Experiential learning: Turning classrooms into launchpads for real-world impact

By Anne Kiunga

One weekday afternoon, a parent stood quietly by the fence as her child emerged from school, clutching a handmade prototype built from recycled materials. “We pitched it in class,” the child beamed. “Our group thinks it can help save water at home.”

In that moment, something clicked, not just the creativity of the project, but the confidence, the ownership, the sense of purpose that the child exuded. It was more than just schoolwork; it was learning that meant something. For that parent, and many others, it was a glimpse into what CBC can look like when done right.

At Makini Junior School, CBC is not a question mark; it is an unfolding story of growth, action, and possibility. We are driven by the belief that education must be lived, not just taught. Our learners build, inquire, serve, and lead through real-world experiences.

Inspired by Wangari Maathai’s story of the hummingbird – “I will do the best I can” – we embrace our role in this moment of educational change; not by waiting for perfect conditions, but by confidently preparing students with the practical skills, values, and mind-set they need to thrive in the 21st century.

One exciting project we have recently launched under that CBC umbrella is a Community Service Learning programme. As part of this, Makini Junior School has adopted a section of Ngong Forest, where students will engage in environmental conservation projects on an annual basis. The goal is to train our students to adopt and nurture trees to address the current climate change challenges affecting our country and the world at large.

On March 28, 2025, our Grade 9 learners took the lead in this endeavour by participating in a tree-planting exercise. The event was not just about planting trees, but a lesson in responsibility, sustainability, and the power of collective action.

Through this hands-on experience, students walked away having not only learnt and understood the importance of being good environmental stewards, but more importantly, recognising the change they could make within their own communities.

We are continuing to break down silos in our entrepreneurship ecosystem and building that entrepreneurial spirit in our students. In the first week of April 2025, our school was abuzz with the Junior School Enterprise Week, an immersive programme designed to instil financial literacy, innovation, and business acumen in our students. Throughout the entire week, students participated in interactive, real-world activities that led them through designing a product, marketing their idea, and developing a business plan. All of these experiences built toward our highly anticipated Business Day on April 3, 2025, when the students got to sell their goods and services to the school fraternity, turning their entrepreneurial training into action.

To make this event even more impactful, we were honoured to welcome two Makini School alumni who have thrived in the business world. Their stories of perseverance, innovation, and success served as a source of inspiration for our students, encouraging them to pursue their passions and craft innovative business ideas that can solve real-world problems.

These interactions reinforced the idea that entrepreneurial success is not just a distant dream but an achievable goal when coupled with creativity, discipline, and hard work. It is through these rich experiences that students walked away with the building blocks for entrepreneurial achievement.

These CBC initiatives are yet another testament to Makini Junior School’s constant pursuit to make sure that the curriculum does more than simply educate but really equip students with practical competences that will go on to benefit them long after they leave the classroom. By infusing environmental stewardship and entrepreneurship through every nook and cranny of our curriculum, we are giving our students the 21st century proficiencies they will need: Critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and social consciousness – getting them ready not just for senior school, but for the complex, competitive, globalised world of work awaiting them.

As we go deeper into this work of implementing CBC, we are committed to creating an education that is more connective, more critical, more emancipatory. We therefore encourage all parents, educators, and leaders across the country to join us in supporting these initiatives and cultivating a new generation of ‘engaged, empowered and ethical citizens’.

To this end, educators countrywide are solemnly challenged to focus on CBC implementation that is hinged on essentials that produce learners who are not only knowledgeable, but competent and adaptable to real-life situations. This is what will distinguish the CBC curriculum from those that focus on head knowledge rather than nurturing proficient individuals.

We must embrace approaches to learning that emphasise hands-on experiences, problem solving tasks, project-based learning, so as to bridge the gap between theory and practice, thereby equipping learners with aptitudes necessary for community impacts, personal growth and triumph in an ever-evolving world of work.

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Anne Kiunga is the Principal of Makini Junior School, Kenya