DESC Newsletter 16

What were you doing last Monday? According to scientists and mathematicians, the third Monday of January is the most depressing day of the year. Apparently, on Monday 20^th January 2020, you would really have struggled to get of bed and your mood would’ve been slightly lower than usual. This Monday is no ordinary Monday, it even has its own name – ‘Blue Monday’. Mathematicians have even gone as far as creating an equation to explain why this day is so blue, considering factors such as the ‘Weather’, ‘Time since the Festive Break’ and ‘Time since breaking New Year’s Resolutions’ to name just a few things that apparently make us feel gloomier than usual. I typically would have disagreed with the issue of ‘Weather’ here in sunny Dubai, however the recent rains have made me think twice; maybe these Mathematicians are onto something!

However, we at DESC seek to defy this equation. Our students have been treated to assemblies this week on the theme of ‘Boohoo Blue Monday’, with the aim of refusing to accept this depressing day and instead finding a way to happiness despite the challenges this month may bring.

First up, we introduced the five factors researchers say genuinely bring you happiness in life. I was extremely impressed in my assembly when two students correctly identified two straight away – 1. Sleep and 2. Exercise. I don’t think many people would argue that a good night’s sleep doesn’t immediately make you feel brighter the following day. Likewise, many of us (myself very much included) often dread the thought of an hour in the gym or a 5km jog, but similarly it’s a wonderful feeling when you have completed a workout. If you are anything like me, this feeling is often a mix of increased energy levels together with slight smugness in actually getting off the sofa and being productive with my time! The remaining three factors surprised a few of our students: ‘Acts of Selflessness’, ‘Spending time with loved ones’ and finally, ‘Smiling’.

Coca-Cola produced a thought-provoking advertisement a few years ago which promoted positivity. A man entered a commuter train and started laughing hysterically amongst a group of glum-looking passengers, all of whom ended up laughing with him by the end of the two minutes despite not knowing what had amused the man in the first place! This is a great example of how contagious a laugh and a smile can be. It is very true that being around happy people – those who crack a smile and have the ability to look on the bright side of life – can really lift your own spirits. Optimism doesn’t come naturally to everyone (we all know the glass half full / half empty theory!) but I believe it is something that you can train yourself to become. In her Ted Talk, Katrina Blom refers to happiness as a skill we should all practise and something we should learn to identify in ourselves. Finding our ‘Happy Place’ sounds like a bit of a cliché, but to have an activity, space or even person who can promote positivity within us, is an important asset to have in our busy lives.

My ‘Happy Place’ at the moment is at my yoga class which I go to twice a week. I appreciate that yoga is one of the ultimate clichés for Happy Places in life, but it is such a great switch-off for me after a busy day at work. I never thought I would get into yoga but as Katrina says, the specific activities which make us happy will change as we grow older and as our circumstances change, so it is important to keep things fresh and be willing to try new things. In our assembly, I suggested a few changes to students’ daily routines which could incorporate more of the five happy factors – enjoying a lie-in on the weekend perhaps; calling a friend you have not spoken to in a while; loading the dishwasher for parents without being asked (you can thank me later!). Sleep, Exercise, Selflessness, Loved Ones, Smile. I will be making a conscious effort over the next few months to get more of these things in my life and we have encouraged our students to do the same, especially those with mocks, Red Week and external examinations looming on the horizon. Perhaps the Practise of Happiness could be our belated New Year’s Resolutions and replace the failed resolutions which contributed to our Blue Monday feelings in the first place!

Wellbeing is at the forefront of our minds over the next few weeks at the College. During the last week of this half term, staff and students will enjoy a week entitled ‘Zest for Life’, culminating in our annual 3km walk for charity, which this year is aptly named ‘Walk for Wellbeing’. Keep an eye out for more information on this in the coming weeks. We have also had several trips out this week and other events – please enjoy reading about these below.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend and hopefully a little more sleep than usual on Thursday morning due to the Staff INSED day…

Lucy Petith
Assistant Headteacher

Year 7 Geography Volcano Competition

In Term 2, students in Year 7 have been studying ‘The natural processes that shape our world’, exploring the potentially destructive events such as an earthquake or volcanic eruption.

All students were tasked with creating their very own eruptible volcano! Encouraged to model their design on a real-life example, they were to present the associated hazards including; openings and cracks; ash and dust; and of course, the lava flows. As the photographs show, students designed a whole range of volcanoes, with the most popular materials including papier mâché and clay. There were also some delicious volcano cakes!

The Geography Department now have the difficult task of judging which volcanoes will go through to the finals of the Inter-House competition (announced in Grey Week!). Once winners have been announced, students will witness our volcanoes change from a dormant to an active state, when we erupt them! Be sure to watch the eruptions live on our Instagram @descgeography

A huge well done to all our Year 7 Geographers at DESC! We lava your volcanoes!

Year 10 Art Trip to the Creek, Bastakiya and Al Seef

On Thursday, 16^th January, the Art Department took our Year 10 GCSE art pupils to the Creek. All Year 10 students have started the GCSE course with a project entitled ‘Smashed, Bashed, Broken and Distorted.’ The students were able to explore practical approaches of drawing from primary observation by completing a number of drawing and photographic activities at the Creek. These observational activities will then be connected to their own art work for the current unit that they are studying. The students were encouraged to sketch and photograph first-hand experiences, with a focus on scenes, people and objects, all of which will be annotated with their thoughts and connected to their own work.

Ali Kalo (Year 10, GCSE  art student) shares his response to the trip: 

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, in fact I wish we were there longer!

We visited the Souks and Creek area, but my favourite section was the new area Al Seef. It was there I took my most successful photos and completed some good drawings. The trip taught me to observe more, looking at the intricate detail and capturing unusual viewpoints!

Emirates Schools Karting Championship – Round 3

Dubai Kartdrome hosted the third round of the ESKC on Monday evening. DESC took eight teams, each of which were ready to work as a team to improve upon their previous performances.

Practice and qualifying began at 6pm on this rather chilly January evening. The first drivers out found it difficult to get heat into the tyres, but by the end of the session, some quick times were being recorded. Of note, DESC Team 6 qualified second on the grid, having set blisteringly fast laps by Lachlan Robinson and Saeed Mebjar.

Unfortunately, Team 6 didn’t have a good start to the race and lost a few positions. To make matters worse, they were bumped in their first lap, leading to a spin which cost them further places. However, both Team 6 and Team 1 (Caden Poulton and Joseph Nachaty) drove really well and avoided time penalties to claw their way up through the pack. It was clear that all DESC teams had been improving on their times in Round 2, in part due to the drivers getting in some practice over the winter break. At the 1 hour 15 minute signal that the race had finished, DESC Team 6 had finished in third place and DESC Team 1 came 6^th.

Well done to all teams – there’s a real breadth of experience across the eight DESC teams and it’s been encouraging to see each of the drivers improve as the season progresses. We look forward to the final round of the season on Sunday, 8^th March.

Making Change in the Sixth Form

The BTEC Creative Media Production students have been busily investing their time into making change within the Sixth Form community. Several campaigns are in the planning stages with the aim of raising awareness and bringing the Sixth Form Community together. These are; Sustainable Fashion, The UAQ Dog Rescue Centre and Healthy Nutrition at University.

The groups have had industry standard advice and guidance; kicked off by marketing gurus Sociate, with lead digital marketer Sabrina Moutarde and her team offering essential insider knowledge on how to plan, lead and market a successful campaign for change. Sabrina’s ‘no-nonsense’ advice, and infectious enthusiasm, soon had the BTEC Media students’ creative juices flowing.

The sustainable Fashion group had a fantastic opportunity to head down to the RETOLD store in Al Barsha to meet with owner and chief story teller, Sian, whose vision is to help make the world a better place. Sian shared her story of how she went from an interior architect, working mainly with hotels, to starting up her own business that focuses on sustainable fashion.  Learning about Sian’s experience of starting up her own business, the beginning of her pop-up stores and clothes swaps gave BTEC Media students new inspiration for raising awareness and promoting sustainable fashion choices within our own students here at DESC Sixth Form.

The Healthy Nutrition group were delighted to welcome guest speaker Keren Gird, Senior Clinical Dietician from Beyond Nutrition Health and Wellness. Students were shocked to discover how much planning goes into preparing home-cooked meals, from sourcing the ingredients to measuring and preparation of the food. Keren expertly guided them on how to be healthy and receive the right nutrients whilst shopping on a student budget. In addition Hello Chef! sent the group four complimentary boxes of prepped recipes to get their hands dirty with – film footage of these Year 12 students trying their hand at culinary skills is to follow.

Look out for news on the campaign’s developments by following @desc_media on Instagram. In addition, if you think you might be able to offer some advice or guidance in the areas of marketing, sustainable fashion, voluntary work and animal rescue or nutritious eating habits, then please do get in contact with Head of Media Studies at DESC, Keely Vernon Ward.

Coffee Morning with the Islamic Education Department

The Islamic Education Department at DESC invited parents for its first coffee morning of this academic year. It was a great opportunity to meet and chat with parents with a cup of coffee and bite of fresh bakes and snacks.

Mrs Maggie Thorne (Community Trustee) and Mr Hani El-Taher (Director of Arabic and Islamic) were present at the event, which was much valued by parents and members of the department.

Ms Fatima Al Bar (Head of Islamic Education) introduced herself and the Islamic teachers Ms Manar Elsisi and Ms Marina Sarmad to the parents. Ms Al-Bar presented an overview about the changes,, action plans, assessment structure and how we can support both our students and parents and the feedback was extremely positive.

Flyers were provided to parents at the end of the meeting which had information about the upcoming curriculum topics and assessments.

ArtsEd Performing Arts Residency

Last week we welcomed the return of ArtsEd and their third Performing Arts residency with our extremely talented DESC students. ArtsEd alumni Paul Spicer, Tasha Sheridan and Ewan Gillies arrived at DESC fresh from their work on the West End, which has included leading roles in Mamma Mia, School of Rock and Evita, ready to encourage our students and their passion for Musical Theatre. The team worked alongside a different year group of students each day to create a showcase style musical, whereby students had the opportunity to participate in a range of Dance, Drama and Music workshops which culminated in a final performance.

Peers and parents were invited to the final performances that saw Year 7 students perform in ‘School of Rock’, Year 8 students in ‘Mamma Mia’, Year 9 in ‘Evita’ and Year 10 and 12 students in the newly revived musical ‘Company’. The final performances were outstanding in quality and reflected the hard work and dedication of our students who had only been learning the material for a short number of hours.

All three practitioners commented on student’s commitment to the challenges that they were presented with and their positive attitude and enthusiasm for experimenting with new material. The week was hugely successful with parents, teaching staff and students all learning from the experience. We would like to thank ArtsEd for all of their expertise and knowledge and we look forward to welcoming them back again in February for our Performing Arts week.

Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon

The morning of Friday, 24th January was dull and windy but that didn’t stop 14 members of DESC staff and students turning out at the 22.5km point on Beach Road to volunteer as water marshals on the route of the marathon.  It was an early start for a Friday, but spirits were high as we unloaded and opened hundreds of bottles to hand to runners as they came past at various speeds.

We would like to thank Sarah Newman, Carly Maughan, Pauline Brierley, Fatima Al Bar, Nissrine Tamin, Mouna Khomsi, Jackie Williams, Mellina Antoniou,  Shivani Bakhda, Carolina Silva, Coburn Bent, Ciara Crone, Rebecca Preston and Jamie Preston for giving their time for such a worthwhile cause.

Careers News (30.01.20)

Skills. Ingenuity. Expertise by Elisa Simon Kotcherechtchenko & Maiesha Umair

We need these in our everyday lives to accomplish anything on the spectrum of the simplest to the most demanding of tasks. This week at DESCareers, a debate landed itself upon our doorstep. Transferable Skills. The new eye-catching colour on a student’s personal statement or an adult’s resume/ portfolio. An asset that truly shines above the rest. What are they? They are skills that you get from previous work experience, volunteer work, sports and much more. DESCareers wants to emphasise the importance of taking opportunities and enjoying all moments in life, which is why we encourage students to apply and try something new. Venturing out into the unknown each week will open a door of possibilities and allow students to enquire into the field of work they want to work in, while simultaneously allowing them to gain expertise in competencies which are vital for life beyond the school environment; the true world of work.

Furthermore, all these projects and situations would mean an accumulation of skills, which can become handy in most moments of your life; even if you don’t know it. An example would be coming in and exploring the world of work through Spotlight Speakers here at DESC. These opportunities come once in a lifetime, whether it’s to ask questions about the inside of politics or astronomy, banking or even entrepreneurship. A life outside the walls of this College is waiting for you and transferable skills are allowing students to work in the fields they dream to be in, allowing adaptability and flexibility within the workspace.

DESCareers is providing students with the chance to claim skills and qualities which employers are looking for. What sets you apart from the crowd? Teamwork, leadership and problem solving are all skills needed every day and, along with the DESC motto, Dare Excel Share Create, the students leaving will be able to be set free with independence, mastery and professionalism wanted and yearned for by all.

To finish off this week’s ‘Food for Thought’, DESCareers would like to express the enthusiasm and rewarding feeling of seeing students going to Spotlight Speakers and enjoying the topics being spoken about. It brings us to the topic of hobbies and interests and next week we will be covering the debate on whether hobbies can be jobs? Can work be fun? Let your careers path find you and enjoy the ride of learning new skills and abilities.

New initiatives at DESCareers

During this tenuous time in the journey towards a career path, many students may be wondering how to actually begin this passage. Here at DESCareers, we have the answer; career assessments. This revolutionary initiative is the process of matching an individual with a profession, with many types and versions of this spanning across the world. At its humble beginnings, it is a scientific measure of success. However, DESCareers have taken our own unique spin on this. When students enter the careers hub, this assessment is used to generate the start of a dialogue or ongoing conversation.

We focus on the bigger picture of these results and we are careful not to place too much weight on these assessments. Instead of a definitive answer, the context and way it is usually used, they are the starting point to find out more information. A pointer in the right direction, per say. Our main objective is to help students identify a job that fits not only them, but also their lifestyle. This is what has led us to our unprecedented new theory at DESCareers, pioneered by Ms Vitoratos. The ‘lifestyle’ theory is a secret new proposition, due to be evolved and perfected over the course of the next few months. We propose to help students to identify careers that will lead to THEIR right lifestyle after university, truly preparing them for the future.

It is important that we reiterate, we ensure that students are aware, not only is it just okay to not know where to start your career journey, it is amazing. To not know where to start means that there is an entire passage waiting to be had. When you don’t know, you are ready to discover. This is what makes us stand out at DESCareers; we don’t wish to offer students indefinite answers that they may outgrow, but to start this journey of finding passion.

Upcoming Projects

Busy, busy, busy. The DESCareers team is filled with new ideas. Senior involvement is becoming more abundant and co-ordination is finally happening, however these goals are still not out of our eyesight. Spotlight speakers are rushing in, more students are signing up for master classes and our digital platforms are creating more student awareness of the services that we provide. Our hopes at DESCareers are to make student experiences as memorable as possible and to aid them into making the choices which are left unanswered. Additionally, with our super cool new DESCareers t-shirts on the way, we hope to increase brand awareness and the core message being that this is a service for the students being enhanced by the youth of DESC! With this buzzing New Year and wonderful list of new speakers all coming to DESC to support DESC students and parents, remember to come and join the career fun!

Monthly Career Community Meeting

With enhancing the DESCareers experience for our students always the focus, Ms Vitoratos has been leading the first and only Careers Community monthly meetings that bring together Career Development Professionals from Secondary Schools and Universities in the UAE.  This month, DESCareers and the group of career professionals began to identify the challenges faced in the UAE for work experience and the limitations that have become our greatest obstacles for ensuring work-related careers learning on-the-job is easily attainable for the youth across the city. 

Career Opportunities This Month:

Passion and perseverance. Two key themes that ruminated throughout our most recent cohort of Spotlight Speakers. With our door always open at the Careers hub, the plethora of talented and esteemed individuals all seem to come back to these two key concepts. Therefore the DESCareers team further emphases the vitality and importance of truly loving the work that you aspire to achieve.

A large body of evidence-based career advisers have stated that employees who are passionate about their work and jobs will be both happier and more productive at work. This passion stems from their love of this area of knowledge and being personally motivated by its mission or what it aims to achieve. It must be considered that at the end of the day no matter how much money you make, nothing will help you overcome the feeling of doing something that you dislike. We enforce the idea that work does not feel like work when it is not forced upon you, which is why we urge students to come and explore career possibilities in the hopes of finding a pathway that truly ignites the inspiration within them.

Nouri Alenazi, co-founder and managing director of his company Just Clean, a revolutionary online laundry service, the first of its like in the Middle East also joined us and we were awestruck at how a 27-year old could be the brainchild behind this advancement that has displayed true innovation in the laundry business! As Nouri stated, “the more you help people the more you get”. This leaves us to contemplate the rapid pace of technological advancements, and how the future can bring more positive initiatives and change such as this one.

At the other side of the spectrum, our BTEC Media students were given the amazing opportunity to learn more about Keren Gird from Beyond Nutrition Dubai, and their initiatives beyond nutrition. Kern Girid emphasised the important fact that healthy eating can be easily done on a budget, and is more than manageable for university students to intertwine into their everyday lives.

This message was reiterated throughout Hassan Chatila’s Spotlight this week. He is the V.P. Global Head of Business Development and Partnerships. He spoke about his change in direction from working in hospitality to in his current role at Western Union, facilitating the ideals that it is never to late to pursue your passion. Hassan also conveyed to our students the importance of leadership values, another vital transferrable skill. The ideals of integrity, respect and diversity were discussed, along with their importance. Students learned that in order to be a good leader they must encapsulate these competencies, to aid them to create the right lifestyle that fits them.

As always, this month we have continued our shared journey in amazing knowledge in a new format. The Master Class series surrounding topics such as politics and astronomy are continuing to run, with a new subsection brought to light each week. This modern and innovative mode of learning offers a new experience of education, with classes that truly inspire the individual.

Careers Sessions:

If your son or daughter would like to schedule a session with Ms Vitoratos to discuss career interests, discover how subjects can become skill builders or to simply have that initial first conversation about their career aspirations, please ask them to pop by the Careers Hub to schedule their appointment.  Sessions are on an appointment only basis during regular school lesson timings and drop-in sessions at break-times and after school on Mondays. 

DESCareers Parents as Spotlighter Series

We are always excited to invite our parents to share their career journey with our students.  Spotlight Speakers that are parents are always our most popular speakers. With the launch of the ‘Employment Visa Spotlights’ February brings the spotlight on ‘employment visas in Canada’.  Parents are welcome to attend this session with their son/daughter.  We are looking for immigration lawyers from USA, Australia and New Zealand. If you would like to participate in any of our Spotlight Series, please contact Ms Vitoratos ([email protected]). 

More to come in February!

By Elisa Simon Kotcherechtchenko (aspiring lawyer) and Maiesha Umair (aspiring English and Politics professor).