Editorial Team

Ms.Dolly Chowdhury

Ms.Deepti Bhattacharya

Ms. Sawandipa Bannerjee

Ms.Manisha Pandey

Ms. Mondira Sarkar

In This Issue

From the Principal’s

Desk Page 1

ICSE Result Page 2

Campus Update Page 3

Campus Update Page 4

Activities Buzz Page 5

The Shakespeare Fest Page 6

Investiture Ceremony Page 7

ICSE Results 2015-16

Our students have once again made us proud by achieving 100 per-cent results in ICSE 2016 examina-tion.

Congratulations to each one of them!

Our sincere thanks to the par-ents and staff members for their guid-ance, cooperation and support.

Dear All

ICSE results of our school has been excellent and my congratulations to all the stu-

dents and teachers. Targets were set and achieved. But such achievement also

means revisions of standards. I have always maintained that we cannot sit back

and bask in past glory. Maintaining the current standard will retard growth. The

only option from here is to move in an upward direction.

I have confidence in the capabilities of teachers, support staff and students. I will ask all of

you to raise the bar to a challenging level. Our target is to set newer levels of excellence. Let

us get our acts together.

I will also ask everyone to utilize the ensuing summer vacation in a profitable manner.

These holidays are meant to break the monotony of daily pattern. Enjoy your holidays in a

healthy manner. Options are with you. It could mean extensive travelling to discover unex-

plored areas, relaxation in a quiet place or pursuing adventure sports or simply doing what

you like.

The list is endless .The objective only one. Energy levels should rise and all should begin

the post vacation session with a fresh mind and determination.

Warm Regards

John A. Bagul

May 2016 VOLUME : 2

ISSUE : 2

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think

of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, mus-

cles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that

idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the

way to success.

Swami Vivekananda

The function of education is to teach one to

think intensively and to think critically. In-

telligence plus character - that is the goal of

true education.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

RAJIT BANERJEE 97.20% First Place

SHUBHADITYA BASU

97% Second

Place

ABHIJNAN CHAKRABORTY

96.60% Third Place

Toppers

ARPAN DAS GUPTA

95.20

SIDDHANT BHARDWAJ 95.00

ARCHIT JAISWAL 94.80

NISHANT TODI 93.20

KARANDEEP SINGH 92.20

YASHVARDHAN SARAF 92.20

SHUBHAM CHANDAK 92.00

HRISHITA DASGUPTA 91.40

SHAYAK ROY 90.00

RIDDHI GUPTA 90.00

NAME ENG 2ND LANG HCG MATHS SCI EVS ECO APP CST CTA H SC ART

HINDI BENG

FREN

CH

RAJIT BANERJEE 92

95 98 100 100

SIDDHANT BHARDWAJ

96 95 100

SUBHADITYA BASU 92

98

ABHIGYAN CHAKRABORTY

96 98 100

ARPAN DASGUPTA

98 100

FAGUNI BHARTIYA

83

SUBHAM CHANDAK

100

MITHALI HALANKAR

97

FAGUNI BHARTIYA

92

ANGIRA GHOSH

94

SAKSHI AGARWAL

83

SHAYAK ROY

95

SUBHAM JAJOO

95

I SURVIVED GENOCIDE

A LETTER TO A FRIEND

Dear Srishti,

You must be shocked that you are a receiving a letter from me. You probably must have thought I’m ……..dead! Well I’m happy I’m alive, at least I

think I’m happy. I’m not really sure. After you shifted to Bangalore I made a lot of other friends. But they were not you of course. As you know here in Gu-

jarat there were riots. Really horrible ones. There was death and destruction everywhere. All around people were killing each other. So many Muslims and

Hindus were killed. As far as I’ve heard ,the burning of a train in Godhra on 27th February 2002,which caused the death of 58 Hindu pilgrims karsevaks

returning from Ayodhya, is believed to have triggered this violence.

There were communal riots against the minority Muslim population. So many innocent Muslims were killed and it was horrific .Everywhere I saw just

blood and dead bodies. Throats were slashed, people were literally butchered. Not only Muslims but Hindus were also attacked and we were all scared for

our lives. Salima Begum and her family hid in the basement of our house. They have been our friends for a really long time and my family and I were not

going to let anything happen to them .It was traumatizing .It was scary and I was nervous all the time making sure no one found out they were hiding here.

People were burning buildings everywhere. The mental stress was unbearable. I can still hear the shootings and bomb blasts in my dreams .They keep me

awake and I can’t sleep properly. So now I have started seeing a psychiatrist .He helps a lot .I sleep better now but I still hear people screaming for their

lives. Salima aunty thanked us for saving their lives .I personally think it was our job, our duty to do so. We told them that we’re sure they must have done

the same thing if we were in their place. It is sad you know .That people kill other people in the name of religion. The truth is that a person is either violent

or peaceful .Religion doesn’t teach violence . It is us humans that bring violence into our religion.

I’m really glad that you are safe and that it is great that you shifted because it saved you from seeing all this horrific things being done .I’ll be writing to you

soon telling you how I am doing. Hope your family is well. I might go to Bangalore for higher studies .Lets see. Hope I get to meet you soon .I really miss

you!

Anupriya

On 6th of May 2016, the Senior Computer Lab was abuzz with

activity as E-learnig programme took place which was conduct-

ed by Delta Group. The proceedings started from 8.00 am in the

morning and ended at 2.30 pm in the afternoon. All classes from

VI to X participated in the learning session . Each session was of

20 minutes.

After a brief introduction , the students were helped to create

their usernames and passwords. They were now able to log onto the

website of Delta Step. They had options to work with maths, physics

chemistry and biology. On-line questions ,videos , games were avail-

able to them and above all the questions had solutions. The students

were given email ids and contact numbers for any problem faced by

them in future and they could access the website from their homes

too.

Overall it was a very good experience for Middle School and High

School students.

As the first phase of the career counselling programme for Class

VIII, Institute of Career Studies, Lucknow conducted the aptitude

test in our school on 6th of May 2016.A total of 105 students took

the test in their respective classrooms. Ms. Anuja Kumar from

ICS conducted the test. The aim of the test is to judge the student's

aptitude for Math, English, Logical analysis and thus help the

students in selecting subjects in Class IX. The duration of the test

was 2 hours and 10 mins.

In our previous human rights workshop we started off by watching a TED Talk video in which Hetain Patel, an artist was speaking about imitation.

When the video starts Hetain is sitting in a weird way on a chair and speaks in Mandarin. He has a translator with him to translate whatever he was

speaking to English. He speaks some sentences in Mandarin and when the translator translates it to English, we get to know that Hetain is speaking in

Mandarin so that the audience do not judge his English Accent and those were the only sentences that he had memorised and was constantly repeating

so that the audience would also think that he knew fluent Mandarin. Hetain also tells us that when he imitates, he becomes more of himself.

After the video we asked about the opinion of the other participants of the workshop about the video. A majority of the participants had inferred that

the video was about imitation.

After the first phase of discussion we asked everyone of the habits or perhaps about the qualities or talents that make us what we are today. Some of the

qualities brought forward by the members were painting, reading, writing, cooking and many other qualities. After this Ms Paroma, the coordinator of

our workshop asked us about the people who made us what we are today. For most it were their mothers and for some they themselves. Most of the

members of the worksop consider their mothers the guide in their path to ultimate success, the sorter between the good and the bad environment, and

the lady who listens to all their confessions irrespective if it is good or bad.

Well that was it in the past session. We tried to discover our hidden qualities and the guides who were always there beside us, guiding us but were for-

gotten by us.

Sankalp Mohanty

The 16th Session of the Human Rights was conducted on 11th of May 2016 on ‘Identity’, wherein each student gave

his/her view on his/her respective identity. The 17th Session, of the Human Rights was conducted on 13 th May 2016 on Mapping communities and how differ-

ences lead to discrimination. Students were given summer assignments relevant to the topic of discussion.

Bengal State U-13 age group Chess Championship was held at Bhawanipur

Education Society from 8th to 10th April 2016 . It was organized by West

Bengal State Chess Association .A total of two hundred and thirty players

participated in this tournament . SCIS was represented by Mayank Chan-

dak,Tejash Jain and Vinesh Agnani of Class VIII ,Annika Das and Anissa

Das of Class VII .Annika Das secured 10th position in this Championship.

Inter House English Elocution Competition, 2016-17 (Secondary section)

Theme of the competition was : “Shakespeare”

Four Houses battled it out in the SCIS Inter House English Elocution Competi-

tion, 2016-17 held on 12th May, 2016.

Four Judges who graced the occasion were Ms.Anjali Burman, Ms. Mohua Law-

rence, Ms. Sampita Das and Ms. Sudha Volz.

There were 3 categories:

- Category A for Class VI where 2 students participated from each house.

- Category B for Classes VII and VIII where 1 student participated per house

per class.

-Category C for Classes IX and X where 1 student participated per house per

class.

It was a power packed performance with well chosen sonnets and extracts from

Shakespeare’s works.

Vaarij Khanna’s Performance as a filler on Shylock’s Speech from The Merchant

of Venice won hearts of all the audience.

With Philosopher House finally winning the competition and Dhriti Mandal from

Philosopher House being declared the best speaker one can say,” The winner takes it

all.”

SCIS along with Smile Foundation organized an outdoor

Awareness and Sensitization Campaign Against Children

working as Labours. Students of Class V ,VI and members

of Interact Club swung into action to protest against Child

Labour and highlight the plight of working children. The

campaign was held on 2nd of May 2016 in front of South

City Mall. They carried placards and posters to spread

awareness and an appeal to empower underprivileged chil-

dren through education.

Date: 10th May, 2016

Time: 5:30-7:30 PM

Venue: SCIS activity room

Attended by: Ms. Soumita Roy & Ms. Priyanka Roy Chowdhury

Organised by : SHER ( Kids for Tigers)

- The Programme started at 5:30 pm with Principal ,Mr. John Bagul felic-

itating the chief guest Mr. Bittu Sehgal, a famous conservationist. - The

talk show was attended by eminent personalities like Mr. Bittu Sehgal, Mr.

Pradeep Vyas IFS,Mr. Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Mr. Kalyan Bose ,Mr.

Arindam Sil and many more where they individually spoke about how

common people can be made aware about the need of wildlife conserva-

tion. They emphasised on the fact that it's impossible for few conservation-

ists and NGOs to carry out this mammoth task without any assistance from

common people.

- Mr. Bittu Sehgal appreciated the villagers of Sundarbans who instead of

killing of wild animals are now informing the forest guards if any animal

enters their villages. They are also trained to use tranquillisers to prevent

the wild animals from causing any destruction in the villages. He added

stating our aim is to emphasise on the role of civil society in improving

the linkages between the wildlife conservation and mitigation of climate

change. The civil society always plays an important role in helping build

larger, stronger and more active local citizens, recognising that they are

critical in achieving long-term sustainable development.

-Mr. Vyas pointed out that it's extremely dangerous to handle any wild

animals without any professional help. He mentioned that many people

had lost their lives in an attempt to take selfies with the wild animals. The

need of the hour is to involve the civil society to be an integral part of the

conservation process.This includes developing platforms and coalitions for

environmental governance, conservation of wildlife and monitoring, influ-

encing political management in support of sustainable development, pro-

moting common men’s leadership in environment and development to

secure the rights of future generations. Civil society must provide stronger

and more creative incentives to bring disciplinary experts together around

the complex issues that will have the greatest impact on conservation suc-

cess, and they need to work harder to define and communicate what these

complex issues are.

- They also pointed out that use of plastics bags need to be stopped with

immediate effect and they have succeeded in converting Baguihati a "no

plastic zone"as the shopkeepers in Baguihati have stopped using plastic

bags completely to save the environment.

- Mr. Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Mr. Kalyan Bose repeatedly requested

for proper sensitisation of common people and children about the need of

wildlife conservation.An important aspect of their discussion is to

strengthen the role of civil society as conservation partners, and ensure

that environmental sustainability is one of the core principles of develop-

ment cooperation.

An orientation seminar on ADULT LITERACY conducted by Rotary India Global Dream at Rotary Sadan, Kolkata was attended on 7th

May 2016 by Jayanti Dasgupta and Sneha Gandhi representing our school South City International School. Representatives were there from

more than 40 schools. We were welcomed with tea, coffee and cold drinks during the registration. At first we were briefed with previous

year’s success and told about Adult literacy initiative which aims at making the Indian Adults 100% literates. One student is enough to edu-

cate one adult. And thus 60,000 students were successful in making 60,000 adults literate under this program in 2015. This year , Rotary In-

dia Global Dream seeks to educate 2,00,000 adults as part of this initiativeThis project makes a student a teacher. And this should be a part

of INTER ACT CLUBS in schools, EACH ONE REACH ONE mission.

The session shed light on different aspects of Adult Literacy mission as follows:

How to distinguish the non literates from literates and choose the people for the project.

A tool kit of 3 books, pictures, flash cards of letters, numerical were given to the teachers for the student volunteers. The usage of the tool kit

was explained through tutorial videos. One tool kit is for one Adult learner.

At present the tool kits are in Bengali, Hindi and some of the regional languages. English is not yet done.

The student should maintain a scrap book showing day to day progress of the Adul student with photographs. And how to maintain a scrap

book was explained through the videos. Online designing of scrap book facilities are also there. After completion of the project the student

teacher should motivate the Adult learner to appear for the NIOS exam in August or in March. This entire project takes around 60 days.The

project is Government aided. It was highlighted that the parents of the students play a huge role in this project as they are difficult to con-

vince for this EACH ONE REACH ONE project. They are the barriers as most of them do not allow their child to be engaged in this pro-

gram. Thus the parents should be counselled and our role is to convince them to allow their child to take up the project.

EXHIBITION ON ANNE FRANK: A HISTORY FOR TODAY.

VENUE: SOUTH CITY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

DATE: From 2nd of May 2016 to 6th of May 2016.

The exhibition on ‘Anne Frank: A History for today was a fascinat-

ing experience’. As

the very name sug-

gests the historical turn outs of the Nazi era was meant for today’s generation. The exhibition

brought to life the mundane to the most menacing moments of a thirteen year old girl who in

her diary captured two years of her life. From birthdays to hideouts, family to war all were

documented into a diary that was later found and published posthumously and which reached

every corner of the world. Such a revocation of the past is mandatory in today’s world to re-

mind us of the violence that was unleashed on millions of Jews, the inhumanity that was show-

cased, the human rights that were trampled upon and the innocence that was murdered- all in

the name of the superiority of one race.

We were delighted to be able to host the exhibition on behalf of the Seagull Foundation for the

Art, Kolkata within our premises. The Seagull Foundation for the Arts has been working with

close collaboration with the Anne Frank House in Netherlands and the exhibition has been a

vivid expression of this relationship since 2013. The exhibition has toured Kolkata and beyond for close to three years now and this year the

opportunity came to us to host it. With tremendous encouragement from our Principal Sir we had been having regular classes on human

rights with the secondary section. Ms. Paroma Sengupta from the Seagull foundation has been visiting us every week for mind gripping ses-

sions on the human rights and this exhibition was meant to be the culmination of it all.

The exhibition was a weeklong programme and South city International threw its gates wide open for other schools of the city to come and

visit. A lot of hard work, training combined with support from the management, Seagull, staff and students together brought us to the fore of

the event. On 2nd of May at 11:00 am our Principal Sir inaugurated the exhibition in the presence of the director of Seagull Foundation, Me-

gha Malhota, Proggrame Officer Paroma Sengupta , Vice Principal, coordinators, and the firs visiting school, the Calcutta Emmanuel. After

that, the week went by amidst enthusiastic participants, interactive sessions, viewing the exhibits, activities and soon.

The primary element of the exhibition was the standing banners which unfolded like a journal the story of Anne’s life. They were placed in

the school’s auditorium. Each of these exhibits were explained in critical detail by our own students who were trained beforehand to enact

the roles of peer guides. The visiting schools were divided into groups and they moved around in sections going through each one the exhibits.

This was followed by a documentary on Anne’s life which was screened in the school’s Conference room. The visual effect of both the exhib-

its and the video was tremendous and successfully transported the students beyond their comfort zones and took them to an era which was

not only unfair but a tragedy that should never be forgotten. This paved the way for the activities which were conducted at the end of the

tour and the documentary. There were two of these. The first activity required all students to close their eyes. Different coloured papers were

stuck to the foreheads of the students whereas some students were deliberately left out. They were then asked to form groups on the basis of

the colours they got. The students who were left out were told to try and enter into any one of the groups. The purpose of this activity was to

highlight the issue of social exclusion and discrimination. The next activity was about discussing and stirring vocabulary to define the whole

experience in one word.

Over the course of the five days, ten schools came for the exhibition. All of them without exception had highly positive feedback to offer.

They were extremely touched by not only the entire exhibition but also our students who had done a brilliant job in tirelessly explaining eve-

rything and then conducting the activities. They were praised many times for their sincere efforts.

An instance worth mentioning has been the visit by the Calcutta Emmanuel School. The students from the school said that they were highly

apprehensive of coming to our premises. But their enthusiasm and agility gave us the necessary push needed to see the end of the event. We

are humbled to have gotten the chance to be their host.

It is said that ‘all is well that ends well’ and this was true in our case as well. We witnessed a beautiful team work and support and we would

like to conduct such events in the future as well, probably with better efficiency and new levels of confidence.

The schools which participated in the event are The Calcutta Emmanuel School,Modern High for Girls,The Future Foundation

School,Heritage School, Sushila Birla for Girls,Welland Goulsmith (Patuli).Loreto day School, Bowbazar,Union Chapel,Mahadevi Birla

World Academy and Sri Sri Academy.

BUZZ

The Shakespeare Fest was held on the 9th,10th and 11th May'16 hosted by

South City International School and organised by Ahaava Communication.

It was definitely a learning experience and an eye opener both for the stu-

dents as well as the teachers of the Secondary Section. South City Internation-

al School participated in all the four catagories, namely in English Drama,

Debate, Quiz and Art.

SCIS came up trumps in the English Drama section where we were adjudged

second ( Julius Caesar) and Varij Khanna of Class XII won the Best Actor

award.

The actors were efficiently mentored by the Drama teacher ,Ms. Rijita Chat-

terjee.

In Quiz, where the subject was the various plays written by Shakespeare

and his life and times... our school stood second. The participants were compe-

tently assisted by Mr.Errol O' Brien, Ms. Chinmoyee Ghosh Choraria,

Ms.Mandira Sarkar and Ms. Jayeeta Bijali. The teachers had put in a lot of

effort in the research work and updating students about the various facets of

the genius of William Shakespeare.

In Debate , Ms. Malabika Poddar took the responsibility of tutoring Sasha

Agarwal of Class IX and Yash Chakraborty of Class XII, with thought pro-

voking inputs from Mr.O'Brien on the topic..... Did Shakespeare really write

his own plays? It was a lively debate with new points and chain of thoughts

put across by the various city schools. Lastly, the Art Department had put

up four paintings of Shakespeare himself and three of his popular characters.

It was well appreciated by the judges.

On May 13th, 2016 SCIS rose to honour the auspicious occasion of Prefect Investiture Ceremony (2016-

2017) . Designated posts of Captains, Vice Captains including the same in Activities, Sports, and Council

Members of each House were recognized through a solemn pledge taking. In a perfect ambience, on a sol-

emn note the event was inaugurated by our Vice Principal, Ms. Sahana Bhattacharya. Soon Principal Mr.

John Andrew Bagul accompanied the Chief Guest, Dr. Suchitra Bhattacharya (Principal of Army School,

Kolkata) to the Auditorium to grace the occasion. After her introduction by Ms. Sahana Bhattachrya and

felicitation, the programme began. The School Band stood on the left and the students with the respective

House Flags and School Flag on the right side of the podium. The entire auditorium, then reverberated

with the sound of the Band and march past by the students. The recipient students, one by one, occupied

the stage.

Principal delivered an inspiring speech to motivate the students to take up the Mantle through ‘test of

fire’. He profusely thanked the parents to inculcate good values in their wards. He, then, initiated the

Oath taking. The young leaders repeated verbatim, the Oath after him. Then Dr. Bhattacharya most grace-

fully pinned the badges on the students’ uniform. She, too, in her speech, stressed upon students’ respon-

sibility to take up challenges of life and prove themselves true leaders. At the end Ms. Sahana Bhattachar-

ya (VP) thanked everyone to make the event a success. Honour and pride ruled the day.