Social impact, sports, study, and more: How Ayesha balances it all with online school

Ayesha has always been someone who goes after what she wants. By the age of 10, she founded a tutoring initiative that changed lives. By Year 7, she was already accelerating her studies. Now, in her teens, she’s collaborating with NGOs, competing in three sports, and coding fintech solutions.

All the while, she kept up top grades and stellar school reports. The problem? Traditional school was simply too rigid to fit around her diverse ambitions. Thankfully, when online learning entered the picture, it changed everything.

We caught up with Ayesha to learn more about what King’s InterHigh has meant for her education and future. Find out how online school has given her the space to thrive in academics, athletics, business, and social impact, plus hear more about her exciting time joining the King’s InterHigh Student Council.

Discovering online school

Always academically driven, Ayesha began accelerating her studies from Year 7, sitting her IGCSEs early and scoring just two marks below an A in Mathematics. However, despite her outstanding success in school, traditional education wasn’t quite working for her.

“Normal school made it really hard for me to balance everything,” explains Ayesha. “Even though I had exceptional grades and a really good school report, my attendance was affected.” The issue wasn’t a lack of motivation or ability; the traditional school system simply couldn’t flex around the flourishing life Ayesha was building for herself.

Between studying, competitive sports, work experience at her father’s company, and her passion projects, her days were packed with pursuits she cared deeply about and didn’t want to sacrifice. So, when an admissions adviser in Bahrain suggested online learning, it opened up a possibility she hadn’t considered before.

“Online school was a completely new process for me,” recalls Ayesha. “It was something unheard of.” But determined to find the right pathway for her education, she began doing her research and looking for the best online schools available. Ultimately, what drew her to King’s InterHigh was the community.

Building a life around learning

Today, Ayesha’s schedule is perfectly suited to her needs and interests. At King’s InterHigh, families can choose between three school day timings — the UK, Middle East, and Southeast Asia — to fit live lessons around their rhythm.

While it may sound surprising, Ayesha chose to follow a UK school day despite studying in the Middle East, because that’s what suits her schedule best. Now, she dedicates her mornings to everything she loves doing outside of school: social work, sports, and business. That leaves her afternoons and evenings free to focus on classes and homework, allowing her to pursue all the things that matter to her without compromise.

With so much going on, Ayesha’s day-to-day life shifts and changes depending on what she’s working on, but her online lessons always fit around her needs. On the sports front, she’s a triple threat, playing basketball, tennis, and badminton competitively around a busy travel schedule. Alongside athletic commitments, Ayesha says, “I’m also a coding geek. I love fintech.” She works keenly alongside her father (a CEO and founder of multiple ventures), from coding new tools to recruiting new talent.

Plus, on top of all of that is one of the pursuits that Ayesha holds closest to her heart: her commitment to non-profit work.

A calling to give back

For Ayesha, social work is more than a passing interest. “It’s my calling,” she says simply. “Social impact and things like that give me a lot of joy.”

In fact, her journey into the non-profit space first began when she was 10 years old. During the pandemic, a local school in India was shut down to be repurposed as agricultural land, and watching those children lose access to their education struck Ayesha profoundly. “That really hurt me,” she says. “These students yearned to study. I said to myself, ‘I need to do something about this.’”

So she did. Ayesha soon began teaching English, maths, and science to two children in the village, passing on what she learnt herself at school each morning.

Word spread quickly, and what started as informal tutoring soon grew into Ayesha’s Academy, eventually reaching 67 students.

Adapting to their native language posed its challenges, but the students’ enthusiasm kept her going. They became inspired by her teaching as time went on, dreaming of futures as scientists, teachers, and military officers. The project expanded beyond academics too, with Ayesha organising sports days and donating books and food to the village to create a true school community.

“I did testimonial interviews with all of the parents and students, and they were super emotional,” says Ayesha, who documented the whole initiative through a blog and YouTube channel. That quickly caught the attention of non-profit organisations across India, who were astonished by what she’d accomplished at such a young age.

As a result, her experience working directly with rural communities opened the door for Ayesha to collaborate with major NGOs making a difference.

Today, she works with an organic food company on a project focused on rural employment and microeconomy development. Taking responsibility for training agricultural workers in business literacy and supply chain integrity, Ayesha has had a real impact with her work, helping to grow average household incomes in the area by 10 to 15%. She’s even championed gender equality in the region, directly supporting and training over 30 female entrepreneurs.

Leading from day one

Impactful initiatives like these recently became some of the centrepieces of Ayesha’s unique Student Council application at King’s InterHigh.

Ayesha joined our school this academic year, and just weeks into her online journey, she was already reaching for a leadership role. At her father’s company, she already leads a team of five, so her inspiring, go-getter attitude comes as no surprise. “I thrive in leadership environments,” she explains. “When I see something, I say, ‘Okay, this is a problem; what can I do to solve it? What is lacking? Can I help? Can I contribute in some way to make the community better?’”

As such, the Student Council felt like a natural fit for Ayesha. But, she wanted her application to stand out. “I knew I could find a more personalised way for my peers, the student body, and my teachers to know more about me than a 45-second speech,” says Ayesha. “I decided I should make a website where I write everything about myself, why I think I’m fit for the role, and how the skills and school values speak to me.”

With just one week to submit, Ayesha went into overdrive. She coded the entire back end in HTML over 12 hours across two days, then designed the front end in Figma. In total, she spent 50 hours on the project that week. “I remember going to the office for productivity,” she recalls. “Just sitting and looking at all the tech people, I was like, ‘You know what? I can do this.’”

Now, as one of 14 student representatives, Ayesha is already working on initiatives to support her peers. Since many students choose online school because of struggles they’ve had in traditional education, she’s particularly drawn to boosting mental wellbeing. Her proposal? A special King’s InterHigh app that encourages daily journaling through prompts, with students earning house points for staying on track.

Onward to Ivy League ambitions

Alongside all her passions, interests, and hobbies, Ayesha is also thriving in her education. Already a year ahead in her studies when she joined us, she’s now taking on additional IGCSE subjects in Year 11 to strengthen her university applications while simultaneously getting ahead for sixth form.

According to Ayesha, our teachers at King’s InterHigh have made all the difference. “The teachers are so supportive, and I love their way of explaining,” she says. “The way they teach and the tools they use for us students to better understand are just very helpful. They’re genuinely really good teachers.” Beyond the classroom and her Student Council duties, Ayesha has also been recruited by King’s InterHigh’s school magazine (the King’s Chronicle) for her skills in marketing and design. It’s just one more way she’s shaping her community around her.

When it comes to her future beyond school, Ayesha has her sights set just as high. She’s already thinking about studying economics at a UK university. While computer science remains one of her core skills and she sees business as her true calling, she believes an economics degree will open her thinking in ways a business degree wouldn’t. In Ayesha’s words, “I feel like learning about what’s going on around you and the problems that are happening expands your horizons in a different way. It gives you a lot of skills and it makes you ask, ‘What can you contribute?’”

With a Harvard Business School alumnus father, Ayesha is hoping to follow in the family footsteps and attend Harvard herself one day. With her drive, her track record, and the space King’s InterHigh is giving her to grow, it’s hard to imagine anything standing in her way.