1st Prize in Robinage Brightsparks national competition

MashaAllah, Anam Fathima, of Grade 8, won the 1st prize in the Robinage BrightSparks national competition for her story "The Deserted Soldier" in her category. This is the 2nd year that Anam has won the award, MashaAllah.

The poignant story is written as a diary entry by a young girl, who has been exiled with her soldier father. They desperately await news from the homeland. Do read this heartbreaking story.

30 students qualify for the Asset Talent Exam

SubhanAllah! MashaAllah! 

This year 30 of our students from Grade 4-7 (2019-20) qualified for the prestigious invitation only Asset Talent Search exam on the basis of their performance in Asset 2019.  That represents about 60% of the eligible students.

This is truly a great achievement because these children scored in the top 15% among the Asset taking students across India.  

All praise to Allah SWT. Huge congratulations to the children, parents and teachers. May Allah bless them with greater success. Ameen

Ten high performers invited for talk on Gifted Education

10 of Al Qamar Academy students attended this exclusive, invitation only event organised by Educational Initiatives for the high performers in the Asset Talent Examination.

Check it out at:
https://www.facebook.com/259274974140549/posts/2805228882878466/

EI Asset Exam Performance 2019

MashaAllah, Al Qamar students did us proud in the latest round of the EI Asset examinations yet again.

• Three of the five grades which took the examination are in or exceed the averages in the top 10 schools nationally. 
• Grades 5,6,7 scored above the national average  & the South region average
• All grades scored above the Tamil Nadu average.  

In terms of individual performace, an astonishing 73% of our middle school students rank in the 84th or above percentiles. Several are in the 90+percentile zone in one or more subjects.

This is all despite, nay because, of the special Al Qamar approach - no exams (except Asset) no homework, stress on reading for pleasure, conversations, discussions, workshops, excursions, lectures, hand-on learning, questioning, debating, negotiating.  Kids learn to become independent drivers of their own learning. Without stress or strife, they absorb facts, think critically, express articulately.  All these skills pay off when the kids are confronted with an exam like Asset!

Asset is a large scale diagnostic exam  which measures conceptual learning.  It is conducted twice a year in 300 schools across India, Middle Easst and Singapore. 2 Lakh students take the exam annually.

Congratulations to our winners:

Outstanding (99 percentile)- Hanan Samsudeen, Khadijah Abdul Sattar & Safwan Samsudeen

Subject Outstanding - Hanan Samsudeen (English, Maths), Safwan Samsudeen (English, Science) Khadijah Abdul Sattar (English) & Fawzia Afreen (Science)

Distinguished (94 and above percentile) - Amna Hawwa, Syed Raihan, Abdul Muiz Syed, Fawzia Afreen, Hamdan Jabir, Rafia Hajira, Zoya B. Taher, Abdul Majid Syed, Anam Fathima, Fareeha Rafeek, Shahana Syed, Tasneem Kausar

Creditable (84 and above percentile) - Iyad, Abdurrahman Ibrahim, T. Asira, Hasif Mustafa, Luqman Safee, Izaan Syed, Muhsin Maricar, Maryam Dawood, Sarah Malang, Abdullah Ibrahim, Hasna Jabir, Ishaal Abdul Azeez, Rayya Shawar

Gold and Bronze in Taekwondo for T.Asira

Congratulations to T.Asira of Al Qamar Academy for winning a Gold and Bronze in her category at the State Taekwondo Championship held today.

Bright Sparks 1st prize for Anam Fathima's The Door

Thrilled to announce that Anam Fathima won the 1st Prize in the Robinage national Bright Sparks competition for her story The Door. Check the thrilling story at https://www.robinage.com/wof-read-9215.htm.

This brings us to the 3rd consecutive year that an Al Qamar student has won an award at the Bright Sparks competition. 

Kids pen 200,000+ words for the Nanowimo challenge

“My mom was so pretty. The darkness of the night took refuge in her skin when the sun was out. Her long eyelashes were like a paintbrush that brought out her dark brown eyes of wisdom. Her lips were brown with a slight pigment of pink and a shine to finish, wich altogether spoke joy. Her nose was long but she never dared to lie. Her jet black curls flowed down her shoulder. Her long fingers of an artist were mostly used for fetching water from wells and washing dishes and clothes even though they were meant for so much more. Her clean face with no scars and bumps was what that caught eyes of people. Her soft skin was extremely elegant and whenever I touched her my hand would slip right off. She had a tall figure that suited her long face and long limbs that some people thought as a flow and some as beauty. The sad part was that her beauty was no use for saving her from a gun the nasty gunshot. The gunshot that stopped her heart from beating.”

These heartrending lines are just a few of the 200,000 words penned by Al Qamar students during Nanowrimo 2019. 

Nanowrimo is a writing challenge to draft an entire novel in just a month.  Students set word goals for their novels and strive the entire month to achieve the goals.  Over 50 Students from Montessori to 7^th grade participated this year. 

The precursor to the novel writing challenge was a series of structured classes on creative writing. Using resources provided by Nanowrimo’s Young Writer Program, children learned how to create plots, build settings, portray characters, provide twists and turns in order to write a narrative. They students understood the importance of creating complex character with flaws and insecurities, the need for background research and the criticality of outlining a plot. 

The children’s novels covered myriad genres – from the hot favourite, horror and mystery to adventure, realistic fiction and fantasy. Protagonists scaled mountains, tracked criminals, dealt with loneliness and tragedy. They surmounted obstacles in the shape of villains or unfavourable circumstances. One fascinating novel had the protagonist slowly come to the realisation that she is actually an alien who has been left on earth and adopted as a human baby by a foster family. What is her destiny, she wonders, as she gazes at the night sky.

Interestingly the kids experimented with a variety of characters. For Ishal, her protagonist was a rock who longed for friendship. In Hasna’s fractured fairytale, the traditional villains in old favourite stories offered a defence of their actions.  Shahana’s gripping story has us guessing whether the protagonist is the murderer….. or not? Rayya’s heart-breaking tale discusses racism and oppression while Anam’s fantasy is about defeating a gold statue that creates mayhem.   

The students experimented with different voices – some novels were in 3^rd person while others in first.   Safwan handled the transitions with aplomb as the narrative switched between two brothers while in Muhsin’s novel had multiple characters taking over the narrative.

The introductory workshops also dealt with localization of settings to give a voice to kids like themselves. “How many novels have you read with kids with names like yours?” was the leading question. “How many books describe the swaying coconut palms, the feel of beach sand on your face, the smells of vada frying in the streets?” Some of the children took up the challenge and created settings and characters with Indian names and Chennai settings. Asira’s story had a girl from Jupiter come visit Injambakkam and even meet the iconic Sekar Raghavan. Majid’s protagonist jetsetted between Oman and Chennai and even visiting T. Nagar while Hamza’s Salman is a beggar boy in Mumbai.

The school held a pizza party to celebrate the winner’s achievements at the end of Nanowrimo. There was an Author Reading at the party where kids read out extracts from their novels – much like a real event.  Several children have expressed an interest in the critical component of writing – revising and editing – the hard, gut wrenching work which must be done.  Extracts from the revised works will InshaAllah be collated and published as an anthology.  

Asset Talent Examination 2/3rd qualify

Feeling humbled at God's Grace. And very proud of my students' stellar achievement - 23 of last year's 33 kids were in the top 15 percentile and qualified for the prestigious Asset Talent Exam. Kudos to the teachers.

At Al Qamar, we focus strongly on the key foundational academic skills - reading, logical thinking, independent work. We don't have homework or exams. (Asset is the only exam they have) Kids get loads of play. And opportunities for self directed learning.

The strategy flies in the face of conventional thinking - but ironically shows success in the very areas held important by traditional schooling approaches - exam success!

Excellent Edexcel Primary Achievement results

MashaAllah. Delighted to inform that we had excellent results in the international Edexcel Achievement examinations for Primary level (5th grade).

Alhamdulillah it was a 100% pass.

Three students achieved the P3 level (highest grade) in Science. Congratulations to Hanan Samsudeen, Khadijah Abdus Sattar and Muhsin Mariacar.

Hanan Samsudeen achieved a P3 in English as well. Congratulations.

All praise to Allah Swt.

Top ranking Asset Talent Scholars - 2 Golds and 1 Bronze

MashaAllah 3 of our students are top ranked in the prestigious Asset Talent Search examination 2018. Congratulations to Safwan Samsudeen, Abdul Majid Syed and Hanan Samsudeen.

Safwan and Abdul Majid were ranked as Gold Scholars - for scoring in the top 5 percentile. Hanan was ranked as a Bronze Scholar for scoring in the top 15 percentile.

The Asset Talent Search is a by-invitation only examination conducted across India and UAE. Students who scored in the top 10 percentile in the regular Asset exams are invited back to take this above level test. About 10,000 students are selected from a pool of about 4 lakh students. 11 students from Al Qamar had qualified for this exam in 2018.

The students are eligible now for summer programs in prestigious American universities like UC Berkeley, Northwestern, as well as the Asset Summer Program for Gifted students.

Green Dreams - the Al Qamar students startup venture

The 6th grade Entrepreneurship Club at Al Qamar has come a long way from the time it started in July. The  group of 7-10 students are participating in the School Enterprise Challenge, a global business planning and execution competition which guides students through the various stages of running a sustainable business. Students have to design a business around the 3Ps -  Profit, People and Planet.

The team submitted their Annual Plan - which detailed the performance of Green Dreams in the past 3 months.

The team had multiple sale events - both within and outside the school. Their drive and initiative is to be commended. From the Beach Sale during Pongal holidays, to participating in the Anjuman Ladies Fair, to setting shop at the Redwood Organic Fair, our team did it all!

The Green Dream team learned how to set prices, modify them when sales were low, create inviting ads, use social media by developing a website and a Facebook page.  They picked up the basics of accounting - to record revenue and expenses and how to calculate their profit/ loss.

This was a fantastic experience for the children to learn the nitty gritty of how to set up a start up venture and make it successful. Kudos!

Superb performance in the EI Asset 2018 examinations

MashaAllah excellent results in the EI Asset 2018 examinations.' The EI Asset examinations are a national benchmarking exam to evaluate "real learning" as opposed to "rote learning". About 4 lakh students in grades 3-10 from top Indian schools take the exam annually.

Al Qamar's superb performance is all the more special because it is a testimony to our unique approach to academics - the focus on real learning skills and de-emphasis on homework, tests and exams which we consider to be detrimental to real learning.

Here are the benchmark results for Al Qamar:

• 4th & 6th grade English and Science averages among the top 10 Indian schools.
• National (344 schools) - All classes average above/ within National averages.
• South Zone (124 schools) - All subjects 35% above national averages except for 1 subject -class combination which was marginally above zonal average
• Tamil Nadu (46 schools) - All subject/classes significantly above state average. In some cases, 50% above the state average.

Special Highlights:

• 2 Outstanding performances (Ranked top 1%) - Safwan Samsudeen, Abdul Majid
• 6 Distinguished performances (Ranked next 5%) - T. Asira, Fawzia, Hajira, Zoya, Hanan, Shahana, 
• 12 Creditable performances (Ranked next 10%) - Abdurrahman Ibrahim, Hasif, Abdul Muiz, Hamdan, Khadijah, Maryam, Abdullah Ibrahim, Hasna, Ameeth, Anam, Tasneem, Fareeha
• 30% of the participating students received Outstanding/ Distinguished or Creditable ranking.
• 23/60 students rank in top quartile in English
• 15/60  students rank in top quartile in Maths
• 22/60 students rank in top quartile in Science

Here is the list of the top ranking students

	English	Maths	Science
Top 10 percentile	Abdul Muiz	Fawzia Aafreen	T. Asira
	Fawzia Aafreen	Hamdan Jabir	Hasif Mustafa
	Rafia Hajira	Rafia Hajira	Abdul Muiz
	Zoya Taher	Abdul Majid Syed	Fawzia Aafreen
	Hanan Samsudeen	Safwan Samsudeen	Zoya Taher
	Abdul Majid Syed		Maryam Dawood
	Abdullah Ibrahim		Sarah Malang
	Anam Fathima		Abdul Majid Syed
	Hasna Jabir		Anam Fathima
	Ishaal Azeez		Safwan Samsudeen
	Safwan Samsudeen		Tasneem Kausar
	Shahana Syeda
Top 25 percentile	Asira	T. Asira	Abdurrahman Ibrahim
	Hasif Mustafa	Abdurrahman Ibrahim	Syeda Maryam
	Rumaysa Iqbal	Abdul Muiz	Muhammed Ashfaque
	Syeda Maryam	Zoya Taher	Rafia Hajira
	Hamdan Jabir	Hanan Samsudeen	Hanan Samsudeen
	Khadijah Sattar	Khadijah Sattar	Abdullah Ibrahim
	Maryam Dawood	Maryam Dawood	Ahmed Afnan
	Mohsin Maricar	Mohsin Maricar	Fareeha Rafeek
	Muhiddin Tawfiq	Fareeha Rafeek	Hasna Jabir
	Muhammed Shakil	Shahana Syeda	Muhammed Shakil
	Tasneem Kausar		Shahana Syeda

All praise is to Allah SWT. Congratulations to the students, teachers and parents for all the hard work, support and dua.

Al Qamar at MTA Conference at Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education

Very happy to share that a paper written by Al Qamar teachers "Teaching Inquiry Based Maths: An Anecdotal Case Study" was invited for a poster presentation at the prestigious "Mathematics Teachers Association Inaugural Conference held at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR, Mumbai on January 3-5 2019.

The paper, written by Rafia Riaz & Aneesa Jamal was an insight into how Montessori & Connected Maths curricula are used to teach Maths in an inquiry based way. The paper outlined the resulting benefits from such an approach which include a deeper understanding, developing a problem solving approach and children making math discoveries on their own. Each point was supported by anecdotes from the classroom.

The paper was well appreciated by the visitors. They were astonished at the kind of questions asked by young children. One visitor was delighted that we were using Montessori material. Another inquired about the use of puzzles to develop strategic thinking. Several were interested in the Connected Maths curriculum.

The conference had many eminent speakers from the field of Maths teaching. The key takeaway for us was the fact at Al Qamar is already implementing a number of the recommendations by top educators - focus on deep learning as opposed to Maths, learning concepts vs technique, de-emphasing the pressure of curriculum completion, use of concrete material etc.

Conferences like these are a huge boost to our work.  It was a tremendous honour for a micro school like ours to be selected for a poster presentation on our innovative math teaching.

TEDEd Club @ Al Qamar Academy

Thrilled to announce the start of the Al Qamar Academy's TEDEd Club as by Allah's grace our application to TED was accepted.

Am also very grateful to Jb M.G  Dawood Miankhan Sahib and the management of Quaide Milleth International Academy of Media Studies (QIAMS) for kindly giving permission for Al Qamar TEDEd Club to learn video recording and editing - skills they would need for creating the final TED talk.

11 students from Grades 4-6 have signed up as members.  The first session introduced students to TED talks. They viewed two fascinating talks and got to brainstorm what makes a good talk, what are great ideas worth sharing and what prevents ideas from spreading.  The club members got a chance to practice their public speaking skills by giving one minute talks on why they want to join the club.  I was impressed at the self confidence and spoken skills of the children.

Looking forward to the rest of the sessions where children will decide a topic for a talk, do research, write the speech and finally record. 

Green Dreams - a student startup venture

The Entrepreneurship Club at Al Qamar has come a long way from the time it started in July. The  group of 7-10 students are participating in the School Enterprise Challenge, a global business planning and execution competition which guides students through the various stages of running a sustainable business. Students have to design a business around the 3Ps -  Profit, People and Planet.


Business Idea

The team started off with brainstorming what kinds of business it wanted to run. After narrowing a long list down to the top 3 ideas Candle making, a medicinal plant nursery and scrapbook making, the students conducted an online survey to get a sense of what would work. The overwhelming vote was for a medicinal plant nursery - an idea which intrigued the surveyed group. The students articulated  a business goal of helping people find natural alternative care for common ailments while reviving traditional knowledge. The students called their business "Green Dreams".

During this process, Br. Siraj Samsudeen, a corporate consultant, conducted a Business Planning workshop to help students identify what makes a successful business. "Its about meeting customer needs, and not what you want to sell."

After several group discussions and brainstorms, the students submitted a formal Business Idea document which enshrined all their ideas.

Business Planning

Next, the team had to go through a 8 week training program on how to complete business plans. They learned about conducting market research. The team conducted a second survey with detailed questions about which kind of plants people wanted. They even interviewed potential customers in depth to understand customer needs.

The students  learned about understanding their own business space which involved doing a SWOT, competitor and customer analysis. They realised a key point - their own customers could become competitors. They brainstormed marketing strategy - from defining their product, coming up with pricing, creating a list of promotions and figuring out places they would sell - a throwback to the 4 P's of marketing. They narrowed their product mix to 6-7 plants in two categories. The regular priced plants were to be sold in recycled plastic jars and bottles. The premium products were to be sold in coconut coir pots.

The students had to create a Financial Plan which detailed their costs and potential revenue. The applied for a startup interest free loan from the school - which was approved. The amortization costs were included in their Financial Plan. Next came the Operating Plan with a brainstorm of startup and periodic activities involved in running the business and creation of an organizational chart with roles and responsibilities.

The entire process gave the students an excellent overview of running a real business.

Annual Plan

Green Dreams was formally launched during a parent meeting with great success. With aggressive marketing tactics and personal promotions the team reached 84% of their monthly target in the first sale itself. The balance was made up during the next meeting. In January, they plan to now conduct sales at the beach - a popular go-to spot for the neighbourhood people

Meanwhile, the team received its first feedback from the the SEC group and they were thrilled to bits:

1.    We were impressed with the clear, detailed presentation of your market research analysis. You clearly have a strong understanding of your customer base and have shown that there is a considerable market for your product/service. Congratulations on your high level of analysis!

2.     You have done a great job when analysing and justifying your 4Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), indicating a high level of awareness of your target market. You have a clear description of your product/service, its use and the place you will be selling at, and a carefully considered pricing strategy, along with innovative promotion techniques. Well done!

3.     Can you think of more creative, innovative and entrepreneurial ways of raising the start-up capital you need? You can find lots of inspiring fundraising ideas, tactics and strategies in our dedicated Start-up Capital Guide [available to download from our website].

4.     Overall, this was an excellent Business Plan that you have created! We really enjoyed reading about the sustainability and return to your cultural roots that inspired your business idea in the first place. As another suggestion, we recommend making sure to find another way to earn the start-up capital. You could explore using the school loan as a back-up plan, since reducing your costs incurred will allow you to generate profits more quickly. Good luck with your business!

The Green Dreams team has to now run the business successfully for 3 months before submitting an Annual Plan.  Make dua for this gutsy group.

Nanowrimo winners honoured

Nanowrimo winners honoured today at Al Qamar.  MashaAllah.

With 55 kids writing 176000 words,  all of us are just totally amazed, stupefied, delighted, bowled over, astonished, pleased, ........ Can't stop the adjectives ...From Montessori all the way to 6th, our students wrote wrote and wrote ...

Titles like "Anoriya", "Glass" "When the sun rises" and the draft novels themselves are a testimony to the children's unbounded creativity.

Congratulations to the kids!  You did it!!!!

Nanowrimo is the National Novel Writing month. The Young Writers program has the children writing a draft novel and meeting a certain word count goal within a month.
#nanowrimo 

Khadijah's poem in the Robinage

Congratulations Khadijah Abdul Sattar for getting your poem published in the RobinAge newspaper on the occasion of Teachers' Day.  

Little Authors from Al Qamar

Little authors

Last year, Al Qamar students of Grades 4-8 worked with K. Ramnath Chandrasekar, a wildlife educator and nature conservationist, to write books with an ecological / social theme. The rich crop of books that came out of this three-month adventure surpassed our fondest dreams. I’m sharing this story on the Small Science forum, because Al Qamar’s little authors and teacher-mentors drew much inspiration from this school’s Small Science experience over the past seven years. Two months of hard work and skilful mentoring resulted in drawing out unexpected talents in our children.

The process

Ramnath began this process around the middle of March 2017, with a group session that introduced the children to the process and components of book writing. Children then selected themes that they wanted to write on. They had three one-on-one sessions with Ramnath over which they discussed and wrote their drafts, followed by several sessions with teachers: to work and rework and rework and rework their drafts. They made their own illustrations or, as in the case of one child, took photographs. The work was entirely theirs — no adult wrote for them. This was important. Often adults don’t realise or trust the children’s skills and take over from them, a tendency that we scruplously avoided.

Teachers played the supportive role of editors and typists. Initially children were confused as to what they could write about. So I had a brainstorming session where we jotted down all sorts of ideas. The few conditions stipulated were — the story had to be rooted locally, had to address some environmental or social issues, and had to have local names for characters. Finally, most children hit upon their theme and the characters. Ramnath gave them blank dummy books in which to outline their story page by page and create rough illustrations. In the second discussion with Ramnath, the children decided whether they would type up their stories or handwrite them. Handwritten stories involved a huge commitment and perseverance. Only the older girls opted for this. Some children were quite sure they couldn’t draw anything, but Ramnath’s gentle but firm insistence had them agreeing to give it a try.

Two weeks were spent with children fleshing out their stories and trying the hands at rudimentary illustrations to create their dummy books. Teachers worked hard with the ESL (English as Second Language) children — in correcting grammar, highlighting spelling errors and generally helping children tighten the plot. By the third meeting the stories were very close to the final version. As teachers, we were frankly overwhelmed by how beautifully this was turning out.

Now it was time to pen the final books for those children who were handwriting them. The first step was to choose paper. Children visited a well-stocked stationery shop and selected high quality thick paper. One chose handmade art paper for his illustrations.

Then came the days of hard, hard painstaking work as children created each page by hand. Ramnath insisted on a high-quality output with no mistakes. This meant that the students had to rework and rewrite several times. They spent marathon sessions in adding in the illustrations as well. Some children pretty much worked 16 hours — driven by their own inner need for a perfect final product. Sleep, food, everything was put on hold. For the younger ones, teachers did spend time in cajoling, consoling, begging and pleading, because we could see the glimmer of gold that was coming up, even if the tired children sometimes lost sight of their goal.

Finally, the handwritten books were sent for scanning and pre-printing preparation.

Of the 15 students who began this process 13 had completed their books.

The typed books now took a load of work — as teachers and Ramnath struggled with software to align, place and mix text with illustrations just as the children had designed in their dummy books. This process itself took a good week.

In mid-May, two months from the day we started, the books were ready for printing. As the first copies reached us, hot off the press, our excitement, delight and complete happiness knew no bounds.

The launch

Finally, the books were “launched” in July. The event had notable visitors — including parents, well-wishers, reporters as well as distinguished invitees — Dr. T. D. Babu and Ms. Shobha Menon from Nizhal, Mr. Sekhar Raghavan of the Rain Centre, Mr. Sridhar Lakshmanan of ecoLogin — all who have provided inspiration to the children over the years. Prof. Jayashree was represented by Prof. Ramadas of the Chennai Mathematical Institute.

Children took to the stage and gave speeches on their books and the process of writing. Later, there was an exhibition of their books where visitors got a chance to meet the authors and interact with them directly. To their delight they got a number of orders for their printed books. However, within a few weeks, GST got imposed on book sales — hiking the cost of each book by 18-28% and making it prohibitively expensive to print. Finally, the children agreed to publish the books online and make them available as free downloads so the social message in these books gets spread.

Press Publicity

The children were interviewed by reporters from The Hindu Metro Plus and The Young World and write ups appeared in these papers.  Children were delighted with their new found fame.

Hamza, Grade 2, wins the 3rd Prize at national Bright Sparks competition

Absolutely delighted - just got the news that Al Qamar Academy Grade 2 student, Hamza Mohamed won the 3rd prize in the Poetry Category (Grades 1,2) in the RobinAge: Weekly Children's Newspaper Bright Sparks national competition. Children from 1500 schools across India participated. Thrilled to be a part of this wonderful initiative.

Congratulations Hamza! May you soar!

http://www.robinage.com/…/presenting-the-winners-of-the-rbs

EI Asset results - Al Qamar exceeds national benchmarks

Got the EI Asset benchmarking reports.
MashaAllah, Al Qamar students outperformed national, zonal and state benchmarks in the EI Asset Exams for English, Maths & Science in the Winter 2017 round. Alhamdulillah, this has been the performance for the last 6 years.
Key Highlights:

* 1 Outstanding Performance - top 1%
* 4 Distinguished Performances - top 5%
* 11 Creditable Performances - top 15%
* 30% of the students rank in the top 15%
* 75% of the students rank in the top 50% in one or more subjects
Our opinion - this stellar performance is because of the Al Qamar model - focus on real independent learning with no exams, homework or rote learning.
Alhamdulillah!