Safety and Security Measures at GIIS

Child safety is a paramount concern for parents especially when their kids are away from home. Children spend most of their time at school and hence, parents will be concerned on the level of safety and security that is being provided by the school. Parents spend a lot of time and energy in educating their children on what is considered safe and unsafe. It is not only important for the children to differentiate between safe and unsafe, however, it also important for the child to be able to interact within a safe environment. Parents ensure that, the best safety and security precautions are in place to ensure their child's safety within their supervisory context.  Hence, it is the school's responsibility to ensure that these measure are extended beyond the home and into the school and classroom.

The first point of contact between the school and a GIIS student is the bus on which they will be commuting to school. The safety of the child within the school supervision begins on their school bus. Buses are regularly checked to ensure that their safety is not compromised. This involves the evaluation of the bus tires and brakes. In order to operate as a transportation medium for school children, operators must adhere to certain codes that is dictated by ADEC - the government institution that oversees education in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. All buses are GPS enabled allowing schools and parents to track bus movement. In addition to GPS tracking, buses are also equipped with multiple CCTV's which can be accessed remotely from the school giving supervisors a live view. As government regulation, all school buses are equipped with well trained and qualified Nannies who acts as a link between parents, school and transportation company. The nannies are also responsible to ensure the child's safety onboard. Once the student boards the bus, they will be required to scan their ID which is equipped with an RFID tag. This scanning happens twice on each trip - one for boarding and the other while leaving the bus.

When students reach the school, attendance will be taken, and an instantaneous message will be sent out to parents if their child is marked absent. This is done as a precautionary measure to ensure that the parents are aware their child is not at school.

Surveillance camera's that operate 24*7 are installed in all areas of the school. The cameras allow the monitoring of movement within the school. Any unusual activity can be easily detected by the Security team by remotely monitoring these cameras. The school also has trained and certified security guards who are on duty 24 hours, 7 days a week. They also ensure that no person gains unauthorized access inside the school.

The school is also fully child proofed with padding for furniture and objects with sharp edges. Doors also proofed to avoid students jamming their fingers. Fifteen percent of employees at GIIS are trained as first respondent in case of an emergency.  GIIS Abu Dhabi also conducts regular training and drills on fire safety and evacuation.

The school is also inspected on a regular basis to ensure that all safety regulation are implemented and adhered.

Importance of Planning in Studies

Children can often get carried away with the free time they enjoy after schooling hours. The unusually long schooling hours can make children lethargic once they return home. The tardiness leads to procrastinating their home-work and daily studies. Furthermore, with parent's being held with overwhelming work schedule, they often neglect their children's home schedule and their activities.   This behavior if prolonged, can have a significant negative impact on the child's academic performance, thereby negatively affecting their grades. Parents and schools together play a significant role in ensuring a healthy balance between study and games, is maintained during the child's free time. The parent's role is to ensure the balance is maintained while, the school play an important role in framing this balance.

 To ensure a decent balance is maintained between study and play, it is important that children have the right resources not just to play but to study as well. Firstly, parents must ensure that the children have an adequate space to study. The study place should be well lit, have a table big enough to accommodate their books. The space should be such that all the necessary study materials are available at hand, so as to reduce the wastage of time taken in searching for materials during the study hours. Materials, if not easily available during the study period can reduce the effective time the child spends in studying. The space should be created in a manner that instills and motivates learning. A space with inadequate amenities will significantly lower the child's concentration levels. Parents should consult the children on their preferred settings for learning and studying, as this will enable customization of  the room to the child's preference, thereby effectively enhancing the space utilized for studies. Second, in-order to make effective use of time, parents must create a schedule that allots sufficient time for learning, completing home-work and play. The schedule should be such that the students are not rushed into completing all subjects in a given day. The timetable can include a set of subjects to be covered for each day. Prioritizing subjects and home works based on deadlines is also part of scheduling. Parents should prioritize subjects based on their child's abilities, and should then create a schedule allotting more time for those subjects requiring the most attention. This kind of scheduling and priority setting results  in making effective use of study time.

The result of such planning and scheduling can have a tremendous benefit in the mental health of the child. With schedules being set, children will have sufficient time to play, eat, sleep and study. With the absence of an organized schedule, children will procrastinate their studies for future date until it becomes too late to either study or complete the tasks at hand. This will lead to stress and mental disturbance thereby reducing the child's effectiveness.

Global Indian international School in Abu Dhabi conducts regular training sessions for parents where-in parents are educated about the process and benefits of maintaining a schedule for their child. Children are also given appropriate care and attention in the classroom to ensure that subject materials are easily comprehended, reducing the time spent on home-learning. This is done through additional teaching materials such as -videos, pictures, games, tutorials.

Harnessing the Creative Minds of the Students through Creative Arts

 Individuals of all age groups practice some form of creative art that has proved essential in their daily lives. Creative arts can  include - Drawing, Painting, Doodle, Music, Dance, Theater.

It has played a vital role in the holistic development of a child.  Holistic development is a key component of a student's life at GIIS.  Cognitive thinking, Learning Skills, Mental abilities, Social skills, and physical skill are attributes that are actively engaged when a child is introduced to a well structured creative art programme. The purpose of implementing creative arts is to actively engage a child's imagination.

Teacher's could enact stories or poems in text books as a type of creative activity. Students should be given the opportunity to think about their character and how they could enact their given roles. Few students in the class can be assigned the role of creating the props for the act, others could be involved in creating sound effects. This will enable the students to discover their mental strengths and abilities. Role play's have been proved to enhance a person's emotional well-being. Regular involvement of children in role plays will eventually help them in maintaining their mental health during the later stages of their life.  It will also help them to enhance their creative, thinking and social skills.

Here at GIIS, students are often given the opportunity to explore various creative art activities. Assemblies in the school are conducted on a regular basis, and each class is assured to get a day to present their act. The act is usually a role play in which the teacher will decide a topic based on a moral and the roles of each student will be assigned. The student's use their imagination and skills to enact the role of the character they are playing. This greatly enhances their thinking, imagination and social skills.

The involvement of creative art in school will help make school a fun place for children to learn, play and make friend's. A child should have a positive affection towards the school in-order to be academically successful.  This affection can greatly be enhanced by including creative arts as a part of the learning process. Through creative arts, students would be able to identify and harness skills that could have remained unknown if the child was not introduced to creative arts. Their skills can then be used to purse unique careers such as journalism, public speaking, theater.

Global Indian International School in Abu Dhabi, has a well established creative arts department with sub-division in music, dance, and art. The school is equipped with start-of-the art laboratories that will enable students to carry out various activities. The school has a dedicated music room, band room, art room, dance room and keyboard room. Each of these room are adequately spaced and equipped with technology and tools that will enable the students to put all of the creative skills into practice.  The school also conducts regular competitions in each of these creative departments and, the competitions are either inter-house, inter-school or intra-school. 

Best Safety Tips for Schools

Every day, hundreds of children start from their homes to get to school. Safety and security of the students and staff is one of the paramount concerns of the school management. Leading schools across UAE follow the best practices to ensure the safety of everyone in their premises. Here are some of the best safety tips for schools which want to upgrade the sense of security their premises offer:

1.      A comprehensive security system must be in place in the school premises. Guards, perimeter alarms, fire and smoke alarms, CCTV surveillance for common areas are some of the basic essentials schools must make part of the infrastructure. These will not only ensure the safety of all people inside the school but also secure the physical premises of the school.

2.      Hire an authorized security agency to man the premises of your school. Check for references and also get police verification done of all the security personnel.

3.      Issuing student and staff identity cards will make it easier for the security staff to identify individuals who belong to the school and separate out those who are not regulars. Visitors can be provided with special passes for limited time. Some of the top schools in UAE are also making use of electronic key cards to limit access.

4.      A systematic and meticulous record of emergency contact details must be kept in the school for each individual, be it a student or a staff member.

5.      For UAE schools which offer bus pick-and-drop facilities, parents, students, the bus staff and the management must be made aware of the routes and stoppages. Contact numbers must be provided.

6.      At strategic places in the school, emergency contact numbers of such authorities like the fire safety department, ambulance, hospital, police, etc. must be mentioned for all to see and make use of in case of untoward incidents.

7.      Mock fire drills must be conducted periodically to teach students how to deal with unexpected emergencies. These can be conducted either in coordination with local civic agencies or by the management singly.

The Global Indian International School is one of the leading schools in Abu Dhabi which makes available world class infrastructure and a dedicated staff to ensure that students can learn and grow in a happy and positive environment. At GIIS, the safety, security and all round development of each child is at the forefront of all endeavours. Enrol your children at GIIS Abu Dhabi for a superlative schooling experience.

The Effect of Mobile on Teenagers

Mobile and communication devices have played a vital role in connecting individuals with family and friends. More importantly, it has allowed parents to ensure that their children are safe when they are away from home.

In today's world, mobile phones are mainly used for internet connectivity than making calls. The ability to easily access information for further understanding and research is considered as one of the strongest advantages of in-class usage of mobile phones. The use of mobile phones in academics will enable students to collaborate assignments and tasks, providing them with a broader prospect of the topic in discussion. Increasing number of students are now using text based communication tools to interact with teacher's and student's for information on subject or academic matter. This allows students to have a direct one-to-one communication with instructors or peer's, enabling them to get instant feedback or answers on their doubts and queries.  Students also use online learning tools such as YouTube or apps to enhance their learning experience. This has proved to be effective in improving students academic results.

Despite the benefits associated with the use of mobile phones, they are many disadvantages especially on students. Distractions among students caused by mobile phones is a major concern for parents and teachers. It has been observed that students with access to a mobile phone would be easily distracted by notifications. Gaining notifications such as likes or texts give a sense of reward in the minds of the children. This encourages them to post more content on social media. However, it also increases the number of times they check their phones for notification. Once developed into a habit, this can negatively impact students, as distractions from notifications will leave them with little time to re-gain focus on academics. Ultimately, the student's concentration level will be adversely affected, thus having a negative impact in the child's academic performances.

The role of schools and parents, is to ensure that there is a good balance and restriction on the child's usage of mobile phones. Parents should ensure that the child gets to use their phone's only after they finish their studies. Academic research or further learning tools must not be used as an excuse to allow the child to use their phones during study time. Doing so, may tempt the student to check their social network accounts for notifications reducing the effective time they spend on actual learning. The student must be allowed to use mobile learning tools during the last half hour of home studies. As an alternate, parents can also switch off home Wi-Fi during the allotted study hours. 

Global Indian International school in Abu Dhabi, ensures that students get enough opportunities for collaborative and online learning through resources within the school. This eliminates the need to bring phones to school, thus reducing the possibility of any distraction caused by mobile phones. Teacher's in the school are regularly trained on best student-mobile and internet practices ensuring that students and parents are well versed with balancing the use of mobile phones and academics.

Importance of a Supportive Learning Environment in School

Children spent much of their growing up years in their schools. While parents make every effort to ensure that the school they choose for their children make available the best education to them, it is equally important to choose the right school environment. The school culture and environment in crucial to the development of the child as an individual and must be ambient for the child.

Right from an early age, the proper support from peers and teachers in the school can be crucial to the overall and holistic growth of the individual child. Each student has a different temperament and they need to be drawn out to unravel their full potential. Reputed international schools in Abu Dhabi make every effort to provide their students with a safe and supportive classroom environment as it facilitates active participation and engagement of all students.

Research over the years has shown that a supportive school environment, bolstered by the school’s espoused goals, the discipline and teaching methods, inclusion of students and their parents in planning and decision-making, relationships of students with other students and teachers, etc. helps foster positivity in the children. They learn to be more confident about their own abilities and also behave respectfully towards their peers and elders.

A supportive school environment at an Abu Dhabi international school meets the needs for autonomy, competence and belonging of a child and in turn motivates the students to become more engaged in the school. Classroom participation is severely enhanced when teachers and fellow students appear more easy going and individual children have been known to perform much better in academics in such environments. Their contribution towards the school’s goals and values also increases and academically too, a supportive learning environment in the school has a positive impact on the leaning ability of the students. So far as their individual personality is concerned, supportive learning environments act as motivational factors, and create a sense of belonging in the students, which is reflected in their overall attitude towards their peers and community.

Give your child the advantage of a supportive learning environment at one of the best and most reputed schools – the Global Indian International School in Abu Dhabi. Fostering a unique school culture and environment which encourages positivity, GIIS Abu Dhabi ensures a happy learning environment for each child with their belief that positive environments make for better and receptive learners. Ensure comprehensive all-round development and personality growth for your child by enrolling them at GIIS Abu Dhabi.

The Importance of Sports in Education

A sound and healthy body is key to a sound and healthy mind. Mental well-being is an individual's strength to unprecedented success.

Sports has always played a vital role in the physical and mental development of a human body. Sporting activities and programs have been known for reinforcing  the 5 C's of mental health. The five C's include Confidence, Connection, Competence, Character, and Compassion (Lerner et al, 2002). In a rapidly changing world, where social & practical skills are given greater importance in all facets of life, it is important for educational institutes to indentify the positive role sports and games play in a child's development (Bowenn & Hitt, 2016).

A school's sports program should be able to foster optimal child development (Thomas et al, 2005).  The goal of optimal development is to encourage people to live a healthy and productive life throughout their adolescence and adulthood (Thomas et al, 2005). Optimal child development is achieved by reinforcing the principle of 5 C's. Individuals who have experienced optimal development are considered to be more positive in life and , they are also capable of utilizing their strengths and abilities in a manner that will lead them to profound success (Peterson, 2004).

Connection in sports is related to individuals meeting and making new friends. It gives people an opportunity to sharpen their social and networking skills as they interact and play with different players.  In order to be a successful sports personnel, players should learn the art of team work and communication. The social skills obtained through sports can be used by individuals to connect with new networks in other areas of life (Pomohaci & Sopa, 2016).  Sporting activities in school's should therefore,  focus on making students work together as a team. This trait will enlighten  students with the techniques of working together on various projects and tasks.

Confidence in sports is related to an individual's mental ability in backing their strength's & potential. A sports personnel without confidence will be incompetent in the playing field. An individual must hence learn the art of believing in his or her own abilities regardless of the other players on field.  The school's role is to ensure students are given enough on-field opportunities to believe in themselves. Students will then be able to translate this confidence into everyday life, making them more positive in their approach to life. It could also lead to better grades and higher academic performances.

At Global Indian International School in Abu Dhabi, the coaches take extra measures to ensure student's are given enough opportunities to build confidence, networking skills, character and competence as it can greatly enhance the students outlook to life. With reinforced 5 C's, students will be able to excel in their educational and extracurricular activities. It will also keep them prepared for life ahead in University and eventually a professional working environment as these places requires individuals with high traits in confidence, connection and competence.