Players from Peponi House, Kenton College, Hillcrest, The Banda and Braeburn School gathered on an overcast Saturday morning to compete in the annual IAPS Chess Tournament, hosted in the High School hall at Braeburn.

Chess is a superb activity for children to pursue, with many benefits attributed to playing it, including:

• Development of concentration, patience and self-discipline
• Logical thinking, planning, problem-solving, categorising information and pattern recognition
• Improves visual memory and spatial-reasoning ability

Teams of 2 pupils in each of the Under 9, Under 11 and Under 13 age categories pitted their strategic minds against each other to apply their skills, experience and problem-solving. Some schools brought additional chess players who were invited to enjoy the opportunity of playing pupils from outside their schools, but who did not participate in the overall competition.

Engrossing games saw clever play from all the participants, in at times tense games, within an atmosphere of fair play and good sportsmanship.

All the players can be proud of their performances on the day. Gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded in each age category and Braeburn School emerged as the overall IAPS Chess Tournament champions for 2018.

Huge congratulations to our U9s, Ben and Kristian, our U11s, Queen and Mudit, and to our U13s, Kieran and Vishrut. They put in strong individual performances to contribute to the team's overall success.

Thank you to Mr Reydon, the chess tutor at Braeburn, and to the Kenya Chess Association for their valuable support of the event.

Here at EYFS we have been busy! It sure has rained a lot, but we popped on our puddle suits and gumboots and enjoyed a splash outside. In class we have written some thank you cards to the lovely people who help us, practiced addition of 2 digit numbers, role played in our Gruffalo Cafe, worked on our library display and challenged ourselves to build with the construction toys.

Year 2 artists are focusing on the seaside in art this term. On Thursday we went to the sandpit in EYU to create sand sculptures. We worked in groups to complete our creations of lava hills, pig houses, emojis and dream homes. Here are some pictures to see what they created. It got everyone thinking about the other materials they could use to make sculptures. You can make a sculpture out of anything!

Flying from Nairobi, the Braeburn Swimming Team delegation of Jesse, Risha and Coach Finch arrived on the afternon of 19th March to participate in the 2018 South African National Junior (SANJ) Age Group Championships held from 21 to 25 March in Durban.

Risha debuted in the 2018 SANJ Age Group Championships on 22 March. In his second event, Risha posted a personal best time of 2:28.34 in the 200m freestyle event to secure the 33rd spot after the prelim rankings.

Also swimming in the same event and category, Jesse managed to finish the 200 freestyle also with a PB time of 2:34.57 for a 39th place finish in the prelims.

In their second day, swimming his favourite 100m freestyle event, Jessie touched the wall at 1:05.62, ranking him 23^rd overall. He also raced the 100m breaststroke (1:31.74) ending-up in 31^st place.

Risha swam his signature event, 100m breaststroke and won his heat by touching on 1.18.97 in the morning prelims and placed 3^rd overall going to his first finals. Eventually, he took the bronze medal in a very closely fought contest in the evening finals. Furthermore, he already posted a SANJ qualifying time for next year and now qualifies for 2019.

Swimming his last event of the meet, Jesse took the 3^rd position overall in the 50m freestyle heats with 28.48 seconds and booked his spot in his first finals of the event. In an unbelievably close finish, Jesse touch the wall in a time of 28.25 seconds – to land a 4^th place finish behind a dead split for second in 28.24 and the winning time of 28.00.

Plunging into action in 200m IM, his fourth event, Risha touched the wall at 2:38.34. Although, he was 7^th in the finals, Risha further improved his PB time to 2:36.18.

In the final day of the gala, Risha looked to end the gala on a high, making his third finals in 200m breaststroke when he touched at 2:50.96 for 3rd place in the prelims. In the finals, he gave his best effort but after a nail-biting end, his PB time of 2:49.49 was good for a 4^th place finish.

More than anything else, participation in this gala was an invaluable experience for Risha and Jesse since this was their first time – as well as that, they developed confidence and character in the face of tough competition and acquired unforgettable memories of the gala and Durban.

On the 12^th and 13^th April 2018, 14 Braeburn students joined their counterparts from 20 other schools to battle it out for top honours in the Nairobi Round II World Scholars Cup Regional Round at Brookhouse. Braeburn Primary School with five teams, was making a debut in the tournament, having had slightly over a month of preparation. The contingent, as it turned out, had some of the youngest scholars at the competition, many of them just having turned 10 years old were unfazed by having to compete with A-level and IB students in the Scholars Bowl.

The competition involved two quizzes in the form of a Scholars’ Challenge and Scholars Bowl, a team debate and a collaborative writing task. On the final day, the top debaters had a Debate Showcase which and a Talent Show. The scholars exhibited a positive attitude, great team work, and discipline working very hard in all the activities. When the honours roll went up, our scholars were ecstatic, not only winning numerous gold and silver medals at individual and team level but also ensuring 100% progression to the Global Round. Some of our top performers included Ashoka in 8B with an impressive haul of 13 medals, and Crescent and Erica who each won four medals each.

We are extremely proud of these scholars: Akol, Hansil, Nizar, Rees, Izyan, Keith, Mustafa, Sherryl, Erica, Njeri, Yanet, Pratham, Crescent and Ashoka. We are confident that they will perform even greater exploits during the Global Round in Barcelona during the summer - good luck!