Thursday, May 5, 2011

APRIL BONANZA FOR PATHWAZIANS!!

What a month April has been, bringing together a lot of exciting, educational and fun activities with it. The Students continue to blossom and grow in numerous academic and extracurricular activities. A few of them are listed below.

Graduation Day – 9th April: 91 Students received their Pathways Graduation Awards on this day, amidst excitement, lot of emotional and even tearful goodbyes! It was indeed a proud moment for us, as their teachers, mentors and guides and for all the parents of the Graduates.

The Students of Grade 12 are now in the midst of the Board Exams and the Students of Grade 10 are busy preparing for their Exams.

The Delhi Horse Show 2011 – held at the Army Equestrian Centre between the 1st and 10th of April. 32 students from the Primary, Middle and Senior School participated in this show with 36 other teams from different States of India. Every event consisted of a Qualifying round with 8 riders from different schools, clubs, and the NCC Riding Club. The Riders qualified for the finals only if they stood 1st in the Qualifying Round. It was a tough competition but our Students emerged with a grand total tally of 36 medals – 8 Gold; 7 Silver and 21 Bronze. Very applaudable considering most of our Riders were between the ages of 7 and 14 years.

Pathways Invitational Inter School Squash Tournament 2011, Under-15 boys - This Tournament was held at our School on the 12th and 13th April in which 7 Schools participated. The Students of Pathways won all the matches and raised the PWS Flag higher by winning the Team Championship!

PYP Exhibition – held on 21st and 22nd April – The students of Grade 5 diligently pursued the spirit of inquiry, in their quest to understand deeper the issues of human struggle to share resources for their PYP Exhibition. They worked collaboratively and independently, inquiring and planning all the intricacies of their work from scratch. This greatly heightened their understanding of the inquiry cycle, as well as honed their self management, research, thinking, social and communication skills. Their findings were showcased in the PYP Exhibition on Thursday, 21st April for the school community and Friday, 22nd April for parents and other guests, thereby, marking the Earth Day.

Middle School – Grade 8 Personal Project and Grades 6 & 7 Science Fair Exhibition – 28th April – The entire Middle School Student Community was involved in two major events of showcasing their academic work. Grades 6 and 7 had their Science Fair where they shared their exhibits which had evolved over the term on the learning and discoveries of their journey through the world of Science. Grade 8 had their Personal Projects to bring to the community, an area they had worked during the entire Semester to bring to fruition.

Both the journeys had emphasised the approach of ‘enquiry’ and had fostered an even more enriching bonding between the learner, the facilitator or guide and the academic subject. The exhibitions contained models, displays, hypotheses and live examples of student work, eagerly explained by the young learners.

The attached photos will give you a glimpse of each of the events listed above.

Council of International Schools (CIS) Accreditation –Finally, we are delighted to share with you that Pathways has been granted the CIS Accreditation. We have now come into a very exclusive League of a handful of International Schools in India and a very elite Education Group, internationally. This is indeed a glorious achievement for the School and its entire community and is the result of the efforts of a very committed and dedicated staff, the support of the parents and the ever growing successes of our Students. The news of our Accreditation, which came to us on the 28th, coincided perfectly with the School’s eight birthday!

The CIS Website link is http://www.cois.org

Article By: Dr. Sarvesh Naidu
School Director

http://pathways.in/

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Our Quest for Change | Pathways Schools

Pathways World School, Aravali recently conducted a workshop on ‘Effective Teaching Learning Strategies’ for teachers in the nearby village schools. The aim of the workshop was to share good classroom practices and strategies with teachers who do not have access to quality training options. The training program was held on the school campus on 2nd April 2011, facilitated by four Primary School members- Ms. Rima Singh, Ms. Monica Bhimwal, Ms Komal Dua and Ms. Gunjan Tomar. There were 23 enthusiastic participants from five different government schools located in the vicinity. The engagements planned were very interactive and focussed on the importance of collaborative and play way method of learning. The day commenced with a self reflection by the participants on the most satisfying teaching experience in their teaching career and the most challenging, which was shared and analysed to arrive at the understanding that what students learn is important but what holds more significance is how they learn. The participants were familiarised with many learning strategies and games which were practical, engaging for students and most importantly student centred. The engagements were followed by a reflection on how their students can benefit from these and how these can be used in their classrooms. In spite of the many limitations and the disadvantaged circumstances faced by these teachers, they were quite receptive to new ideas and contributed actively to all engagements. The positive responses received were worth the time and effort invested by the facilitators in planning, to make this workshop relevant, significant and accessible for all teachers. We are confident that such continued service initiatives in the future will benefit these less privileged students in their learning journey and will help develop enthusiastic and self-motivated learners.

Article By: Monica Bhimwal
Early Years Coordinator

http://pathways.in/