Kigali is blessed with two out standing girls’ schools namely Lycée Notre Damme de Cîteaux and FAWE. However, Lycée Notre Damme de Cîteaux remains the significant role model school in terms of discipline and academic performance.

Lycée Notre-Dame de Citeaux is a girl’s Secondary school based in the middle of Kigali City. It has no doubt been well known for its discipline and good academic performance. When the 2007 results were released, it emerged the best among girls’ schools.

The school’s (Lycée Notre Dame de Cîteaux) class performance and assessment procedures aligned with a range of teaching strategies helps students with different backgrounds, attitudes and learning styles to demonstrate their knowledge.

According to the headmistress Helen Nayituriki, of Lycée Notre Damme de Cîteaux, the most important thing is that students meet teachers who value them, recognize their strengths and talents, and encourage them to work hard so as to excel in the academic world.

"Children do better in schools when teachers recognize and encourage them to develop their academic potentials and have interest in guiding them towards their education,” she said.

Experience has shown that teacher’s attitude is closely related to student’s performance. When a teacher does not care for his/her students general involvement in the teaching and learning process, then there is no doubt that their performance will be poor.

The above school has managed to overcome this to some extent and no wonder it has had consistent good performance as opposed to many other schools. Most teachers don’t mind about counseling and directing learners at an early stage as they pursue their carriers.

This greatly limits the development of their potentials. Teachers and students working as a team yield highly because they work with a common goal.

"Our school has a good working environment and the relationships among students, teachers and administration are generally satisfying. We work with common objectives”, Helen remarked.

She further emphasised that instilling discipline in students is an important factor as far as good academic performance is concerned. This is very true and the school has really managed to check students’ discipline.

There are school rules and regulations written at the administration block’s notice board and you either comply or quit. There is no bargaining and discipline is now part and parcel of the school culture.

The above has paved way for the students’ concentration on the academic work, as there is no time wasted in pushing students here and there, a thing common in other schools where discipline is non existent.

It is lamentable that in some schools the level of discipline is at the lowest level possible. You find Students loaming and loitering all over the neighbourhoods in bars, shops and other indeed involved in acts of prostitution.

This is what you will never hear of in Lyce Notro Dame de Cîteaux. No one should therefore be wondering why some schools perform better while others remain with a poor performance record each year.

Teachers too find it more comfortable to teach in schools where no student will abuse them or even beat them. Such cases are common in schools where students are undisciplined.

That is why you will find almost all schools paying the same salaries but are preferred differently by teachers. Teachers are human beings and need respect and peace of mind.

Furthermore, undisciplined students waste a lot of time doing a lot of nonsense like; watching films, visiting night clubs, playing pool and visiting ‘wrong friends’ instead of revising their notes. This results into poor performance when the final examination comes.

Lycée Notre Damme de Cîteaux’s gives a typical example of a good school environment that permits the smooth running of the teaching and learning process.

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