Programme Welcome Ceremony UAE National Anthem Director’s Opening Address Mr Shane O’Brien Presentation of Helen Bond-Sharp Awards Presentation of Platinum Awards Year 13 Student Speeches Gia Narayan & Charlotte O’Riordan Class of 2022 Roll Call and School Honours Forms 13CEO/13EMN/13JL/13LL Presentation of the Sixth Form Overall Excellence Award Class of 2022 Roll Call & School Honours Forms 13LOR/13RD/13STL Head of Sixth Form Speech Mr Kosta Lekanides Former Head Student Speeches Lara Rudar & Ishan Maheshwari Head of Secondary Speech Mr Mike Waller Graduation Cap Throw
Graduating Class of 2022 Congratulations to our graduating class of 2022. We are immensely proud of you; good luck with your future careers and please continue to ‘Make a Difference.’ Georgina Abdel Massih
Tarek Metwally
Maryam Abdelaziz
Osaid Mian
Eliot Abramo
Nora Mirza
Joel Adinugraha
Lucien Mobayed
Ella Afghahi
Neila Mobayed
Adam Al Swed
Ciara Mullan
Alina Ali
Arvav Nair
Khaled Alikhan
Tatiana Najia
Elliot Anderson
Sakina Nakhoda
Victoire Anguelidis
Gia Narayan
Kimaya Arora
Zak Newman
Damla Atalay
Daria Obedkova
James Beech
Jaide Opara
Tarun Bhide
Charlotte O’Riordan
Charlotte Blackwell
Alexander Osuhor
Kaitlyn Burrell
Muhammad Patelia
Owen Busuttil
Max Preston
Justin Cameron
Eshaan Radhakrishnan
Kevin Cameron
Axel Retanam
Bruna Cardosa Facanha De Albuquerque
Niclas Riehle
Victor Charpentier
Itziar Rodriguez Lopez
Natasha Chaudhry
Lara Rudar
Jack Dancox
Saman Sadeghi
Sara Daouk
Youssof Saleh
Siddhartha Dey
Zachary Scarr
Zakaria Doleh
Eryk Schumacher
Annabella Doyle
Aarav Sethia
Callum Duncan
Mahika Singh
Joshua Eadie
Nanaki Singh
Anthony El Hage
Eleanor Smith
Derin Enhos
Sahil Srinivasan
Charlotte Favre
Ishan Maheshwari
Graduating Class of 2022 Congratulations to our graduating class of 2022. We are immensely proud of you; good luck with your future careers and please continue to ‘Make a Difference.’
Alaisha Fernando
Ammar Mandviwala
Haseebullah Gulzar Gul Hakim Gulzar
Rafael Mantoani
Mohammad Habibullah
Vanshika Mathur
Sophie Hajjar
Louisa Mbochi
Holly Harris
Isobel Mercer
Sabeeha Hasham
Gabrielle Stoesz
Christian Hava
Jasmine Tan Shuet Li
Renee Hyde
Ananya Tandon
Mackenzie John
Adam Tarratt
Taher Kanaan
Chelsea Tiller
Dhruv Kaushik
Louis Vanaudenhove
Solomon Kerr
Josephy Visser
Tamar Khaled
Stefan Wadding-Claesen
Lily Kidd
Isabella White
Michael Kubeisy
Amelia Wragg
Husena Lalipurwala
Reem Yusuf
Camille Le Gloahec
Yernur Zhaxylykov
Jay Lovie
Special Awards Helen Bond Sharp Award Mrs Helen Bond-Sharp was the founding Headteacher of JESS when she started a “school” in a large apartment in Deira in 1975 with just 17 students. The Secondary school opened on this site in September 2005 and students receive this award in recognition of their journey through JESS from Foundation to Year 13. And these awards are presented to… Alina Ali Elliot Anderson James Beech Natasha Chaudhry Jack Dancox Holly Harris Renee Hyde Mackenzie John Solomon Kerr Lily Kidd Isobel Mercer Tarek Metwally Ciara Mullan Sakina Nakhoda Charlotte O’Riordan Zachary Scarr Adam Tarratt Joseph Visser Stefan Wadding-Claesen Amelia Wragg
Special Awards Platinum Award This award goes to students who have consistently sustained exceptional effort throughout Year 13. To achieve this award, a student must have been rated Good or Outstanding in every academic category, by every teacher, in every report cycle in Year 13. This is an unbelievably significant achievement. And these awards are presented to… Eliot Abramo Victor Charpentier Tamar Khaled Osaid Mian Sakina Nakhoda Gia Narayan Aarav Sethia
Special Awards 6th Form Overall Excellence Award This Award is given to one student in Year 13 who has shown true breadth and depth in their efforts and abilities during the last 2 years. The Award recognises not just excellence in one specialist area, but a student who excels in academic effort and most importantly, in serving others and the school. Personally, I love giving out this award. It affords me that unique opportunity to summarise and praise a student’s accomplishments while also sharing some of their more unique quirks that make them who they are. So, let’s jump straight in. This year’s recipient is quite literally the definition of the word ‘precocious’ as not only have they developed exceptional abilities at an unusually early age but also are in possession of a mature sensibility when it comes to addressing issues within their local and global communities. They’ve also done one heck of a lot of stuff. Academically, they have been performing at or near the top of their classes since those early days in lower Secondary. Her teachers describe her as in possession of a “thoughtful manner” and one who “listens to others’ views with a critical ear”. She is not one to shy away from a debate, often taking risks with her suggestions, posing alternative or explanatory interpretations to issues. This engagement with public discourse has seen her take on a key leadership position here at JESS – that of Head Girl no less - and even saw her sit on the big stage at Dubai Expo where, under the mentorship of the former Sudanese Ambassador to the UN, she spoke on issues of climate change in the classroom. She was also invited to attend the UN pre-COP (Conference of the Parties) in Milan as the delegate of Turkey and was able to speak to her peers and Ministers gathered from around the world on pressing issues surrounding climate change. I have no doubt, that during these chats she realized the ever-important truism which is that politicians never lie. Her CV of impressive roles and responsibilities continues with her status as UAE Youth Ambassador for Nature where she gets to work with the World Wide Fund for Nature and Abu Dhabi Environment Agency, or being a World Summit on the Information Society Youth Campaigner where she spoke on the use of VR and IT more generally to enhance environmental awareness and engagement among youths. To top things off she is also currently the Education Coordinator at the Re-Earth Initiative, an international youth-led climate organization. I guess you could say the environment is well and truly in her bloodstream and she’s quite the campaigner for positive change. Just how far does she go? Well, even when I jokingly scolded her for filling multiple four-page answer booklets as part of her IB exams, she turned to me and said ‘Mr Kosta, where do those discarded formula booklets go?’ I promise we recycle them.
I said at the start that this young lady is precocious and unsurprisingly there’s more. A budding filmmaker she created a short film called ‘Yasmeen’s World’ celebrating and advocating for youth art in the digital space, even gaining an A grade credit from the University of Southern California in the process. This very same student continues to co-run an online magazine addressing youth issues called ‘Teenspire’. Thankfully, this young lady can also be a regular kid sometimes too as was evidenced by all the water shenanigans during Muck Up Day or the fact we had to chase her for a missed deadline or two. Perhaps this short anecdote from Year 9 is enough to show us what we have before us. Back then her English teacher, Ms McEllin, asked the class to produce a creative writing assessment for an imaginary blog or website. This student, however, did not need to write for any imaginary site as they had already been operating their own website to showcase jewelry they’d designed. It was called, rather cleverly, Lara Craft. Well, I for one, and keen to see what Lara crafts in the years to come.
It is with great pleasure that I announce the winner of this year’s Sixth Form Overall Excellence Award goes to…
Lara Rudar
#JESSAlumni