BIOGRAPHICAL
After gaining an M.Sc. in Nutrition from the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad in 1968, I embarked on a teaching career which now spans twenty three years. My teaching experience began with nine years of classroom teaching at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Islamabad, where I taught children from the ages of 8 to 12. In 1987, I was invited to become the Headmistress of the Primary School Branch of Beaconhouse School, a nationwide school system catering for children from Kindergarten to A Level. In 1991, I left Beaconhouse to set up my own independent school.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Each of the three stages of my professional experience has made a distinct contribution to my development as an educationist:

1. Classroom Teaching
My nine years of classroom teaching gave me the insight into child development necessary to develop the qualities of a truly effective teacher. I learned how to bring out the creative talent of individual children while at the same time making sure that they acquired the academic skills central to the school curriculum. It is this focus on nurturing individual talent while inculcating essential skills that I have been able to transmit to teachers under my guidance, both at Beaconhouse and at Preparatory.

2. School Management
Having grasped the essence of a child's educational needs, the second stage of my career as Headmistress of Beaconhouse developed my managerial competence and my ability to innovate. Under my guidance, the teachers at Beaconhouse were inspired to introduce confidence-building creative activities into the classroom. First of all I revised the teaching and assessment methods so that learning - rather than memorization was encouraged and tested.

Secondly, I helped teachers increase the emphasis on drawing, classroom display, poetry and oral performance to stimulate the children's imagination and widen their experience. Not only the children but also the staff benefited from feeling integrated within a more stimulating environment. The efficacy of changes were evident in school enrolment - upto 300 in 1987 when I joined to 600 at the time of my departure in 1991.

3. Institution Building
My decision to setup my own school was taken to further my vision of the school environment as one in which a child develops his/her creative and intellectual talents to the greatest extent possible. Creating a climate which promotes learning and personal development within the classroom is a challenge for any school today. To this end, I have emphasized attitudes and techniques which encourage students centered learning. The teachers have also been trained to develop communication skills which build solid relationships with both students and parents. On special feature of PSI is the initiation of six-day week curriculum. Children attend school Monday through Friday for regular classes and on Saturday morning for a variety of extra-curricular activities like music, karate, aerobics, painting and drama. Another important innovation at PSI has been devising our own teaching materials to enliven the Urdu curriculum.

Proof of the school's success is that its students consistently do well in the secondary schools to which they transfer, not only in Islamabad and other cities in Pakistan but also in other parts of the world. I have a sheaf of letters from grateful students and their parents testifying to the fact that PSI has provided them with a base which is incomparable. The result is that since the school established its reputation as one of the premier deliverers of primary education in Islamabad, the demand among parents has grown for the provision of secondary education of the same quality. This is now being met with the provision of Classes VII, VIII, IX and X. June 2002 will see the first batch of PSI students taking the O Level examinations.

The secret of PSI's success is no doubt attributable, at least in part, to the decision which I took at the outset to limit classroom size and preserve a high teacher/student ratio. This means that every child is known intimately - both to me and to his/her teachers. I believe that teachers too benefit from this limitation in classroom size and the fact that I am able to continue to play an active role in supervising and supporting their work.

FUTURE PLANS
Equipped with the managerial and institution building skills which my career to date have helped me develop, I now look forward to the challenge of replicating a design which as proved its worth to the community it seeks to serve.