It costs 800 KSh - around £6 to add each extra name after the test - a sizeable amount for the students, so in reality today is the last day to change their choices. But without access to internet, reference guides, prospectuses or guidance, for most, today is the first chance they've had to discuss their choices, and the realism of their choices with anyone.

70 students, 5 networked computers, one with access to a printer, some statistical handouts we'd compiled and 3 reference guides, one from 2000 and two I bought on amazon and shipped in from abroad.  Half an hour on the computer per student to research a bit further. The students attended workshops we ran in the summer, where Kenya's Harvard grads spoke of their experiences, and so we fear a massive spike in applications to Harvard. Last year they accepted 4 Kenyan applicants. What if we can't persuade a spread of applications to maximise success for all?  What about fallback choices?  If it's all a punt in the dark anyway, why not go with four dream scenarios, - Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Cornell - the so-called Ring of Death option, who take 1 in 10 applicants. Or do you dare to break away from the crowd, wildly enhance your chances of entry, but possibly end up as one of 5 international students at a small college in the Mid West?  How would YOU go about prioritising universities in a foreign country in a few pressurised hours?

'Sweaty' is the word used by US admissions tutors for applications with too desperate a yearning tone. And the day was a sweaty, though a very moving, one. A day to seek to manage expectations. To remind students that whatever happens now, study abroad could remain an option for later, for postgraduate level. Telling students, seemingly for the first time, how much they have to be proud of. Yes, for their exam success, but more that they achieved them from a low-rated, low-resourced district school. To encourage them that their time as a peer counsellor working with other students with HIV is an application essay well worth writing. The student who kept chickens and ran a market stall selling his eggs after school to pay his secondary school fees. Students speaking of how their teachers were scared and reluctant to write them references, fearing that they wouldn't be able to do it well enough, that admissions tutors in the US would laugh at them. We'll be phoning reluctant referees next week to talk them through the process. Coaching applicants through the hidden heffalump traps of the questions. How 'why do you want to go to Yale? means 'Why (that isn't cliched) and what do you offer to us?' 

Its the stuff of dreams. Will we get Cinderella to the ball?  Our students are brilliant, determined in a way very few in the UK need to be, committed, and such impressive individuals. But the forms require sophistication, polish, and an ability to package your story. Here's hoping that native wit, determination and the best possible try with the resources you have might just win through for a few.