It has been a busy week for the secondary section. We have had 16 students attend the FOBISIA leadership conference with 20 other schools and about 400 students in Malaysia, 36 students attend the Kathmandu round of World Scholars’ Cup and our Under 15 boys and girls basketball teams taking part in the inaugural Kathmandu Schools U15 cup and the senior sports team continuing their NISSA league fixture.
As with the girls in their football, the boys NISSA team have made a perfect start to the season with two comprehensive victories and a combined score of 80-30 over the two matches against Swotishree and Rosebud. In the girls tournament, ĢƵ maintained their dominant and perfect start to the season with a 5-2 away win at Premier. For the girls football team it is now P3 W3 F13 A1 after three matches.
World Scholar’s Cup, Kathmandu Round
Going into the World Scholar’s cup for the first time is challenging, but as you get there you start to realise that everyone around you is feeling exactly the same, which is when the excitement starts to kick in. It definitely gives you a sense of comfort knowing you’re not the only one who’s nervous, and the hosts made us feel so welcome and a lot more relaxed about what was going on.
On Monday, our team started with a writing exercise, which gave us our first chance to work together. The team debate in the afternoon was one of my favourite events, as it was quite nerve racking but when you started to speak all the nerves disappeared.
On Tuesday we went through a series of events, beginning with the final academic event, Scholar’s Bowl. However, the talk of the day revolved around the giving and receiving of alpacas. Some may say this isn’t at all relevant but, most scholars will agree with me when I say, it is a very integral part of the Scholar’s Cup. It was all quite chaotic but in the funnest way possible, it was so amusing to look around and see all our fellow scholars with alpacas on their heads too, as we pledged our allegiance to them. Now back to the Bowl, this included lots of cheering, and laughter all around. Teams had 10-15 seconds to choose an option A-E for the questions shown on the screen. It was a very interactive and engaging experience.
We then moved on to the Debate Showcase where top debaters from different schools got selected to be the Affirmative and Negative teams. Some of them also got chosen to be on the judges panel. This was really interesting as we got to watch the whole thought process of some of the best debaters there. Our own student, ShahZain (Y8) was selected and we were all super proud of him for his participation.
The last event of the night was the Scholar’s Show. This held a considerable amount of scholars showing off their talents and they were such enjoyable performances, including our own scholars Shrishti & Saanvi (Y9) and Aahana (Y7).
Now last, but certainly not least, was the Award Ceremony. We were all so proud of each other and all the awards ĢƵ got together. Some of the highlights include ShahZain was placed 1st in Junior Debate Champions among over 1,000 Junior scholars! Along with Anurrica (Y13) who came 1st in the overall Senior Champion Scholars among over 400 Senior scholars! As for team achievement, the team of ShahZain, Shrishti and Ashish (Y9) got 3rd place overall and the team of Anuricca, Sanyukta (Y12) and Vivaan (Y10) got 2nd place overall! Most importantly, all of the ĢƵ teams are now qualified for the Global Round!
These few days, we met amazing students from different schools, who were eager to make new friends. Overall this was an experience like no other and I can’t wait to resume the excitement we all have building up for the Global Round in Malaysia. Thank you to all the teachers and hosts that made this such a wonderful opportunity for us.
By Athalia (Y9), who is also our best writer among the Yeti Scholars as she came 3rd in the Writing Champions among over 400 Senior scholars!
FOBISIA Leadership Conference, Penang
This year, FOBISIA had the Leadership Conference, which was hosted at Prince of Wales Island International School, Penang, Malaysia. There were more than 300 students who attended the conference, with schools from Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and many more. From ĢƵ, we had students from Year 6 all the way to Year 12 attend the conference and it was a blast! The first two days were filled with sight-seeing as we explored the streets of Penang, the Clan Jetties, and Penang Hill Station, where we had a two hour walk along a trail in the rainforest. The next three days of the trip were all about the conference. We had to pitch business proposals to help support the people of Qaanaaq, in Greenland, as their food supply kept getting limited due to the 6 polar months which restricted them from hunting, and climate change, as a part of Linda Cruse’s Race4Good organisation, with the help of accomplished and renowned business mentors. We also watched presentations from Melati Wijsen, an environmental activist who spoke at COP28 in Dubai and also in the United Nations and Michael Teoh, who taught us how to believe in ourselves in order to grow into the greatest leaders, just like a lion. We also participated in workshops led by inspiring changemakers, to raise awareness of the current global crisis and how we can help and solve them. Overall, we must say, the trip was exhausting, yet exhilarating, but we came back as the greatest versions of ourselves, ready to become the world’s next leaders!
By Devanshi (Y12)!
