Give Your Child a Different View on the World Around Them at Pembroke House

Fresh from my teacher training, Pembroke House School, was my first qualified post. Inspired by a gap year coaching cricket in Zimbabwe, I knew that East Africa was still calling and so as a young, considerably fitter and overly enthusiastic geography teacher I returned to a part of the world that I was keen to call home again.

Those three years at Pembroke House cemented my love of the teaching profession and crucially set the bar high with how I perceived ‘outstanding’ boarding schools should be. Roll on 25 years and I have recently chosen to return to this wonderful IAPS Prep school but this time with my family in tow, to relive the ‘African Dream’.

Since my original time in Gilgil, the school has grown considerably. From a new theatre space and an inviting library, to a school café and lots of new touches such as a climbing wall and astro turf to revamp the sports hall, yet the Pembroke quirks that I so fondly remembered still remain. Shack land, the boatie lake and the dinky safari race are still much part of the school life. And crucially, the same Pembroke spirit is very much alive. So are the guinea fowl who dart around the school lawn.

Sports continue to be a strong focus at Pembroke and we can still hold our own against the Nairobi schools. I think our parents still shout the loudest from the touchline! We are also beginning to shout loudly about the schools’ commitment to a sustainable future with a strong environmental drive that will see the creation of the school’s own farm and plans to re-wild parts of the site to increase the biodiversity.

Numbers on roll have increased with the introduction of the Pre Prep department a few years back and with representation from 28 different nationalities, the school is rich in diversity yet still united in its sense of community.

The school also now welcomes a number of ‘sabbatical’ pupils who join us for a single term to experience a completely different schooling experience and widen their perspective on the world. What a remarkable opportunity!

The school really is as unique and the children as spirited and inquisitive as I remember. My girls have quickly embraced their new surroundings and the opportunities available to them –learning to wobble board on the skate track, building confidence in their horse-riding lessons, training with the swim quad, performing with the Martlet Band, representing the school in cricket and hockey, trialling the new motoX course, being part of the senior play performance and being ‘flexi’ boarders that suits our family life. They have also had remarkable school trips to Laikipia and my eldest has climbed Mt Longonot in preparation of her Mt Kenya climb in Year 8.

As Head of STEAM, my second ‘innings’ at Pembroke sees me based in the brand new STEAM centre – a creative, stand -alone building kindly funded by the Pembroke Foundation. This light and bright learning space is also the digital hub of the school where children can work from desktops or their chrome books – learning coding or working on creating their own digital profiles, ready for senior school applications, with most children now venturing back to the UK or South Africa to continue their studies, often with top scholarships in place.

STEAM combines the core subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths into a dedicated lesson where the children work together on projects that are designed to bring together their skills in a more modern day approach that will prepare them well for their future careers. Whether they are designing their dream house or building aeroplanes in my class, they may also just become the architects or pilots of the future!

Pembroke House will be celebrating its centenary in 2027 and if the last 100 years is anything to go by then it will continue to evolve and grow beautifully, just like the campus on which it sits in the heart of the Rift Valley.