10 QUALITIES OF GOOD TEACHERS

This list is a brief reconstruction from an earlier research designed to promote good teaching ethics in our society.
1.    A contagious enthusiasm for teaching. Enjoyment in transmitting knowledge is a key to success. His passion for teaching instilled a passion for learning in all the participants.
2.    Creative. Good Teachers go beyond opening the book and doing exercises. A good teacher engages the mind, not just the time of the student and employs a myriad of techniques that allows student to utilize the skills in their own capacity.
3.     Add pace and Humor to the class. A classroom where pupils are not afraid to make mistakes creates a good time learning and lots of progress achieved.
4.    Challenges the Student. A teacher who can maintain a level of difficulty high enough to challenge the student, but yet not too high to discourage.
5. Encouraging and Patient. Good teachers are aware that Motivation thrives on success. So they help the student apply themselves more diligently by encouragement and repeated attempts. They apply the policy of correction by never allowing even a shade of annoyance to cross their faces in reaction to continued incorrectness even after endless corrections.
6.    Interests in Individual Students. A teacher who takes interest in the student’s life style and desires will succeed in impacting more. The easiest, most accessible area of conversation is oneself.
7.     Knows well and can explain on the spot. A realistic and courageous trainer who demonstrate quest to know more even before the students besides being a guru in his field.
8.     Can offer extra times.  Good teachers appreciate students’ efforts and are never too in-a-hurry to attend to their quest outside the class. They encourage students not only to study what is required, but also to pursue other areas of interests.
9.    Shows Regard and Respect for All.  Regardless of sex, marital status or race, good teachers accord every student due esteem. A lack of this attribute is not conducive to progress and this can be discouraging to the student.
10.     Leaves Emotional Baggage Outside the Classroom. Keeping the student focus at all times as well as not blocking any learning by playing havoc with their emotions through ridicule or sarcasm. As a strategy, teachers can apply some form of acting too.

Miss Brains Abuja

The problems facing the girl child in Africa is quite enormous; this includes:  religious, traditions/cultural impositions and even social vices keep impeding on their quest to a fulfilled life. Early marriage, rape and lack of education are only some of the wickedness against them, leading to lack of Self-confidence; a major hindrance to their effective contributions to national development.
The Miss Brains project is a girl-child leadership discovery scheme aimed at promoting the enormous power in women to influence right societal changes that is necessary for family development and nation building. It is an event that involves intelligence quotient test, physical fitness test and current affairs awareness test. Participating schools will present their best candidate to symbolize the school as over 40 teenagers will be on the grand stage before a huge crowd of spectators at the International Conference Centre, Abuja as our judges give their scores. The winner becomes the most important teenager ambassador, standing for all Nigerian female teenagers as their voice to self-actualization.
The Miss Brains Abuja is not the usual pageant where beauty is a major criterion; neither is revealing dinner dresses nor bikini outfits considered. Candidates must be between the age of 14 – 16 and must have our authorization form granted and signed by their parents/guardians. The winner and runner-ups get prizes ranging from “soft” education scholarships to shopping vouchers that amounts over N200, 000 in three of the grandest supermarkets and malls within Abuja. Several visits and special dinner meetings with the first lady of the Federal republic on Nigeria, Female Senators, Ministers, other female Ambassadors to discuss and negotiate special offers for certain under-privileged persons are part duties of the Miss Brains Abuja.

Peak Quiz 2017

 

The standard of education in Nigeria has dropped significantly over the past few decades which can be traced to so many factors. The government cannot be left solely with the responsibility of reawakening this dying sector. Therefore all hands must be on deck to ensure that our educational standard gets the required attention necessary for the desired national development.
The Peak Quiz is an inter-schools academic competition where schools are represented by four of their most intelligent students before our panel of reputable and renowned Judges and where questions are drawn from the various departments of the school curriculum; namely science, technology, art and commercial.
The maiden edition of the competition will take place in the FCT between October & December 2017. 
Prizes: the winning school will be presented with our Prestigious Champions’ Academy Trophy, a Two Years Champions’ Advancement Scholarship for each winning student, and various consolation prizes for the runner-ups.
Competition Breakdown: The month of October 2017 will involve all elimination/knockout stages to produce the “Round of 16” schools.  The month of November is meant for the quarterfinals and semifinals to produce the final four schools while the grand finale is set to hold in the first week of December 2017.
The Champions School Guide (the organizers) will work in collaboration with various media houses to reach over 60 million followers and viewers through the broadcast and other outreach. We will also partner with various individuals, government agencies, parastatals, and other interested sponsors.
Our Primary objective: Our primary objective is to set the maximum standard of education in Nigeria in which our schools and students will be a force to reckon with on the international stage.
This competition will therefore serve as a source of motivation to students and in turn stir up the reading culture amongst our young populace.

Abuja Schools’ Olympic

Sports in Nigeria have been on a downtrend recently. This is because we do not pay adequate attention to grassroots sport development in Nigeria especially in our schools.

The fact that team Nigeria came back with just one bronze medal in the just concluded Olympic games can be described as disappointing to say the least. This also points to the fact that apart from football which is the major sport in Nigeria, other sports have somewhat been neglected which has led to the disappointing and below par performances of team Nigeria.

Indeed, you might want to argue that Nigeria still have some athletes such as Segun Toriola, Haruna Quadri and Blessing Okagbare, but can they be at the top level competing to win honors in some 5-10 years time? Well, we really need to think about the posterity and sustainability of our sporting projects because of it importance to any nation.

The adage of 'catch them young' can never be over emphasized. We need to prepare a generation of young and hungry athletes who can compete at the highest level in the near future and bring Nigeria back to her glory days. To achieve this all hands must be on deck to ensure that this initiative comes to fruition.

In view of the above, we are organizing the ABUJA SCHOOLS’ OLYMPIC. This championship will involve games such as basketball, lawn tennis, table tennis, gymnastics, scrabble, chess, swimming, and the list goes on.

This championship aims at bringing to the fore, young Nigerians who have the potentials to become world-class athletes as a grand talent discovery platform. It also aims at harnessing the hidden potentials, which are yet to be discovered.

This will also help to reduce over dependence on government jobs and encourage the young ones to look inwards.

The Nigerian sports sector seems to be tarnished already; this is a fall out on a country that is dubbed as the “The Giant of Africa”. However, the ABUJA SCHOOL’S OLYMPIC will give favourable exposure to young Nigerian athletes as well as rejuvenate the sports sector.

What makes an Outstanding Principal?

Simply put, a principal is the person in charge of a school. He is the chief executive of an educational institution. Principals vary in strategy, temperament and leadership style. But the great ones have seven characteristics in common-
•    An outstanding principal takes responsibility for school success.
•    Outstanding principals lead teaching and learning.
•    Outstanding principals hire, develop and retain excellent teachers.
•    Outstanding principals build strong school communality.
•    Outstanding principals are driven by passion not money. An excellent principal will never give up on any challenged student; he sees such students as a passionate doctor sees his patient.
•    Outstanding principals are open to suggestions and corrections.
•    An outstanding principal aims at ensuring excellence in knowledge impartation, skill impartation and character building.
Outstanding principals believe that the problems of the school are their problems and never stop trying to solve them. If a student is having trouble learning, an excellent principal knows it is his/her job to figure out why; whether it is a learning disability, trouble with attendance or gang involvement. Outstanding principals are also creative in problem-solving. They find ways to implement good ideas rather than accepting the status quo. 
Fortunately in 2017, we are in your school in search of the most outstanding principal of the year!!!

Creating Transgenic Organisms

An organism can acquire a new trait by having a new gene introduced into its DNA. By changing the genetic makeup (genotype) of the organism, the characteristics it displays—or its phenotype—can also be altered. Under appropriate conditions, the new gene can be inserted into the DNA of a cell; this gene will be transcribed and translated into protein along with all the other genes being expressed in the cell.
How does a multicellular organism such as an animal, which has many, many cells, acquire a new trait encoded by a gene from a different organism? Several different methods have been developed. The first step in all of them involves insolating the gene of interest and then linking it to another piece of DNA that contains sequences that enable the gene to be expressed in the appropriate tissues of the recipient organism. This constructed segment of DNA is then inserted into the animals using one of the techniques described below.
Microinjection
In this method, eggs are isolated from animals and fertilized in vitro, and then the constructed
DNA containing the foreign gene is injected—using a very fine needle—into the nucleus of the egg. The foreign DNA is inserted at random locations into the DNA of the fertilized egg. The egg is then implanted into the oviduct of a surrogate animal, where the egg then develops. This method has been used to create many different kinds of transgenic animals, from mice to large animals such as cattle. However, its efficiency in producing transgenic animals is low; only a small percentage of the implanted eggs develop into transgenic animals, and only a small proportion of these animals express the inserted gene efficiently because of the random insertion into the organism’s genome.
Retroviral Vectors
The gene of interest is inserted into the genome of a retrovirus and then this virus is used to infect embryonic cells, which then develop into organisms carrying the gene of interest. However, like mi­ croinjection, this method is very inefficient. The gene is inserted randomly into different sites in the DNA of different embryonic cells. Not only might the DNA be expressed at low levels or not at all, as in microinjection, but it may be expressed only in certain cells.

 

Embryonic Stem Cell Transfer
This method allows for the insertion of the genes of interest into very specific sites in the genome of the recipient organism. Embryonic stem cells are isolated from the recipient organism and grown in tissue culture flasks. These cells are then modified by inserting DNA containing the gene of interest and sequences that enable the DNA to be inserted into specific sites in the genome. These modified embryonic stem cells are then injected into the blastocyst stage of a developing recipient organism, and this blastocyst containing the gene of interest is implanted into a surrogate mother. The resulting organisms express the gene more efficiently. This method has only been used to develop transgenic mice.

Source: European Initiative for Biotechnology Education. 1998. Transgenic animals—unit 11. Retrieved August 18, 2008, from http://www.ipn.uni-kiel.de/eibe/UNIT11EN.PDF.

Your Role As Parents

Parents play a very pivotal role in a child’s education. How much encouragement and support you give your child both at home and involvement at school is critical to your child’s academic success.
Research has shown that parental engagement of various kinds has a positive impact on student achievement; including high grades and test scores; enrolment in higher level programs and advanced class; lower drop-out rates; higher graduation rates and a higher likelihood of commencing tertiary institution.
The media has been awash with the story of the Famous Esther Akade, a 10-year-old UK-based Nigerian who is presently the youngest undergraduate in British Open University, because of her outstanding mathematical skills.  How could a 10 year old do that? Enroll in a university?
Her unusual flair for mathematics is rare and surpasses logical understanding. The secret of Esther’s unusual ground breaking academic excellence are her parents who have been devoting so much time to teaching her mathematics at home. They have served as role models in encouraging and supporting the child’s all round education/development to the best of their abilities.
You might not be able to do as much as Esther’s parents, but the little support and encouragement you can give your children at home can go a long way. Remember that education begins at home. Leaving the bulk of the work for the teacher will only achieve average results. No matter how hard a teacher tries, he cannot take your place in molding and shaping your child. The choice is up to you to deliberately take out time from your busy schedules and create time for your children if you want them to be stars.