“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment; full effort is full victory.”
                                                                              -Mahatma Gandhi

Hear the roar of “The Lion King”
This year, the students of Lower and Middle school starred in Gateway’s own version of “The Lion King” for the annual arts showcase. Student actors embraced the personalities of their characters in true jungle spirit. The dancers emerged as animals from the African wild and the choir sang some of our favourite tunes from the well-loved musical.The Grandstand was transformed into the Pridelands with a stunning backdrop and creative props designed and constructed by some of our very talented teachers. The actors practiced dialogue delivery with our speech and language therapists and honed their acting supported by our drama teacher. Ms. Khushboo collaborated with us to choreograph the dance movements. Our young dancers did a fabulous job of making the jungle come alive with animal movements! The choir of students, parents and teachers sang harmonies in the African language of Zulu, and English! Students led by Mr. Kevin Shah, performed live percussions to accompany songs and scenes.

The audience, consisting of parents and team members empathized with characters and experienced emotions like joy, heartbreak, fear and pride while watching this production.
A musical is a challenging adventure, but our students were determined to perform to the best of their abilities and worked hard at their designated roles. To top this off, students challenged themselves by performing two shows on the same day which was a tiring feat, but their efforts were all worth it!

A dream envisioned by the Arts team to create Gateway’s first ever musical highlighting the strengths of our students has been fulfilled. It wouldn’t have become a reality if it weren’t for the support of the whole Gateway team - students, teachers, parents, support staff and the administration team who came together to make this happen! A great big thank you to every single person who played a role in making this dream come to life in the form of “The Lion King”.

On this musical high, we fondly bid farewell to our music teacher and Arts program coordinator, Ms. Rimi Chopra, who will be moving out of Gateway this year.

High School Graduation!

“Graduation is a time of completion, of finishing, of an ending, of a sweet goodbye to school, however, it is also a time of celebration of achievement and a beginning for the new graduate”

Another first for Gateway, and a highly emotional one at that, was the Graduation ceremony of some of our High School Students. At Gateway, no two student’s programs look the same, and therefore there isn’t one specific time when students graduate. Keeping this in mind, from now onward, every student in our high school program will be celebrated when they transition out into the community onto new paths - how exciting! This year, our 11 graduates are Anirudha Desai, Chirag Chawala, Divinia Hemchand, Farhan Dabhoiwala,  Hrishit Negandhi, Sanyat Shirke, Shlok Seth, Siddhesh Pillai, Surabhi D’Souza, Tarun Nair and Vihan Rao. The remaining high school students were actively involved in the planning and execution of this beautiful ceremony. Graduates, you will be missed and the Gateway family wishes you all the best in your future endeavours! Congratulations to the Class of 2019!

Gateway’s Summer School Program
This year at Gateway’s second Summer School Program, we conducted it differently, where we had service providers from varied fields coming and conducting sessions for 2 weeks. We had Gym, Fun with Science, Zumba, Singing, 3D Printing and Speech and Drama as a part of it.

HSAP DIY kits
Students of the High School Adaptive Program created two types of DIY kits aligned to “The Lion King” that would help students enhance their fine motor skills. The first kit comprised of tasks that called for students to cut, paste, colour and use their imagination to create a beautiful lion mask and crown. The second kit, an ice-cream kit, was one designed to enable students to create exciting sundaes! The HSAP students worked on assembling the kits and put up a stall for students to purchase them during the annual arts showcase.

Going the Inclusive way
Ms. Rudri Joshi, Ms. Sejal Shah and Ms. Meghna Visaria attended a 1-day workshop organised by SOPAN (Society of Parents of Children with Autistic Disorders) on Inclusive Education for Children with Autism. It was conducted by Professor Richard Rose of University of Northampton, UK. Some of the topics covered were understanding the nature of inclusion and exclusion, understanding needs and factors that impact learning of children with autism, and creating inclusive classroom environments. The teachers interacted with professionals, parents and aspiring special educators in this workshop.

Professional Development Week at Gateway
The Gateway team attended a week of professional development (PD) and planning in school from the 13th to 17th of May to get us geared up for the coming academic year. We look forward to many more exciting units with our students!

Welcome

All new students who will be joining us in the new academic year - 2019-2020.

Aditya Bhokse
Adi Raval
Divyaa Saldanha
Evan Shrawan
Mayank Singh
Nirvan Shetty
Shrushit Iyer
Surya Balan Sadasivam
Swaminathan Sunil

And we would also like to welcome our team members who have moved into leadership positions:

Mr. Abhishek Panchal - Arts Program Coordinator and Visual Arts Teacher
Ms. Aditi Ghosh - Language Coordinator
Dr. Bindiya Hassaram - Individualized Programme Coordinator
Ms. Mariam Munir - Communications Coordinator and Lead Teacher
Ms. Pooja Thakkar - Speech and Language Pathology  Coordinator
Ms. Radhika Chandrasekaran - Lower School and Middle School Coordinator

And our coordinators who have changed roles:

Ms. Manika Khanna - Vice Principal
Dr. Radhika Misquitta - Co-Principal
 

Farewell
The end of the academic year is usually accompanied by team members transitioning out of Gateway, which is always bittersweet for all of us. This year, we see 10 Gateway team members moving out, some of whom have been foundational leaders in our school.

Ms. Radhika Zahedi - Our passionate and charismatic Co-Principal,  who has supported the teachers with academic decisions for the whole school and been an integral part of numerous initiatives through the last 5 years.

Ms. Tvisha Luthria - our super-efficient lower and middle school coordinator who has supported homerooms and schoolwide timelines to keep us all on deadlines!

Ms. Salome D’Sa -  our ever-enthusiastic high school coordinator who have supported the team through events and the daily ongoings in school.

Ms. Rimi Chopra - The gentle nightingale of Gateway with super powers at coordinating Arts team events and bringing out the inner artist in all of our students and teachers!

Ms. Amy Jain -  Occupational therapist, our dismissal team bouncer and incredible mousse supplier at pivotal times in Gateway!

Mr. Anuj Iyer - Our first IGCSE group lead teacher and someone who was instrumental in building so many of our Gateway structures

Ms Evangeline Shetty - Our SE team ninja, and Dismissal team runner who contributed incredibly to the parent support group sessions and managed to reach across LS. MS and HS for everything!

Ms Foram Mamniya - Our vibrant and chattty lower school homeroom teacher and maths team member and her adorable baby Jainit, our little lion king!

Mr Sherwyn Saldanha - Our ICT teacher who felt so much a part of our community even though only the Saturday people got to see him

Ms Sanyukta Bafna - Our Humanities teacher, who made it possible for our students to attempt that super challenging, but thought-provoking paper, Global Perspectives.

We bid you all farewell and would like to acknowledge the deep gratitude we have for your many kindnesses and unwavering support during all of the years you’ve worked at Gateway. We wish you best of luck in the next stage of your career. Until we meet again!