From the Director's Desk

The true purpose of education as Eleanor Roosevelt said many years ago, is to create citizens. By this she meant the creation of habits of responsibility and courage and compassion. Reinforcing this with our students is our constant endeavor through what we expose them to and what we discuss. Speaking to senior school students recently, the Senior School Principal Mr Jaffar spoke of the importance of respect – caring for each other, for teachers and the support staff – as a bedrock of our education at Pathways. Recent activities are good examples of how we do it.

 

Interact Club

Interact Club Pinning Ceremony

Created to serve the community, the school Interact club activities show wonderful social responsibility and caring. The new office                   bearers  of  the club  were  invested  with  badges. In the few months since it as launched, the club has raised over a lakh of  rupees   through  food sales, fun fairs and other activities. The money goes to improve facilities at a school in Hajipur. Our students also celebrated Children’s Day with the children of the school, running a sports event and lunch service. The new office bearers have big plans and intend to adopt another school in the area.

 

Editing the Times of India

     Pathways Team at the TOI office

The edition of the Times of India put together by our senior school students was an interesting and challenging process because it took them out of their comfort zone into understanding how news is not simply reported but also created through choice and editing. Reading through the issue it was remarkable to see the well-informed comments on the upcoming budget, Indian-US relationships or technology in education. Our children seemed as well-informed and socially aware as most adult commentators.

 

Science for a Better Life

Students of Form 4 visited the Bayer Material Science centre and learnt about polyurethanes and polycarbonates and their uses in sustainable  buildings.             Constructing the castle Draw Bridge

They were able to construct their own  Castle Draw Bridge with special materials and were able to take these home. They came away with a deeper understanding about the role of new scientific developments in protecting their world.

Upcoming

The school is abuzz with activity in preparation for our technology fair, Jharokha. Please do come and feel free to bring friends. You will be amazed at the creative ways in which our children – from as young as Form 1 upto Form 11 use technology in learning. Our school is undoubtedly a leader in this area.  Jharokha is on Thursday 14th between 10 am – 1pm.

 

Shalini Advani

School Director

From the Senior School Principal

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.”

 

Ashira Pachera
President, Interact Club                        

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

Interact Club 2013

 

Interact Club 2013-14

Core Committee members

 

Ashira  Singh  Pachera- President

Manek Singh- Vice President

Rashi Seth – Secretary

 

Public Image Committee members

Advitya Narang– Deputy Secretary

Shamini Singhal – Deputy Secretary

Sarthak Gaur – Treasurer

Rhea Mendes – Director

Mayank Gupta – Director

Tarish Mahajan – Director - Designing and update of website, Shivin Moza – Director - Designing and update of website
Gopal Avasthi – Director Photography, Vidushi Sachdeva – Director  Photography, Thomas B. James - Director Photography

Ritika Sharma - Director – Articles writing Aashana Kaul - Director – Articles writing

Pranav Jain - Director – Public Relations

Nikhil Datta - Director – Public Relations

Interact Club Pinning Ceremony

With the appointment of the new student council, we also had the appointment of the new core committee of our interact club. On 6th March, 2013 the pinning ceremony of the new core members of the Interact club was held. It was an important event not only for the new president, Ashira Singh, and other core committee members but also for the Interact club as these are the people who would be leading the club for this year and trying to achieve further Interact club goals. We started the ceremony with the lighting of the lamp and Dr. Advani addressing the audience with a very touching and inspiring story of a girl who was a house help and how her determination led her to write a bestseller. This was followed by a speech from the former president and vice president, Apoorva Bihani and Ammarah Khalid respectively. We also had Ashira Singh delivered a speech about the Interact club’s further plans. This was then followed by the badging ceremony of the members by Dr Advani and Mr Jaffar. Hoping to see Interact club executing all their dream plans with the help of our new committee members.

Ritika Sharma

Form 11

CAS Trip – Visit to Savda Ghevra Rehabilitation colony

Our group of Form 11 students started the month of March with a cause. Living in an LEDC, we are victim to poverty and a huge class divide. This has resulted in people living on the road at unbearable and unhygienic conditions.

We, with the support of Habitat for Humanity India, visited a group of houses in North West Delhi at Savda Ghevra where houses have been made just for these slum dwellers. We made an attempt to paint the 26 houses. We divided in groups of five to six and painted the houses.

The representatives from India habitat were touched and congratulated us after which we had a one-on-one interactive session with the ones who now live there. Most of them were either crippled or had some or the other disability and this made us realise how tough life can be.

Helping them move into houses- which are now painted- would be an experience we will all cherish for the rest of our lives.

Sana Diwan

Form 11

OFSMUN

We received information of OFSMUN in October last year. It was exciting to know that this MUN was being organised for grades 6-8.  What’s more was that it was happening in Singapore! While we had heard a lot about MUNs, we were not sure what it meant. We had always thought it was something our seniors participated in.

 

Our initiation into MUN started with us being told what MUNs were all about. Interested students were asked to prepare on topics and were later interviewed. The list of students selected then came out. It was exciting to know that we were selected and yet we were at a loss. We were not sure of  what we had to do.

 Our country allotment came next and we were representing New Zealand. That is when intensive training started. We prepared our position papers through the winter break. Then we participated in the PSNMUN 2013, some of us just as volunteers in committees so that we could learn the nuts and bolts of how to conduct ourselves in committees. Our senior, Aman Srivastava, was of great help in explaining to us the procedures patiently and teaching us the dynamics of forming blocks and lobbies.

We flew to Singapore on the 22nd morning and had the day mostly to ourselves. We got a chance to look at the city. Day 2 and 3 were serious MUN- ing days. We were a little lost at finding out that we had to have our resolutions before hand and then debate these resolutions clause-by- clause. Our position papers came to our rescue. We got used to it quickly and were soon actively debating and discussing.

It was great to have made new friends, seen and experienced a new country. A country that is naturally multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, very clean and very particular about following rules. We managed to visit Little India, China Town and went on the Night Safari, which was great fun.

We look forward to participating in more such conferences and truly encourage our friends to experience the same. Debating and discussing topics as diplomats while still in grade 6 made us feel really important. It required us, at all times, to actively listen, think on our feet and drop inhibitions about speaking in front of so many people.

We would really like to thank everyone who made this possible for us.

 

Deeksha Rajesh

Orkojeet Banerji

Grade 6

Grade 4 Trip to Bayer Material Science - Greater Noida

Students of Forms 4 and 5 visited the Bayer Material Science facility                        At the solar panels  on                            March 4th. They were given an insight into how the facility is energy efficient;          produces its own energy;  how the energy produced, consumed  and  saved

Details of energy produced and consumed                  

is recorded; how it harvests water; and what are the products  it  manufactures. It was quite a  success as children enjoyed the interaction and learning. Some of them actually said that it was their best field trip ever. I must say it was very well organised and   conducted by the organization. Our  students asked a whole lot of questions – many related to their Unit of Inquiry - and were satisfied by the answers they got. In fact, the organisers also said that our students were very inquisitive and asked very sensible and meaningful questions. They also got to see and get familiar with some new materials (polyurethane and polycarbonate) and solar panels. The highlight of the day was the drawbridge construction kit that each child got. They began constructing them at the facility itself and were thrilled when they were told that they could take it home.

Aradhana Sikri

Form Tutor – Form 5 

Senior School Inter House Soap Box Activity

In the past couple of weeks, Pathways has been evolving at an exponential rate  and as Cultural Secretary, I feel that as a school we’re becoming stronger with each passing day.  We saw our first Interhouse Music Competition go amazingly well, followed almost immediately by an equally amazing board-making competition, all thewhile preparing for Sports Day.

 

Perhaps  the  toughest challenge the four houses encountered recently though, was the Soapbox oratory competition. The pressure was tremendous on everyone involved, from the participants to the house captains.

  

 This was because the houses were given their topics just a day before the event, and were told they had to choose one on their own, also just one day in advance. This was also the first event I helped organize as cultural secretary, and, needless to say, given the difficult nature of the event, I was really nervous as to how my debut would go. But, as has become natural to and expected of Pathways students, the event went brilliantly. None of the topics were easy or mundane, and the level of intelligence in every speaker’s argument was outstanding. At the end, even though one house had to be chosen for first place, at the risk of sounding clichéd, it was a victory for the whole school in my opinion; Yet again, we proved that Pathways Noida is, and always will be, a class above the rest.

 

Saharsh Arora

Cultural Secretary

Dr. Seuss's Birthday

In the spirit of Dr. Seuss and  the  support of reading, Pathways library celebrated Dr. Seuss birthday on 4th March, Monday.

This time we invited two children from Grade-10 Neel Chawla and Bikram Singh  to the library  for interacting with the children of Nursery – Form 2  . They talked to the children about Dr.Seuss with a PPT and narrated stories from his books “ABC” and “HOP on POP”. The children had lots of fun with the senior children. After that they enjoyed the cupcakes  which were made in-house with red and white toppers like the Cat in the Hat character wears.

We have lots of fun loaded up for the rest of the week also with movies of

Dr. Seuss famous books “Green Eggs and Ham” ,”The Sneetches” and “The Cat in the Hat”.

 

Anju Dutt

Librarian

Primary Student Led Conference

The Primary School at Pathways, Noida successfully completed its second Student Led Conference (SLC), which was held on March 1st, 2013. It was the first SLC for forms two and three, which made it an all the more interesting activity. It was a great delight to witness students as young as seven year old share their strengths and weaknesses with their parents. An SLC, unlike a Parent Teacher Conference, is a one on one interaction session, where each child is given a dedicated half an hour with his/her parents. The teacher takes a backseat and is just a silent observer.

 

The confidence of the students left most of the parents in amazement. They were completely in awe of their child, who was clearly able to pinpoint his/her areas of improvement and also had a solid plan of action for the same. At the end of the session, the parents helped their child in setting achievable goals for themselves and also listed how they can help in their child’s overall progress. Most parents experienced their “moment of realization” where they confessed that they had either been underestimating their ward or expecting too much. All in all, it was a fruitful event which will aid in the progress and development of our students.

 

Sana  Noor

Primary ICT Tutor