Oswald M. D’Souza
Pics : Sameeha Studio – Abu Dhabi
Daijiworld Media Network
Abu Dhabi, Feb 21: International Community Kindergarten School – ICK ( formerly known as Indian Community Kindergarten/ILA Kindergarten) one of Abu Dhabi’s prestigious schools celebrated its 34th Annual Day at Shk. Zayed Auditorium of Abu Dhabi Indian School , in the presence of packed audience consisting of distinguished guests, dignitaries, parents and well wishers on Friday 17 February 2012 in the evening.
The dazzling display of talents by tiny tots was amazing to watch with their spectacular performance, their confidence level exhibited was beyond comparison. The colourful display by means of dance, skits and enactments synchronized so beautifully showed the outstanding caliber of the school.
The evening’s proceedings commenced with Symbolic Lighting of lamp by the distinguished guests – Dr. B. R. Shetty ) Chairman of the School, Dr. Chandrakumari Shetty, Brian Fox of ADEC and Alia Al Mazouri. The recitation of Holy Quran and a welcome song by the Snr. KG students and a brilliant speech by little Tanvika Shetty which was impressive and startling followed.
The function of presided by Brian Fox of Abu Dhabi Educational council (ADEC) and Dr. B. R. Shetty and Alia Al Mazroui were the guests of honour.
Sylvia Pais – the Principal of the School, the veteran educationalist, who has been instrumental in developing this school to its present status read the annual report. Her report highlighted the school’s achievement and performance for the year 2011 – 2012. She acknowledged the efforts of her teaching faculty and thanked her staff and helpers for their unstinted support throughout these past years.
ICK’s mission as an educational community is the pursuit of excellence and the development of the full potential of all students. Its aim is to enable pupils to take their place in society as responsible, informed, thinking and tolerant human beings.
ICK School focuses on high quality teaching and learning. Their results show strong academic achievement, sustained over time. In their efforts towards academic excellence and growth, they have initiated action to bridge the gap between the institution and community. They assess the students’ strength and weakness in academics and aptitude and address their needs through various courses.
ICK places great importance on their relationships with parents, working together to ensure that children achieve their potential. It is their responsibility to ensure that the children, teachers and parents work together to celebrate success and foster a ‘love of learning’. A better English-rich environment has been created, a more effective teaching and learning culture has been nurtured and a more caring approach to help the whole-person development of their students has been established.
Dr. B. R. Shetty highlighted the plight of Indian School children, specially the Kindergarten students to get admission into good schools, as Abu Dhabi has acute scarcity of quality schools. His efforts to establish new school to cater for the large Indian community are slowly bearing fruit. He pleaded the ADEC Authorities to prioritize their request, bearing in mind the hardships the Indian Community is facing.
The Chief Guest Brian Fox congratulated the school for their wonderful work, which was evident on the stage and promised that he will put in more efforts to meet the community’s needs. He congratulated the school faculty and management for the outstanding performance of the students and the schools success in molding the young children in their formative years.
The evenings programme was loaded with exciting skits, song and dance performances by the tiny tots, which was seen to be believed. These tiny tots were trained to perform brilliantly, giving a colourful ambience by their dedicated teachers and helpers, who had strived hard to achieve this.
The programme included – A play entitled “A visit to Mac Donald’s Farm” by Junior KG children, “The Toys that Ranaway”, a brilliant display of “ Around the World in 21 Minutes” – a display of various forms of cultural dances, etc stole the show.
The achievers were honoured by the Chief Guests for their academic and all-round performance.
The sheer dedication and efforts of the teachers to train over 400 students was an tremendous effort. The performers were between the age of 3 – 6 age group, which made the difference.
It is worth mentioning that the Kindergarten school was established in 1977, nearly three decades ago by the initiative taken by Salma Ansari the wife of then Ambassador to the UAE and the current Vice President of India (His Excellency Mohammed Hamid Ansari) under the banner of ILA. The Kindergarten was run by the Indian Ladies Association till 2005 when it came under the patronage of Indian Embassy. Due to the regulatory changes imposed by the Government of Abu Dhabi, the schools management was taken over by Dr. B. R. Shetty, the well known businessman and philanthropist of UAE, under the request of the Indian Embassy with the name International Community Kindergarten (ICK), imparting value added education to the young ones.
It was worth noting that ICK focuses on providing a platform to showcase their talents and discover a new aspect of their personality, and evident when out of its 650 strength of children nearly 400 of them performed on stage, an outstanding feat indeed. This was possible only because of the dedicated team of teachers and support staff.
The days programme concluded with National Anthem of both UAE and India.
The whole event was brilliantly compered by Anna George.