The advisory program was set up in ISB just last year, but students have already decided whether they hate it or love it. As the junior grade level coordinator Ginny Voigt describes it, the advisory program is “designed to be a support program where students can build relationships and deal with life matters beyond the classroom.” The goal is to have “strong bonds and relationships in advisory.”

The program has seen many changes since its start last year, one of the biggest being the switch from a curriculum based program to a more flexible program where the focus is on communicating and building relationships. The advisory program has received mixed feedback from students and teachers.

Furthermore, Tamara Redmond, an advisor for grade 11, believes that the program is beneficial to students because “it allows them to make connections with a teacher outside of the academic domain and encourages them to build a ‘family’ with their advisory”, and it adds a support network for students. She also appreciates that each grade’s program is designed specially for the requirements of that grade and what they need help with. On the other hand, she does see room for improvement, stating that in order for the program to be successful, we need to have “more student choice and student led activities.”

Mrs. Voigt seems to agree with this. She thinks that the “more the ownership for planning advisory is shared between students, the advisors, and the grade level coordinators, the more students will enjoy it.”

Of course this shared contribution must be well balanced, as she recognises that students already have a lot on their plates and advisory should not add to that. Rather it should be a space where students can feel safe and be able to talk about what is important to them.

Munisa Farook (12), says that she “did not like all the learning we did” during advisory last school year because, even though it is important information, it was mostly stuff that students already knew. She felt that there was “more learning and less action”, but this year advisory seems to be more productive.

While some students may think that playing games during advisory is a waste of time, Munisa believes that it “can help us actually interact with each other” and some games “might help us for future life” by teaching us important skills. She also says that it would be nice if we could “do things that we are interested in”.

Overall, the advisory program is a program that, in theory, sounds like a great idea. It hopes to build strong relationships between students and teachers while also preparing students for issues outside of the classroom. But in order to be successful it needs to be well-planned in a way that suits the ISB student body. It may have had some issues last year but the teachers considered all of the feedback they received and made some changes. Advisory is no longer a curriculum-driven session that students dread but rather a time when students can learn important skills and lessons but also talk about issues that are important to them.

What is your opinion? Let us know by leaving it in the comment section down below.

Shreshta Gupta