Gachugu Academy was yesterday announced as the top school in Nyeri. Speaking to the press at the school yesterday, headmaster Isaac Karanu said discipline and hardwork is the secret behind the schools success.

He said the school was able to achieve the mean score of 381 marks, placing the school at number 16 nationally thanks to the combined effort from pupils and teachers.

"We were very optimistic that this time we shall be somewhere at the top since we did a lot of work last year. We are happy and thank God for these results and are currently preparing this year's candidates to also excel," he said. The school was started in 2002 and the first group of candidates sat for KCPE in 2004.

Karanu said the last time the school performed as impressively was in 2008 when the school got a mean score of 375 marks. The school which has a population of about 500 pupils fielded 83 pupils for KCPE last year.