By Theertha Ravindran | Fellow
As the Uday Community School at Jaganpura is the first school that was made by the organization, it acts a symbol of the success of the schools and also challenge expectations with new interventions every step of the way.
The school at Jaganpura has been filled with activities, new interventions and a lot of fun.
Co- curricular clubs
New clubs have been started in all the schools. The Jaganpura school consists of Dance , Cooking, Clay model making, Art and Crafts , Chess, Kushti and Kerem Board clubs.
These clubs can help the students be exposed to specialization of various activities they are interested in. These clubs also create an environment for the children to learn about values such as teamwork, time management, leadership, problem solving skills and many more. These clubs help children explore their own interests and also get the adequate training in their own interests.
Being involved in different clubs that broaden their learning increases their brain function, which further helps to concentrate and manage their time better and eventually brings happy. The children also find an activity space that is not competitive, concentrates on gaining the skill set and gives most importance to have fun and relax. It makes children also be sensitive, thoughtful and to respect each other.
Beginning where it all began
As the Uday Community School at Jaganpura was the first school that was created and the first outreach program of Gramin Shiksha Kendra, the theater group thought that it was only appropriate to begin their interaction from the origin. The children gathered with curiosity and excitement. The theater group created interactive activities to include the participation of the students as well as the teachers. These included exercises, singing songs together and many games. These activities are specifically designed to remove the feeling of hesitation, shyness and helps in increasing confidence, creativity and togetherness. They also tried out activities to show the importance of teamwork and working in harmony.
The students suggested songs and poems that could be sung together. The initiation was ended with loud singing facilitated with active actions and gestures.
Children's Day
14th of November, Jawaharlal Nehru's birthday is celebrated as children's day. At the Uday Community Schools the students have a different way of celebrating this day. As they are allowed to choose what to do with the day the children at Jaganpura decided to start their day with sports competitions and games. Although the children did have another agenda. They wanted to have a "Mela".
A “Mela” is an event conducted in the school where children either bring something that was grown in their farms, something that they made or something that they would like to sell to the students and teachers and create a market set up at the school.
At Jaganpura they set up their own stalls and started selling their Guavas and peanuts with the help of weighing scales that they are encouraged to use themselves. All the students and Teachers approached the market with some money and bought the products that they would like to buy. This exchange is filled with excitement, confusion, calculation, happiness and a little bit of learning as well. (Just like a market).
Library and its magic
Every class has some time spent at the library on a weekly basis. Every time the students make creative ways to read and learn. They select books ranging from science to Math to fiction to fairy tales. Sometimes the students sit together and recite the poems or stories together in a tune and other times they draw pictures based on the stories that they just read and they also the find interesting seating areas.
Our teacher's coordinator Vishnu Meena mentioned that: You can sit where you want to sit
Our STREAM lab teacher described it as: A glimpse of freedom
Becoming an author
With respect to language, there is only one way to learn and that is practice. To ensure this the teachers ask the children to make their own story books. The children make their own notebooks and write their own creative stories in these story books. They also include beautiful drawings with respect to the stories. This ensures that the students work on their English with their creativity. This will not only help in their language but with their arts and crafts skills as well. The children enjoy this activity as it helps them explore their minds for new stories and opens door of infinite possibilties.
Sabhas
As children we might have called it assembly but the children at the Uday Community Schools call it the "Sabha". The students begin their day by cleaning their own "Samuh"(Classrooms) and the school premises. Once they were done they would place the "charpai" (Mat) for the "Sabha". At the Sabha they bring exciting news of the celebrations, they prepare questions for their fellow school mates and have also started making plays to perform. Making plays was done by the students themselves and they continue to bring new stories to the platform. They seem to be learning with their own excitement and ideas.
Parent’s active participation
One driving principle of the organization is the active participation of the communities in the education system of their own children. The Uday Community School at Jaganpura conducted a community meeting at the school. Many parents of the children that attend the school came to the meeting. This was to discuss the progress card of every single child and also for the teachers and parents to discuss how to improve the education system for the children. The parents ask the teachers questions on the subjects and the teaching methods used. The teachers enquire about the child's progress with respect to learning , values, creativity, hygiene and participation at home. This ensures a good relationship between the community and the school and helps in improving the education system for the children.
Jaganpura School caters to students of many villages including Jaganpura, Rawal, Khava etc.
Let us learn and play
Some of the most common sports that the children play at Jaganpura include handball, football, kho-kho and Kabbadi. Although, is it enough to just know how to play? At the Uday Community School at Jaganpura the coach takes it another step by explaining the standard dimensions of the courts for each game. The children also participate in creating the boundaries and lines for each of these games. This includes a discussion on the standards and to understand why the standards were made in the first place.
The Uday Community School has seen many harsh winters, summers and monsoons. As the year comes to an end the students take some new experiences home for holidays. It is true that we learn something new every day. All we have to do is keep our minds open to lessons that experiences can teach us.
Let's create a better present for these children for a better future for them and the next generation.
Thank you
Team,
Gramin Shiksha Kendra
Links:
By Shubham Garg | Director
By Tali Datskovsky | Volunteer, Communications and Fundraising
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