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"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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We've experimented quite a bit at Gateway recently, and here are some of our achievements!
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Great Place To Work - Certified!
The Gateway School of Mumbai is proud to be certified as a Great Place to Work! It is a recognition of our commitment to create a work environment that enables us to deliver to the best of our potential. A big hurrah to our founders, teachers, parents, staff and leadership team, who make this truly a great place to work, every day!
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Teachers' Table-Tennis Tournament!
After a successful student tournament, this month we saw the teachers play against each other to win points for their house!
Congratulations to the winners: Ms. Radhika Misquitta from the Red Predators who won the Intermediate category, and Ms. Aditi Ghosh from the Blue Beasts who won the Beginner category.
The Blue Beasts and the Red Predators each earned 75 points in this tournament!
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Arts Exposure Initiative
Over the last few years, the Arts team has organized artist performances and art related field trips to promote the exposure of the arts among our students.
Delraaz, Joash Benedict and Zervaan Bunshah, three young and talented musicians who perform at gigs and musicals all over the city, visited Gateway this month to perform a 45 minute set for our students and staff! They also took student song choices into consideration and made the session an interactive and exciting one.
A great big thank-you to these lovely artists for providing us with a memorable and fun learning experience!
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The Bombay Project
As part of Grandstand, The Bombay Project was presented by the students of Middle and High school where they took us on Bombay’s journey from the 1500s to the present day. In collaboration with the Arts Team, this was done to build background context for the upcoming High School showcase in November. There were four presentations in all. It started with a song - talking about the Koli community, which was followed by a street play on the Indian freedom struggle. The next group shared about the Emergency in the 70s through a news report and it closed with a video montage of Bombay surviving through everything that the 2000s has thrown at us. The students did a fabulous job in this engaging research presentation!
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Student Spotlight
Building Capacity in Students
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Gateway's Technology Triumphs!
The Passion Project, conducted by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) team within Rainbow Riders homeroom enables students to pursue projects based on their strengths and work on them for two months. Projects that the students have taken up include: photography, creation of animated videos, research, access to reading, story-writing, generating music and digital citizenship. The projects have been individualized keeping in mind what works best for each child.
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In ICT, the Endless Explorers, a middle school homeroom, learned how machines have changed their lives and while beneficial, machines also have negative effects if used excessively. After doing their research, the students presented on "Negative effects of using mobiles, laptops and computers" to the High School students. Some of the points covered were the physical (back pain) and mental health (loneliness) issues caused by mobile and social media overuse. Students also shared strategies to prevent these issues: maintaining a correct posture and managing screen time. It was great to witness a two-way benefit process where the Endless Explorers deepened their learning by presenting it, and High School students gained awareness about the negative effects of ICT.
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We had an opportunity to use a digital scanner pen which uses a technology called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to digitize printed text and transfer it to a computer or device. The Tech Task Force Team (Tech Edvocates) and the Language Team collaborated together to pilot the use of the scanner pen for over a month and tested its benefits in Middle and High School. With an objective to support students with a reading fluency significantly lower than their comprehension level, the pen gave students access to books and age-appropriate language material.
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At the end of the trial period, Ms. Aditi Ghosh and Ms. Riddhi Gogri even met the founder Mr. Jack Churchill and his team to share feedback on the pen and how they can plan further to make this collaboration fruitful!
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Guest Lecturer in High School
Ms. Raheela Hassan Gazi, a nutritionist with her own line of waist-line friendly snacks visited Gateway to speak about the Basics of Nutrition. The NIOS 12th students were learning about Food and Nutrition in class, and this was a great opportunity for them to interact with a professional working in the field! The important topics covered were healthy food choices and the importance of macro-nutrients.
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Handwriting Journal Project
The Sensory-Motor Department has started a "Handwriting Journal Project" with students in Super Troupers and Groundbreakers which will be executed in collaboration with parents. This project aims to provide opportunities to practice and maintain handwriting skills in a fun, creative way while also encouraging students to explore a variety of topics across arts, festivals and interests.
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Using a Strength Based Approach!
The Social-Emotional Learning team worked on identifying strengths and needs in the Endless Explorers homeroom, in order to build self-awareness. Through the process, students learned that one person's strength could be another’s need and that they can reach out to each other. They decided to create a strength directory where students identified their strengths, grouped strengths and people together and then showcased their creation, #StrengthExplorers in their homeroom!
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Student Internships
Our NIOS 12th Graders are currently doing internships in the community. Internship roles include conducting research at Kotak Education Foundation, assisting a kindergarten class at Ascend International School, assisting in the food and beverage department at Playlist Pizzeria, monitoring and executing 3D printed models, setting up music equipment at the True School of Music, and learning web design!
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Parent Spotlight
Building Capacity in Parents
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Parent Support Group (PSG)
This month’s PSG was conducted by a parent, Dr. Tanuja Prem; a true indicator of the spirit of collaboration and support!
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Professional Development
Building Capacity in the Team
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A few teachers attended workshops and completed online courses this month and are keen to implement their learnings in classes!
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Ms. Daya Chatani, Ms. Manda Nambiar and Ms. Varsha Makhija attended the Mpower, Mental Health Conclave based on addressing the issue of substance abuse on teenagers and talking about mental health in the wider gamut. It was a great learning and knowledge sharing experience by experts along with case studies followed by assessment and discussion.
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Math Teacher, Ms. Sanjana Nisar completed a MOOC from National STEM Learning Centre, UK on Math Subject Knowledge : Proportional Reasoning and got 100% average test score!
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Ms. Meghna Visaria, Ms. Manika Khanna, Ms. Daya Chatani and parents, Ms. Anahita Patel and Ms. Shital Patil attended a two-day workshop by Ms. Michelle Garcia Winner; founder and CEO of Social Thinking®, a company dedicated to helping individuals from early childhood to adulthood develop social competencies to meet their personal social goals. The facilitator provided information on the working of the social mind, the importance of teaching social competencies in addition to social skills, and ways to assess and provide strategies for students with social emotional learning challenges.
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Ms. Ekta Somaiya and Dr. Radhika Misquitta attended the Annual International Career and College Counselling (IC3) Conference, which brought together over 1,000 high school leaders, college counselors/teachers, and university representatives from around the world for active discussion, outreach, and networking. The two-day event featured sessions presented by more than 100 presenters, who shared knowledge and best practices about college counseling, student engagement, higher education opportunities around the world, and navigating domestic and global opportunities.
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Outreach and Community Engagements
Building Capacity in the Community
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Visitors
This month, we saw visitors from Somaiya Vidhyavihar, IAAT, Pillai College of Architecture, L.S Raheja School of Architecture and JBCN School. The purpose of these visits is to observe teaching practices, curriculum and programs at Gateway.
This is also a great opportunity for our team to meet teachers and professionals from other organizations, and serves as a platform for exchanging ideas and information with people in the field of education.
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Gateway’s professional development programme (PDP)
- Our 4th PDP session covered the topics of Child Studies and Individualized Education Plans, Backward Design, Building reading fluency and Using technology to support instruction and assessment in the classroom.
- As part of an internship and adaptive skills program the NIOS 10th students set up a pop-up Gateway cafe for the PDP participants. In doing so, they practiced the skills of interacting with guests, being hospitable, communicating with other team members, waiting patiently in some instances, problem-solving and money transactions.
- A few PDP participants also visited Gateway to observe classes and understand teaching and learning practices here.
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Art Education Conference
Mr. Abhishek Panchal, spoke on the panel at the Art Education Roundtables conference 2019 co-organised by the Art1st foundation, Avid Learning and Foundation Foundation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries, a conference attended by art educators and school leaders. He spoke about affecting change through art education and shared how the Gateway Schools of Mumbai's Arts program is re-imagining learning models and environment. He also discussed the importance of technology in learning, interdisciplinary collaborations and the future of the Arts Pedagogy.
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Workshop on Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
A few team members visited Ascend International School to conduct a one-day workshop on understanding UDL. The focus was on sensory-motor and executive function skills, struggles that students may face in the classroom, and UDL strategies to support all learners.
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Interns
Ms. Tanvi Agarwal, a former Teach for India fellow has joined Gateway for a two month internship. She will be observing classes, supporting students with reading and writing, and using her journalism background to support the communications team with various tasks.
Monthly Social Emotional Article
Each month, the Social Emotional Learning team sends an article to the Gateway team to share best practices and build competency. These articles range from classroom management strategies to the importance of teaching positive behavior and much much more! We will now be sharing this article with you each month and hope they help you as much as they help us!
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