Hala International students excel in performance
Jeddah: Arab News Hala International School (H.I.S.), a K-12 school with NWAC accreditation, has currently more than 1,500 students divided equally among the kindergarten, girls’ and boys’ sections. The students range in age from 3 years at the pre-kg level to 18 years at A-level. Hala International is home to 24 different nationalities, successfully promoting tolerance and unity in diversity. It empowers its students with the strength of character to face and overcome the trials and tribulations of life.
H.I.S has been successfully preparing its students for the Cambridge IGCSE and A-level examinations. Its first batch of IGCSE examinations was in 2000, and of A-level in 2007. The strong foundation laid right from kindergarten and strengthened throughout their journey towards the IGCSE and A-level examinations has resulted in Halaites’ outstanding achievements in top world and KSA rankings. This is the fourth consecutive year that H.I.S students have achieved top rankings in Cambridge As/a-levels.
A-level student Suhaib Ali Kamal has achieved the top rank in Saudi Arabia in both economics and accounting. He has also been declared the second best A-level performer in the Kingdom. He has scored A*s (A stars) in all subjects he wrote an exam for, namely economics, accounting, ICT, and business studies. Suhaib Ali Kamal is the same student who had achieved the fifth rank in the world and top rank in Saudi Arabia the previous year for As-level accounting.
Maham Ovais of the As-level has scored a top rank in Saudi Arabia in accounting. Both have been students of Hala International School from the beginning of their educational journey.
The school, which just celebrated its 21st anniversary, is known for its high educational standards. Excellent Cambridge AS and A-level results are not its only hallmarks. Its students are also known for their stellar performances in the IGCSE ( International General Certificate of Secondary Education), where, apart from the innumerable A*s and A’s, they have also consistently returned a hundred percent passing result to date.
Hala International School does not just ensure that the brightest of its student receive the best support and guidance, but also that the average students realize their potential, and thus that the school succeeds in its mission of “Helping the present, forming the future.” The highly competent and dedicated staff who place the success of the students at the heart of every instructional decision are to be credited for the laurels achieved.
Academics are not the only field H.I.S excels in; its students are active and enthusiastic participants in cocurricular and extracurricular activities. A range of activities including debates, quizzes, elocutions, spelling bees, storytelling, and recitation encourage a strong sense of healthy competition. Students compete for individual honors and for their teams. The four houses, Bluettes, Greenettes, Rosettes and Yellowettes, vie with each other for the top honors. Students also participate enthusiastically and win at interschool events.
Today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders. Keeping this in mind, H.I.S conducts fiercely contested elections for the students’ cabinet. A head boy, head girl and a school captain head the cabinet comprising of house captains and sports captains. The capital city of the Kingdom is particularly blessed with a rich menu of choices for parents seeking to ensure that the learning doesn’t stop when their kids close their books at the end of a school day. Yara International School (YIS) is one among them. The YIS is a frontrunner in terms of providing a conductive learning environment.
“Yara School today ranks as one of the best schools in the Kingdom, and was established to provide quality education to its students,” said YIS Principal Aasima Saleem. The YIS is an English medium institution and follows the educational pattern of India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), she added. It is fully devoted to provide quality education and aims at all-round development of the students.
The YIS, Aasima Saleem said, had scored 100 percent results for the last three consecutive years in the CBSE board examinations. In the year 2012, eight out of 26 students scored A1 with a 10 CGPA, creating a new record among private schools in the Kingdom.
“Our students also performed exceptionally well in NSTSE, Mathematics and Science Olympiad,” said the principal, adding that the school’s performance at the CBSE Cluster Meet is reaching greater heights year after year.
Spelling out the features of YIS, which distinguishes it from other city schools or other international schools in the Kingdom, Saleem said that the school has been able to maintain the momentum of growth and progress on all fronts, ranging from academics to sports and creative activities.
The school has emerged in a short span as an “Institute of Excellence”, she added. She pointed out that the curriculum is action-based, wherein the students are not just passive learners but active participants. Projects, seminars, and educational field trips are integral parts of the curriculum, in line with the recommendations made by the CBSE, said Saleem. The maximum number of students in each class is limited to 30 to ensure that individual