Doha College recently celebrated its highest achieving secondary students in an awards ceremony at InterContinental Doha The City. Over 150 students with their families and teachers all joined together in a celebration of excellence and community spirit. Doha College is a long-standing international school in Qatar and a beacon of world-class education.
Each year group had a subject award and a tutor award, with some students receiving more than one award. The highest number of awards went to Mathula Muhundan, who won awards for chemistry, economics, geography and mathematics, as well as the tutor’s award. These accolades however don’t paint a complete picture of Mathula; she also won the COBIS International Poetry Competition earlier this year, and played bass guitar in the ‘Petrichor’ band, which – together with ‘Puffle’ – went on to represent Doha College in the nationwide ‘Battle of the Bands’ competition.
Recognition is also given to students who have shown extraordinary character that aligns with Doha College values. The annual Walton Community Award for outstanding charitable work went to Rebecca Craig for her fantastic work with children with special education needs.
The outstanding student award is granted each year to the student with the highest academic achievement in external examinations. This year, the award was presented to Sara Mohamed, the only student to achieve the highest grade possible in five different AS examinations. She also attained full marks for Computer Science, full marks in a chemistry examination and 96% in a statistics examination. In addition to all these subjects, she voluntarily chose to complete an Edexcel Level 3 this January, also achieving an A* for that.
Asked how she managed to do all this, she said that perseverance, time management and organisation are key factors to how she approach school life.
The great support system at Doha College have positively contributed to my self-confidence. As a passionate research enthusiast, my ultimate ambition is to become a researcher in the medical field, capable of spreading new ideas and discoveries around the world and someday I hope to create a significant change to our future – whether it is curing a chronic disease or inventing a new medical technology.’
The ceremony was punctuated with musical performances from Doha College students, including an incredible own-compositio marimba performance by accomplished percussionist Jack Dillon. The breath-taking piece helped Jack attain the ‘Highest Mark in Qatar’ for his Pearson Edexcel GCSE Music examination last year.
The Governor’s award went to a group of students coordinated by teacher Eoin O’Connor. They wrote, published and sold a number of children’s books, with proceeds going to the charity committee of Doha College.
In his speech, Doha College Principal Dr Steffen Sommer urged the students to look at the world through the eyes of others in order to be as successful in the outside world as they are in Doha College.
Only then, will you be able to find answers to the most challenging of questions.
Whatever you do, and however you do it, success and failure are always closely linked, like yin and yang. All our inspiration and innovation draw their energy from a strong desire of improvement, of making good or better presupposing that less good trials had preceded. This alone shows how far you have already come on the road to being high achievers.’
Last year, Doha College achieved record examination results for a second time in a row, thanks to the High-Performance Learning (HPL) approach. Doha College is the first HPL accredited school in the world.
For more information on the curriculum offered by Doha College, visit dohacollege.com.