A substantial number of hours in the timetable, and ample opportunity after school, are dedicated to encouraging children to explore a wide range of creative pursuits. Time spent on music, drama, dance and painting, as well as on literary and scientific interests is time well spent. The pleasures in doing and the satisfaction of achievement not only tap students’ creativity and originality, but also encourage their concentration, patience, commitment and teamwork.

In so many of these activities, the performance on stage or the painting hung on the wall is only the final product, the tip of the creative iceberg hinting at the level of endeavour that went into its creation. Regular sessions of drama and the hours of rehearsal help a child understand his/her responses to different situations, rather than necessarily making an actor of him/her. Similarly, painting will help him/her learn to observe different forms and shades of colour, rather than producing a great artist.

Specialist teachers for these subjects, working in the areas designed for their activities, ensure that the pleasures and rewards of creative work complement academic study.

The non-sporting activities offered by the School include pottery, art & craft, woodwork, art animation, computer graphics, Indian dance, modern dance, western music (vocal and instrumental), Indian music (vocal and tabla), school newsletter and magazine projects, the Model United Nations Programme, the Round Square programme, scrabble, speech and drama, theatre, cookery, needlework and knitting, debating, quizzing, film club, Science Club and Nature Club.

The ‘Creativity’ component of the IBDP’s Creativity, Action, Service (CAS) programme, includes interesting student-led initiatives like ‘Enterprise for CAS’, where students work on the ideas for the branding and promotion of the annual School event of CAS Fete; ‘Film-Making’, where students learn the skills, art and techniques of film-making; and create short films; ‘Power Yoga’, which is a brand new way of combining Yoga with Aerobics and ‘Creative Gaming’, which is the art of creating strategy-based educational games for children.

Following are some of the achievements of our students that reflect their pursuit of creativity across many areas.

Dhirubhai Ambani International School encourages its students to participate in a variety of competitions within India and worldwide, which helps foster their versatile interests and their urge to excel in many ways. One of our IBDP students - Yashraj Khaitan - had won a prize in the NASA Aeronautics Essay Contest held in 2007 to describe "Air Transportation in 2057" and was placed second in the individual international awards. Two of our students - Neil Satra and Sanchay Jaipuriyar - received the coveted winners' trophy and a laptop, in the first ever Mumbai edition of TCS IT Wiz, which was held in 2009. Over 500 students from more than 50 schools participated in this keenly contested event, which is considered to be India's largest inter school IT Quiz.

In 2007, our students participated in the Indian Robotics Olympiad at New Delhi and were placed second; this qualified them to participate for the World Robotics Olympiad at Taipei in which they were awarded certificates of excellence. Over the years, the Robotics Club at the School is growing in its popularity and continues to attract a good number of students. In 2008-09, our students were exposed to the state-of-the-art Lego Hardware and associated Mindstorms Software which, after initial few classes of training in the preliminaries, were extensively used to complete various missions. In 2008, three of our students represented the school in the Indian Robotics Olympiad held at Bengaluru, and secured the second position. The experience proved to be very enriching and fruitful for our students. In 2010, our students have once again participated in the Indian Robotics Olympiad, held at Bengaluru.

The Business & Economics Challenge 2009 was held at D Y Patil International School, Worli in November 2009. Teams from 14 schools in and around Mumbai participated. Teams were given a business case study, with financial, market research, demographic and other relevant data. The focus was on creating a business strategy based on the data and presenting it to a panel of eminent industry professionals. Our students were awarded the First Runners-up position in this competition.

Two of our students, Shubhangi Dutta and Ritu Murlidharan, won the Inaugural Hindustan Times Scholarship Programme 2011 for which more than 27,000 students from 175 schools all over Mumbai participated.  They were amongst 50 other students from schools in Mumbai who were awarded scholarships of Rs. 50,000 each.  In 2011, at an Inter-Institutional Photo Essay Exposition, one of our students - Ritu Murlidharan, bagged the first prize for her essay on the theme ‘Diversity’. Yet another DAIS student, Gaurang Biyani, secured the runner-up position in the Scholastic Writing Competition held in 2010 for schools all over India, for his essay ‘Footprints of Terror’. In 2011, our school was adjudged the best school and won all the three positions at Interschool Pearl Padamsee Trophy for Excellence in Speech & Drama for the second year in succession.