I would like to share my thoughts about our Form 10 and Form
12 students as they gear up for their mock exams, in this edition.
Habitat build Activity by senior school 
It has been for more than two years that our students of
IGCSE and IBDP have been with us at Pathways. This journey of theirs, as I
witnessed it, has been nothing short of fascinating for me. Fascinating because
just in a span of two+ years, they have fashioned themselves to be more
independent, have acquired cognitive and psychological maturity, seasoned
themselves with social conscientiousness and certainly invested significantly
in understanding as well as practicing values most essential to us- respect,
empathy, confidence, integrity, tolerance, commitment and appreciation of life.
This truly means for me, a coming of age. Yet, at the same time they are still
only young adults growing wings and finding their feet, but who in their hearts
are still children, with their curiosity, vulnerability and enthusiasm
unbroken, unblemished. And today as they stand at the threshold of a brand new
phase in their lives, there is one special thing they have taught us teachers;
as Walt Disney once famously said, “Laughter is timeless, imagination is
ageless and dreams are for ever.”
Of course, in all this ‘growing up’ there has been some
serious academic work these students have been doing. The IBDP as well as the
IGCSE are courses which by definition are rigorous. In that, the children are
exposed and subjected to considerable volume of knowledge/information, which
they need to systematically and in an organized manner assimilate and
demonstrate their understanding in a myriad practical ways through their course
work. While this is the way the program is structured, students are
consistently required to deliver their Internal Assessment/coursework such as
Extended Essay, Presentations, Portfolios, Oral commentaries, Written
assignments, Projects, Program dossiers, Lab reports, Investigations, Field
work, Product design, CAS reflections etc
based on very stringent deadlines and criteria to ensure superior
quality of work. They need to do this only by way of constant reading, learning
and consultations with their teachers and coordinators. Therefore, a lot of
trial and error goes into it, rendering it very time consuming. What makes this
entire course work arduous and sometimes even taxing is the number of subjects
they need to constantly meet deadlines with (and in each subject there are
numerous deadlines). This certainly requires the super skill of multi-tasking.
How to select a career by Mr. Shiv Dewan
Therefore at the end of these two years of continuous
internal assessments, especially in the last few months, our students have
learned two very important skills, those that will take them a long way in
life- time management and, stress management, i.e., how they cope with the
stress. And the secret to mastering both
these skills is planning. Students who have thus understood and practiced this
have certainly submitted their work on time, honoring their deadlines and
produced good quality work. There are of
course those who have indulged in procrastination and therefore have faulted on
their planning- cramming their work and commitments in such a way that they are
unable to deliver. It is then that we
see students engaging in any of the three undesirable options- producing poor
quality of work, plagiarism which is intellectual theft and dishonesty or not
honoring their deadlines thereby losing their grades. Underscoring the
importance of planning, Arnold Glasgow once said, “Success is simple. Do what’s
right, the right way and at the right time.
Well, and so we come to nearly the end of our IBDP and IGCSE
programmes, and the students are bracing themselves for both their mock and
finals; I truly wish each of them the very best! I hope sincerely that they do
prepare well for their exams and do exceedingly well in the same. We teachers
are always here for any assistance they may need of any sort- academic or
otherwise. I’d like to sign off by quoting what I once read on success- The
greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.
Here’s wishing each of my students good luck once again.
Umar Jaffar
Principal, Senior School
