2025 Impact. 2026 Plans.

The Counseling Department fostered emotional intelligence, health literacy, and personal safety throughout 2025. Students aged 10-14 completed our Child Coaching Programme in partnership with a partner organization, using creative storytelling to explore complex emotional concepts. The curriculum addressed emotional literacy, positive character traits, coping mechanisms including meditation and mindfulness, and building resilience to bounce back from challenges.

The department held essential sessions on rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence with utmost care and sensitivity, focusing on boundary setting, recognizing danger, and knowing how to seek help. Immediately following these conversations, students participated in drawing and painting sessions, providing a non-verbal, creative outlet to process difficult emotions in a calm, therapeutic environment.

Throughout the year, zero safeguarding incidents were reported. Students demonstrated improved emotional literacy, better conflict resolution skills, increased empathy, and stronger peer relationships.

Girls from Grades 4-7 received crucial adolescent health care education focused on menstrual health. Sessions demystified the menstrual cycle, addressed hygiene practices, and detailed proper usage of sanitary products. A generous donation from a community partner ensured reliable access to essential menstrual hygiene products throughout the year, promoting attendance and dignity. This remains an ongoing need.

The committee organized self-care sessions followed by clothing distribution from staff donations, reinforcing that student welfare extends beyond academic achievement.

Looking to 2026, we will expand group counseling sessions and introduce peer support training, empowering older students to provide guidance. We will continue the Child Coaching Programme with a new cohort and strengthen community partnerships to ensure consistent access to health resources, particularly menstrual hygiene products essential for girls' full participation in school life.

Looking to 2026, we will expand group counseling sessions to reach more students simultaneously while maintaining the personalized attention that makes our approach effective. Peer support training will be introduced, empowering older students to provide age-appropriate guidance and creating a student-led wellbeing culture that extends beyond adult supervision.

We will continue the Child Coaching Programme with a new cohort of learners, maintaining our focus on emotions, qualities, coping, and resilience. This evidence-based curriculum has proven effective in building the emotional foundations our students need to navigate both academic challenges and personal difficulties.

The department will also strengthen community partnerships to ensure consistent access to health resources, particularly menstrual hygiene products. Building sustainable supply chains for these essentials prevents disruption to girls' education and maintains the dignity and confidence necessary for full participation in school life.

Over the past year, the committee successfully implemented a comprehensive, 3 month AI training program for teachers, leading to enhanced data analysis capabilities, automated report card generation, personalized learning initiatives, and the adoption of AI-driven creative writing. We also introduced digital assessment methods and leveraged Gemini AI for personalized learning, alongside Google Survey for online assessments. Our future plans include upgrading our AI tool subscriptions and exploring advanced AI platforms to further enrich the learning experience at Little Lions.

The core focus of the committee's work was the direct application of AI to enrich the student learning experience, enabling personalized learning that involved tailoring educational content, pace, and support based on individual learner needs and performance data. Gemini AI was specifically introduced and utilized to create customized learning paths and provide instant, targeted feedback, ensuring every learner receives instruction best suited to their requirements.


The committee successfully implemented AI tools (Claude and Gemini) that allow for deep analysis and visualization of class and school-wide results, automatically generating electronic report cards (e-report cards), resulting in significantly reduced administrative workload, the elimination of errors associated with manual data entry, and timely delivery of academic feedback to parents and guardians.

This capability provides instant, actionable insights into student performance and question difficulty.

The AI Committee is committed to building upon this year's successful foundation. To ensure maximum productivity and to sustain the momentum of AI integration, we are outlining the following goals for the coming year 2026:


• Subscription Upgrades: The committee intends to receive more support in terms of upgrading the subscriptions for key AI tools, specifically Gemini and Claude. Upgrading to premium tiers will unlock advanced features necessary for deeper data analysis and enhanced personalized learning experiences.
• Magic School AI Integration: We plan to dive deep into Magic School AI, a specialized platform that offers highly tailored tools for K-12 educators, to further assist our teachers in content creation, differentiation, and assessment design.

Little Lions achieved transformational results in 2025, with our School Mean Standard Score increasing from 77.73% to 85.25%—a remarkable 7.52 percentage point improvement. Every grade level, subject area, and teacher recorded notable improvement over the previous year.Our youngest learners set an exceptional standard, with Pre-School and Lower School maintaining mean scores above 87% consistently across all three terms. Upper School Grades 4-7 all maintained mean scores above 61%, demonstrating that our data-driven approach delivers results across all age groups.

Our academic success emerged from deliberate innovation. Mathematics achieved 70.12% by combining television demonstrations for visual concepts with digital practice platforms, while teachers collaborated through departmental meetings to jointly tackle challenging topics. All classes completed 100% of the CBC curriculum on schedule.


Language instruction showed equally impressive results, with English achieving 70.4% and Kiswahili 69.89%. Enhanced engagement came through debates, spelling bees, and composition writing, while Saturday and after-school remedial sessions helped struggling learners catch up.


Science delivered measurably improved results through project-based learning. Grade 4 students constructed digestive system models and waste management projects. Grade 7 students built suspended gardens with vertical farming and irrigation systems. Frequent practical sessions made science tangible and memorable, moving beyond theoretical instruction to real-world application.

Building on 2025's success, we've identified focused priorities for continued improvement. Our primary challenge remains developing a stronger reading culture. We will establish library lessons and reading corners in every classroom, purchase supplementary materials, and continue literacy competitions.

Mathematics will expand successful initiatives through increased digital platform subscriptions and continued collaborative teaching models. Science will receive new laboratory equipment and develop a weather station project integrating data collection with environmental science.


These priorities reflect our commitment to continuous improvement through measured, evidence-based interventions designed to translate effort into measurable outcomes that open doors for every Little Lions student.

Our students learn where food comes from through direct engagement with growing, harvesting, and preparing nutritious meals. This hands-on approach teaches the connection between healthy plants and healthy bodies while developing practical skills essential for urban farming environments.

Grade 7 pupils led our most ambitious agricultural project, establishing framed suspended container gardens using reused materials mounted on wooden frames and hung along walls. This cost-effective approach suits Kibera's limited space, producing kale, spinach, onions, and carrots throughout the year. Students managed every aspect: soil collection, developing planting sites from repurposed car tires, establishing seed nurseries, and ongoing maintenance including pruning, thinning, weeding, and harvesting.

We introduced diverse vegetables including arrowroots, carrots, beetroots, sweet potato, ground nuts, jute, parsley, and onions, increasing dietary variety and improving student nutrition. Working with our kitchen team, children learned composting—understanding the cyclical nature of decomposition and nurturing new life. While space constraints limit large-scale composting, we maximize available resources.

Environmental conservation integrated with practical learning when Grade 7 planted their first fruit trees—avocado and papaya. Students participated in seed collection, soil preparation, nursery establishment and management, and caring for saplings as they matured.

Practical cooking and food preservation skills complemented our agricultural program. Students learned value creation through crop processing—SimSim balls production taught drying, frying, and preserving techniques that prolong shelf life and improve presentation. In September, Grade 6 students Alex, Boniface, Princess, Christian, and Wesley baked their first cake under Chef Charles's guidance, utilizing our new soup kitchen infrastructure.

Animal husbandry provided critical lessons in responsibility and care. We welcomed two new guinea pigs in 2025 to join our existing herd for teaching animal care. Unfortunately, we lost one guinea pig in July and another in September due to territorial fighting—the new additions were male rather than female. This difficult experience taught valuable lessons about proper research and animal identification before implementation.

Looking to 2026, we will build a larger hutch with compartments at upper school to properly accommodate five rabbits and five guinea pigs. Students will conduct farm visits and attend the ASK trade fair, expanding their understanding of agricultural systems beyond our school. We plan an upper school bakery visit to further develop culinary skills, and will adopt a community garden space for expanded agricultural activities, giving students room to grow larger-scale projects that our current campus cannot accommodate.

The Little Lions Music and Dance Committee delivered outstanding performances throughout 2025, securing third place at the highly competitive Agriculture Society of Kenya (ASK) Nairobi Showground arts competition against over 100 schools from across the region. This achievement reflects students' passion and the dedication of our dance team, who commit to consistent Saturday training sessions to refine choreography and master complex routines.


Beyond competition success, the committee represented Little Lions at the School Edition event held at Rowalland, gaining valuable experience performing in a large-scale, formal environment that built confidence across the team. Our dance troupe also played a crucial role in enhancing the celebratory atmosphere at internal school events throughout the year, including graduations and our inaugural talent day, providing vibrant, high-quality entertainment that strengthened school spirit and community pride.

Little Lions completed one of the most stunning turnarounds in Kibera school sports history. Our Under-13 boys soccer team rose from 15th out of 16 teams last season to 4th place this year—an 11-position improvement driven by ceaseless dedication, smart tactics, and refusal to be defined by past results. The Lions earned 21 points from 13 games with 6 wins, 3 draws, and 4 losses, closing the season as a respected and feared competitor.


Our girls soccer team, training every Friday, built a formidable reputation through competitive friendly matches. Results included victories over Karama (2-0) and Tunza (3-0), a draw with Chemi Chemi (2-2), and a narrow 2-1 loss to Saviour King. The team showcases both scoring prowess and fighting spirit, with an exceptionally bright future ahead.


The newly formed Under-10 boys team, led by Captain Jayden Macharia, comprises complete beginners from Grades 1-4. In their debut match against Karama, these first-time players showed composure and heart, securing a well-deserved draw that glimpses the team's promising future.


Critical challenges threaten program sustainability. The school has only two pairs of soccer boots for all teams, forcing boys and girls to share equipment—compromising player safety, game performance, and team morale. The Creakids field no longer meets our needs; overpopulation has ruined playing quality, endangered student safety, and prevented scheduling inter-school games. These infrastructure gaps must be addressed for our programs to continue their remarkable growth trajectory.j