THURSDAY, 15 DECEMBER 2016 Issue 211

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS GENERAL SECONDARY

SCHOOL NEWS

COMPETITIVE SPORTS NEWS PADIA

U A E NATIONAL DAY CELEBRATIONS

45 45 45 45 45 45 45

PS ASSEMBLY

SS ASSEMBLY

SPEECH AT THE SECONDARY NATIONAL DAY ASSEMBLY BY ALI AL REHMA, AN EMIRATI STUDENT FROM THE CLASS OF 2014

I will start by congratulating High Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, High Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, High Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and all UAE sheikhs, citizens, and residents, on the occasion of the 45th UAE National Day.

Our celebration today of the 45th UAE National Day is not the celebration of the count of years since this nation was united, rather it is a celebration of what we have achieved throughout these 45 years, in which we have worked our best to reach great heights of development, pride and grace.

The remembrance of this remarkable day is not merely a celebration of every year but has become engraved in our hearts, minds, and memory of the successive generations that have lived and are living the exceptional achievements and witness where our country has reached, an eminent position.

This is the day when the United Arab Emirates united in words and actions. We must remember our late fathers, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, founders of this prospering country. They persevered day in and day out to get to the point where we are today. The journey of development and advancement continues and our great leaders Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and SheikhMohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum took reigns of this nation and followed the steps of their respective fathers for a better UAE.

The UAE leaders strive to make the lifestyle of nationals and residents the best and that was their goal 45 years ago and still is. The key to success is for the government to respond to what the citizens demand and to constantly improve the infrastructure, economy, and standard of living of this country, and this has been ongoing since 1971. Only with knowledge is the country able to keep up with the age of development and growth, and in the future, that will be how countries are ranked as powerful and great civilizations. It’s not the size of land or population, nor the kinds of weaponry and army that determine the rank, a country’s power, but rather that the country can keep up with development and implementing it in reality. Changing to a society that holds on to knowledge and sciences will make any country great, even if it is small in size.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid calling 2016 as the Year of Reading, it is appropriate to talk about reading, which is the best means of building a community and a generation that is knowledgeable, open-minded, capable and tolerant. Through reading we can fortify and protect the minds. Through reading, we can build a society which pioneers in development and keeps up with changes in all sectors. Through reading we can become more accepting and approaching to all cultures, and spread knowledge. And when knowledge is spread, peace and love prevail, as well as greater giving, production and work.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has stressed the importance of the Arabic language, being the language of life, science and thought. He said that “The Arabic language is one of the constants that cannot be compromised. It is the main element and component of national, Arab and Islamic identity.” The UAE takes interest in promoting the Arabic language in the community through launching a number of programmes and initiatives. Sheikh Mohammed also said that “Arabic language is the lifeline of the nation, its history, pride, symbol of civilization and culture, and the basis for our progress and prosperity.” In my experience at New York University in Abu Dhabi, I have seen many non-Arabs pursuing an Arab Crossroads major, where they explore the Middle East through political, historic, and cultural lenses that consider the region’s rich history of interconnectedness with other parts of the world. One of the requirements is to learn the Arabic language, and I was surprised by how many non-Arabs are very interested in learning my language and have learned it extremely well, where I can make full conversations in Arabic.

The United Arab Emirates brought to light the issue of tolerance in words and deeds, and implanted it in the policy-making of a country that warmly accepts almost 200 different nationalities with their respective cultures and

religions. These people are living in peace and prosperity, and the UAE leaders launched this global initiative confident that this is the pathway to security, stability, and development.

On the occasion of Martyr’s Day, I salute the UAE soldiers who fought and those who died in battle, and I pray for those who are still at war that they may return home safe and victorious.

I am vey honoured to be among you today and I thank the DIA management for inviting me to join you today. I wish you all a successful future and have a wonderful day.

SECONDARY SCHOOL NATIONAL DAY ASSEMBLY

This year’s UAE National Assembly was very well executed by all members, and had a significant impact on the audience. This is due to the fact that it covered all aspects of life in the UAE, including the significance of religion, government, architecture and above all the well-being of citizens within the United Arab Emirates!

During the UAE national day assembly in DIA the students learnt about the past of the UAE and how it has advanced over the past 45 years. The students were fortunate to have a guest speaker come in and talk about the development of the UAE in all fields of work such as architecture and education as well as financially with tourism. They also talked about the plans for the UAE in the future such as Mall of the Worlds, Museum of the Future, Dubai Canal, and Dubai Frame. We also listened to various verses of the Quran. We are extremely fortunate to live in the UAE where all religions are accepted and everyone is treated equally.

For National Day we did two large displays (Arabic A - Mr. Reda, and Arabic B - Mr. Nasr) where we wrote details about the UAE and how the UAE has developed as well as the culture and tradition of the UAE. At the special assembly held to mark the occasion we sang the National Anthem and had two Emirati guest speakers, one of whom was a parent and the other an alumnus of DIA who spoke highly about the significant achievements of the UAE. We also had a student who read the Quran and another student who translated. During the lunch recess, we had multiple events going on. We had a mini assembly on a stage in the quadrangle where a student in Year 10 – Aayah Kamkar – recited a poem written by Sheikh Mohammad about the UAE and another student – Shamma Younus – translated it.

Tamara Khudair and Aayah Kamkar – Arabic A

MARTYR’S DAY COMMEMORATION, 30 NOVEMBER 2016

Commeoration Day was declared to be an annual day of

remembrance starting in 2015. It is a day when we remember the soldiers who have died defending the UAE and their families who are bearing the loss. As a mark of respect, on 30 November, the UAE flag was lowered to half mast at 8:00. One minute silence

was observed from 11.30 to 11.31. At 11:31 the flag was raised by the PS and SS head students followed by the National Anthem.

In Arabic class - with Mr. Reda, we did two different activities. The first activity was that the students got an article about the Martyrs that sacrificed their lives for their country, and then they had to analyze it.

And the second activity was that the students had to write letters to either the martyrs families or mothers, describing how much we appreciate their sacrifices and how their sons, fathers, and brothers were important for the safety of this country. We did a large display and we placed it in the front of the school to show the students and parents, and even the guests of DIA.

Aayah Kamkar – Year 10 Arabic A

DIA IS AWARDED THE ECO SCHOOLS GREEN FLAG FOR THE 6TH YEAR!

Congratulations to Dubai International Academy for being awarded the Green Flag Status for another year. This is the 6th Year that DIA has been recognised for their outstanding efforts towards educating students’ awareness of environmental issues, as well as taking action in improving our local environment. We would like to recognise the hard work by the Environmental Team in both the Secondary School and Primary school, our Teachers, Coordinators and Facilities for assisting us in taking action and our Senior Management for supporting us along the way. But most of all, we would like to congratulate the students and community of DIA for the action they have taken to make this happen!!

MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents,

We have had a very busy term, full of events and activities that contribute to the holistic development of students at DIA.

This year the process for signing the Parent School Contract was completed in a timely manner and I would like to thank parents for their support.

The IBT standardized testing was successfully completed for all students from Year 4 to Year 11 last month. Primary students were issued mid-year reports last week, followed by Parent Teacher Conferences. Mid-year exams for Years 10 and 11 are underway and DP students will take their exams in January. This year we shared Current Achievement grades for secondary students in October and December and the detailed mid-year report will be issued in February.

In further reinforce the holistic nature of our curriculum we have renamed our enhanced After-school activities programme (ASA) as Co-curricular activities programme (CCA). The total number of activities offered in primary are 50 + 5 sports teams; in secondary there are 59 activities + 19 teams. Totally 774 students in primary and 635 in secondary participate in the CCAs.

As an Outstanding school DIA has joined the Abundance Group, which is an initiative launched by the KHDA for the sharing of best practice. The school that we are mentoring is the Emirates English Speaking School. DIA has been invited to present at What Works, a professional development platform of KHDA. In October we presented at What Works – Happiness and in February we will present at What Works – Tolerance.

Students continue to represent our school really well – both in the community as well as in specific events. The Innoventures Education schools have an annual calendar of inter-school events that enable our students to collaborate and compete with students from our sister schools: Raffles World Academy, Raffles International School and Collegiate American School. So far we have participated in the science fair, debating, a musical evening and a variety of sporting fixtures. DIA has had a strong presence in the local school leagues in a number of sports. The JV Boys Football Team was invited to Verona, Italy to take part in the annual Mediterranean cup against teams from Europe and the Middle East, this is the second consecutive year of participation in this tournament. While our teams have secured either first or second places in a number of football, basketball and volleyball fixtures locally, cricket and swimming are what we excel at: our U17 team finished 3rd in Dubai and is in the top 8 cricket teams of UAE for the National Sports League. The DIA swim squad stood first among IVEI schools in the gala this year. At the International swimming champi onship at Hamdan Sports Complex, with 375 swimmers from 11 schools, including one from Doha, DIA was placed second.

Our Primary School choir, the DIATones, were included in the ‘Voices Around the World’ global release in connection with the Rio Olympics. The project features input from more than 7,000 students from schools worldwide. Over the past two weeks the singers have been in great demand, performing at public venues this festive season.

The Eco-Club brought home the Green Flag for the 6th consecutive year, we are one of 11 schools to have received this. As part of the Green drive, Adopt a Seed Day saw over 1000 seeds planted by children in primary. During this process many connections were made to other curriculum areas. The seedlings will soon populate the balcony garden on the first floor which will be replicated on the secondary side following their Adopt a plant day in January.

As an international school all our students have the opportunity to celebrate important days such as UN Day, National Day and Martyr’s Day. We were immensely fortunate to have the Nobel Peace prize Laureate, Kailash Satyarthi deliver the key note address at our UN Assembly in October. His message about dreaming big and aiming high, resonated with our students.

Giving to those less fortunate is very much a part of the DIA ethos. This year we have had significant impact through the GIVE Foundation. Through the fund-raising efforts of the students of Innoventures schools, four schools are being built in Nepal, for those in need. A group of our students had the opportunity recently to visit Nepal and participate in the actual building process.

We thank our parents for their support and participation in the life of the school in a variety of ways. Some of you participated in the Focus Group meetings that were held for each year level on the theme of Transition. Stars, wishes

and the action plan have been shared with attendees. We hope to welcome more of you to the next set of meetings in the second semester.

We would like thank PADIA, our parent association, for all the events they organise through the year, most recently the wonderful Winter Souk which many of you enjoyed last month and Santa’s Grotto this week for our primary students.

School will close for the winter break on 15th December 2016 at 2.40 pm and reopen on 2nd January 2017. I wish all

our families a restful, safe holiday and a very happy New Year.

Warm regards,

Pratibha Rao, Principal

CAREERS FAIR Dear Parents, DIA is delighted to announce our second annual Career Week, an opportunity for Secondary School students to interact with professionals from different fields and be able to gather first-hand information about various careers. The focus of this week will be finding out what skills some professionals engage with in their fields, what their routine is comprised of, what the possible options and opportunities for growth are in their profession, how they

achieve work/life balance, and any information participants consider relevant and informative to an aspiring student. The objective is that students will gain an insight into different careers in order to inform possible choices of universities in the future.

To make DIA Career Week possible, we are seeking parents to volunteer to participate in sharing information about their profession in a dedicated career exhibition on the morning of Tuesday, 14 February. Parents who would like to be involved are asked to commit to come to DIA on this day to meet with small groups of students in rotations of 20 minutes organized by the school. The time of the event will be from 8:00 to 10:45 am, but we will have the venue open from 7 am and ready for any preparation you may require in advance of the exhibition.

For the remainder of the week, student-led assemblies will present the experiences arising from the career exhibition.

If you are willing to volunteer, please let us know by emailing us at diacareerweek@diadubai.com, before the newly extended deadline of Sunday, 8 January, giving us some details of what you can provide for this day.

Yours sincerely, Adam Fitzgerald Robert Jennings Head of Year 10 – Secondary School Deputy Head of Secondary – Pastoral

Seasons Greetings to all our Students, Parents and Staff !

NEWS FROM THE FINNISH MOTHER TONGUE PROGRAMME

THE FESTIVE SEASON HAS ARRIVED TO OUR FINNISH CLASSROOM

Wishing you all seasonal greetings from Finnish Mother Tongue Programme!

Hani Finnish Mother Tongue Programme Co-ordinator hannaleenafk@gmail.com

LANGUAGEONE MOTHER TONGUE ACADEMY (DUTCH AT DIA) IT IS VITAL TO GROW UP WITH YOUR MOTHER TONGUE

LANGUAGEONE IN A NUTSHELL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bBD4MV4p3k

LanguageOne believes that it is vital for children to develop their mother tongue. Language is an important factor in attaining a good balance between their social-emotional and academic growth. We pro-vide mother tongue education on the basis of this vision.

We offer Dutch mother tongue classes at DIA, tailored to the needs of your child. Please visit our website for more information: www.languageone.org

First time we took part on PADIAs winter souq...What a great day! Thank you all for coming over to our stall..

On Tuesday 6th of December, Finland celebrated it's 99th Independence Day...kids got a little cookie bag and juice to celebrate.

ACADEMIC YEAR 2015 - 2016

Please Note: The above dates are subject to change. For calendar updates please refer the school website - http://www.diadubai.com/learning/academic-calendar/2015-2016/

DECEMBER 2016 Thursday, 15 December Last day of school before Winter Break. No noon dismissal.

Sunday, 18 December - Sunday, 1 January Winter Break

JANUARY 2017 Monday, 2 January Students and staff return after Winter Break

Tuesday, 3 - Thursday, 19 January Year 13 Mock Exams

Thursday, 5 January Paid Co-Curricular Activities EXPO (DIA PCCA EXPO), 12:00pm-3:30pm

Sunday, 8 January IVEI Primary Netball U9 to U11 @ DIA

Sunday, 8 January IVEI Secondary Football U12 and U14 @ RWA

Sunday, 15 - Thursday, 26 January Year 12 Exams

Sunday, 15 January IVEI Secondary Football U16 and U18 @ RWA

Saturday, 21 January SAT Exams

Sunday, 22 January PADIA New Parents Coffee Morning

Sunday, 22 January IVEI Sports - Netball – U12,U14,U16 and U18 – SS - @ RWA

Wednesday, 25 - Thursday, 26 January Bronze DoE Training

Thursday, 26 January Year 7-9 Semester 1 Reports to Parents

Sunday, 29 January Innovents - Academic Olympiad hosted by RWA

Sunday, 29 January IVEI Sports - Cross Country – U8-U18 – ALL – @ DIA

Tuesday, 31 January Year 3 and 4 Musical

FEBRUARY 2017 Wednesday, 1 February Year 5 and 6 Musical

Sunday, 5 February IVEI Sports - Tennis - U12,U14,U16 & U18 – SS - @ DIA

Sunday, 5 February IVEI Sports - Tennis - U8, U9, U10 & U11 – PS - @ CAS

Monday, 6 February SS Sports Day

Tuesday, 7 February Internet Safety Day

Tuesday, 7 - Wednesday, 8 February Innovents - Quran Recital & Arabic Writing Competitions hosted by RIS

Wednesday, 8 - Thursday, 9 February Year 4 Camp

Friday, 10 - Saturday, 11 February Bronze DoE Assessment

Sunday, 12 February IVEI Sports - Athletics Meet - U8-U18

Tuesday, 14 February PS CCA Part 1: KG1 – Year 6 finishes

Tuesday, 14 February Secondary School Career Fair (Year 10)

Wednesday, 15 February Innovents - X Factor hosted by DIA

Thursday, 16 - Monday, 20 February Umrah Trip

Thursday, 16 - Sunday, 19 February Mid Term Break

Saturday, 18 - Saturday, 25 February Year 5 & 6 Ski Trip to Switzerland

Tuesday, 21 February PS CCA Part 2: KG1– Year 6 starts

Tuesday, 21 February Year 8 Science Fair

Thursday, 23 February PADIA International Evening

Thursday, 23 February SS Semester 1 Reports to parents

Sunday, 26 February - Thursday, 2 March Book Week

Sunday, 26 February Innoventures Sports Day

Tuesday, 28 February Primary School Middle East Choir Fest

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS GENERAL

SECONDARY SCHOOL NEWS

SECONDARY SCHOOL NEWS

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS GENERAL

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS

THE MOVENPICK JBR CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY

On the 6th of December, The DIAtones (DIA Primary School Choir) were invited to attend and perform at the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony at The Movenpick in JBR. The DIAtones warmed up alongside the hotel choir, who were very impressed with the performance skills of the children. We then moved to the hotel foyer where everyone jingled and sang their hearts out to a variety of Christmas tunes to put everyone in the Christmas spirit, even Santa was impressed!!

Well done to The DIAtones for being such great, well-mannered performers!!

FRIENDSHIP WEEK

The Primary School celebrated Friendship week on from the 13th November to the 17th November.

All students made a special effort during this week to share their ‘Friendship Messages’ on the tree in the Primary School building.

The Friendship Tree was created by the Primary Student Council; students from KG1 to year 6 either drew or wrote a friendship message on a small note and pasted it on the Friendship Tree.

The messages were all mindful and inspiring. As some of the Primary School Council members said; “The friendship tree is a way to communicate with our friends and explain to them how important friendship is to us.”

COMPETITIVE SPORTS NEWS

PADIA

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS GENERAL

SECONDARY SCHOOL NEWS

Adopt a Seed

Four Weeks Later...

On November 8th the Primary School ECO

team held its first event, Adopt a Seed Day.

Students were invited to come along with

their class and plant a seed. Students were

then in charge of looking after their own

plant and watch it germinate.

We would like to thank Precision Group for their wonderful donation of flower pots,

Ms Manuella and the entire Primary School Council for their hard work, Facilities and

Senior Management for helping it go ahead, and finally Teachers and students for

being so wonderful and eager on the day. It was a truly inspirational day to see

students enthusiastic about planting and the environment.

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS GENERAL

SECONDARY SCHOOL NEWS

NEWS FROM YEAR 4A

WE ARE ALWAYS THANKFUL IN 4A

We celebrated thanksgiving in 4A with our wonderful class Mom.

A huge thanks to Audrey Kolb for always being there to support

us in Year 4. We watched a story about the first thanksgiving,

wrote down some of the many things we are thankful for and

created our thankful tree.

CELEBRATING UAE NATIONAL DAY IN 4A

We celebrated the National Day on November 29th this year with a whole school assembly and various activities in class. It was great to see all the students dressed up in the colours of the UAE flag and thinking about the ways they are thankful for their host country.

Students created a pic collage to show how Dubai has changed over time.

MARKET DAY IN YEAR 4

4A had a wonderful time planning and setting up for their business in the weeks leading up to market day. Students worked hard to create a business where they collaboratively sold goods and services to their customers – their buddy classes, and the Year 3 and 5 students.

Excellent work 4A! You are wonderful entrepreneurs.

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS GENERAL

SECONDARY SCHOOL NEWS

STUDENTS RIDE FOR CHANGE

Junior Journey of hope

The Junior Journey of hope is a very nice event to participate in, and the donations from the biking race will help people who don't have money to pay for their hospital bills.

This year on November 26, at the Al Qudra cycle track, my sister Elsa and I joined the 10km biking race together with 92 other kids and parents. You had the choice to bike for 10km, 20km or 50km. My parents were supporting us cheering and clapping when we arrived back to the finish line!! My small sister Talia who is 5 years old was also excited and biked 1 to 2 km. I loved to see the desert dunes and we saw many different kinds of Gazelles. It was an amazing adventure and next year my parents will join to!

It is a fun event that I hope many more kids will participate in next year and raise even more money for the Red Crescent and this important cause.

By Lea Braidy Year 5E

Journey of hope

The follow on to the Junior Journey of Hope was the Journey of Hope. Fourteen teachers from DIA participated in the event and cycled 260km through all the seven emirates over the National Day weekend. You can read all about it:

www.journeyofhope.ae https://www.facebook.com/journeyofhopeae/

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS GENERAL SECONDARY

SCHOOL NEWS

SECONDARY SCHOOL NEWS

COMPETITIVE SPORTS NEWS

PADIA

DIAPHONICS TALENT SHOW 2016

Sure DIA’s got talent, but this year’s talent show did not only bring back memories for Year 13 students, but also made new memories that will last a lifetime!

An amazing, energetic, exhilarating and breathtaking experience captivated a crowd of mainly Year 7 to 10 students and teachers on Thursday, 24th of November during school time. On top of award winning act after act, when there were already no words to express the electricity in the air, a voice that made people cry, give you goosebumps and blew your mind rose from the big stage. It was the voice of Jure Mazej in Year 7 singing “Time to say Goodbye”. He totally stole everyone’s heart!

The starting of auditions on 26th of October brought many acts to life. Twenty six students took part in the final talent show over 16 acts. Siya Arora, singer and songwriter, won the the trophy for best solo act with her original song “One Day”. The Quiet Riot, Olivia, Natasha and Haya, won the trophy for best group with their original poetry “Produce”. Deep Bhatia stepped up from our marketing moviemaker to win the Dance trophy doing a solo Indian remix dance. The overall trophy winner, Jure Mazej sang Time to say Goodbye by request during the awards ceremony.

Mr Robert Jennings ended the talent show by thanking Miss Karen Thompson, the new music teacher and MC’s Allen and Marta, our great hosts for the event, for making the DIAphonics Talent Show such a wonderful success.

Ms Pratibha Rao, our Principal, opened the event and handed out all the trophies, medals and certificates at the awards ceremony. She also added her commendations for a very well run and enjoyable Talent Show.

A special thanks to everyone who helped, our fantastic facilities team and outstanding performers at DIA, especially Jure who totally stole the show!

SS DRAMA PRODUCTION THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS

On November 28th and 29th the Exam Hall was transformed into Venice as the SS Drama production The Servant of Two Masters hit the stage. Audiences were delighted by the story of Truffaldino and his attempts to carry off serving two masters at once, without either finding out. The cast’s hard work came through, and it was truly an event to remember! Thank you to all of the students and teachers who were involved in making this production happen.

COURTYARD PLAYHOUSE - 4TH INTER-SCHOOLS THEATRE-SPORTS TOURNAMENT

On November 25th Courtyard Playhouse was full of energy as they hosted their 4th Inter-Schools Theatre-Sports Tournament.

This season DIA had two teams registered in the Junior Tournament – Mushroom Cup, represented by Alexandra Ameye, Andrew fFrench, Divyanshi Gupta, Manya Jain, Ana Mclernon, Sophia Simoni, and Marina Snyder. This group trained for 6 weeks leading up to the competition, staying after school and building the skills required for the competition. 16 teams competed for the top prize this season, and DIA’s teams came in 4th and 2nd place! Well done!

DOE PRACTICE TRIP BY KLARA SANANIKONE

This year’s DOE trip was a bundle of lessons all interlinked with each other. We learned as well as remembered much from our past experiences and DOE from the simplest tricks when packing to the geological history of the mountains we were hiking through. To me personally, I felt that this trip allowed me to review many aspects of my current self. First and most obviously was teamwork. Through DOE I was able to get closer to the people in my group and get a better understanding of their mindset. Sometimes taking a break is worth the while! At the end of the day, it is about effective communication. If you don’t tell others there is a problem, no one will help you solve the problem and problems lead to discomfort and discomfort leads to bad memories. As much pain and stress you might go through, as for the rubbish bag, it is a collective weight that should be distributed.

My favorite part of the journey was definitely the time we resided at the campsite where we were all mixing throughout the groups and exchanging our experiences. This was also the part which challenged me most as it aligned both frustration at failure and lack of preparation in some areas. One. Make sure you check your equipment thoroughly and if something seems off, ask someone who knows for help. Two. Set up ASAP to try and get everything done before nightfall. The best reward from this is being able to enjoy the night sky while eating or learning a few things from your instructors. Residing at that location was also a reminder that although we might think of remote areas as barren places, they are still the home of some kind of living organisms which are affected by our litter. Small things like a piece of plastic can literally lead to the death of a goat as its stomach is filled with the indigestible waste and it slowly starves to death. So, don’t litter! And if you see litter flying around, please pick it up. It could save a life.

My last lesson to you is that if DOE wasn’t or isn’t your type of adventure, there are a lot more options out there for you but there is no denying that it is a rich programme which challenges you in many aspects simultaneously and as a group/community.

DOE ASSESSMENT TRIP BY NAVINA MAHESH

“triiiinnnnggg” “triiiinnnnggg”, my alarm rings at 4 AM on a Wednesday morning. I wake up to find that it’s still dark outside – the city has never been more still. I jump out of bed and get dressed to trek fourteen kilometers over the next three days.

Driving up to school, I see everyone bustling around, rushing to use bathrooms – this is the last of civilization we will see until Friday afternoon.

Just a while later, we see two big white buses approach our school and there is a rush of excitement. The field is crowded with teenagers running around, finding their bags and hauling them onto their shoulders. A good two hours later, we arrive at our destination. Getting out of the bus, there is chaos. We run around organizing our compasses and route cards, filling up bottles and slapping on sunscreen – the desert is our home for the next three days.

One by one, the groups start off on the trek. We push ourselves uphill and onto straight paths that seem never-ending. After a whole day of trekking in the heat, nothing beats the feeling of reaching the campsite and being surrounded by all your friends around a bonfire with freshly cooked food. We take our turns telling horror stories and get ready to sleep in the tents we set up.

Every day, the trek got a little easier and the moments more enjoyable. As challenging as it is, the Duke Of Edinburgh is a great experience that brings people together, forges friendships and pushes you to your maximum. It requires both physical and mental endurance but at the end is a feeling of exhilaration realizing what the human body is truly capable of.

PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWS GENERAL SECONDARY

SCHOOL NEWS

COMPETITIVE SPORTS NEWS

PADIA's Winter Souk was a busy day, the stalls were fully booked and vendors with various items arrived in the morning to offer services, food, jewellery and gifts to our students, their parents, staff and outside visitors. Many items were hand cooked or made and many vendors were also parents from DIA who put a lot of effort into decorating the stalls, in order to be able to offer this broad choice of products. One side of the Quad was completely dedicated to Charities and toward the end of the event, the raffle draw was a big success, generously sponsored by DIA and PADIA.

Shortly after, the Year 11 Shirts arrived and can now be worn by the students every Thursday throughout the year.

PADIA