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The Students
The Staff
Pastoral Care
Parent School Interaction
Other Parent School Communication
The Special Section
Vasant Valley School was started in 1990 by the India Today Group.
The Students
Children join the school at the age of 3+, and will spend fourteen years in school. Vasant Valley children spend a year in Foundation and one year in Nursery.
There is a maximum of 30 children in a class. This ensures that all children get individual attention from the teacher. There are no ability based teaching sections. Children of different levels of abilities and different types of abilities are all integrated in a single class - this includes the children of the special section. Academically gifted children have "extension cards". Academic excellence awards are given to students for consistently high levels of performance through the years. Slow learners have remedial classes. Children with specific subject learning problems use the private study time to clarify their doubts from the teachers.
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The Staff
Mr Arun Kapur is Director, Ms Rekha Krishnan Head of Senior School, Ms Rekha Bakshi Head of Junior School.
In Vasant Valley School the senior and junior sections are closely integrated. Though many of the systems in the two sections are quite independent, most teachers of the school are involved in activities or classes in both. The school is also divided into various departments, such as Arts, Science, Social Sciences, Physical Education and so on. Each has a Head of Department. Thus the staff maintain a link of continuity between the two sections. There is no aspect of Vasant Valley School that functions in isolation.
With more than a hundred and fifty staff members for around thousand children, Vasant Valley school has an excellent student-staff ratio, ensuring personal attention for
each and every child.
All teachers teaching academic subjects have a degree in education, apart from a graduate degree in their subject areas. Most of them hold Masters degrees as well. Those teaching non-academic subjects too are well qualified in their fields of specialisation. However, every teacher who joins the school undergoes an orientation in order to imbibe and enhance the Vasant Valley culture.
Very regularly, leading experts in various fields spend time interacting with the staff and students in the school for short periods or on a part time basis to help the school broaden its vision with the help of their expertise.
The office staff who handle administration and accounts too have a very close and informal interaction with the students and teaching staff. Click here to read more
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Pastoral Care
All members of the staff are responsible for the social and emotional well being of the student, irrespective of whether she is teaching the child or not. In the junior school, the class teacher is always with the child be it the Performing Arts room or in the science lab. Very often along with the class teacher, there is another teacher also with the students. The student knows that the class teacher is always accessible to her.
From class 6 onwards the class teachers take a step away from the child in order to help her to form her own relationships. This is essential for the development of the child to a young adult. However each class has in addition to a class teacher a co-class teacher. This enables teachers to have greater one-to-one contact with the students to understand their motivations, needs and problems.
If a child should feel unwell after coming to school, a qualified nurse is always available in the fully equipped sickroom to take care of her. Of course, for serious complaints the children are taken to a nearby hospital.
A tutorial system begins from class 8. Each child is assigned to a tutor. The tutor is always on the child's side and she is there for the child to consult and confide in. The tutor is also expected to discipline the child if the situation requires it. The tutor keeps track of her tutees progress over the year - she signs the grade cards and the monthly reports each month, she is present in formal meetings with parents whenever her child is being discussed.
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Parent School Interaction
Parents are encouraged and expected to play an important role in the school life of a Vasant Valley student. Parents can come in during Open House Times or Review meetings to meet the staff and discuss the progress of their children. These meetings are for brief routine discussions.
For more detailed discussions, parents or teachers can always fix an appointment any day of the week. Formal meetings are held with the parents, class teachers, tutors and all the students of the board classes (Classes 10 and 12) to discuss and plan academic charts.
School reports are sent home to parents regularly. These reports give parents detailed feedback and analysis of the performance of their children.
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Other Parent School Communication
- Class X and XII individual meetings
- Tutor's communication
- Individual Meetings on Request
- Class meetings twice a year
- School Diaries
- School Circulars
- E-mail School Newsletter
- Telephone calls to/ from parents
- Letters from teachers / heads to parents
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The Special Section
The Vasant Valley - Special Section represents a pioneering move in Inclusive Education in a developing country where there is little recognition, acceptance or resources for educating children with special needs in an inclusive environment.
The section for students with special needs has grown out of our commitment to society. From this has evolved the philosophy of the special section that every individual is dynamic and modifiable. All children have the potential to change, given the right kind of intervention. The school provides services to children with Developmental Disabilities between the ages of 5+ and 16 years.
Our objective is to provide children with special needs an appropriate learning environment whereby they graduate from a regular school equipped with the necessary academic, functional and social skills.
Based upon our experience, we feel that for any school to practice inclusion it is essential to have a team of professionals working on different developmental aspects of the child. A full team of professionals constituting special educators, speech therapists, occupational therapists and psychologist staffs the Special Section. Therapy is provided on a daily basis. The academic content is age ,ability and class relevant.
The Director of the school and mainstream teachers are fully integrated into the planning and execution of programmes for the children of the Section. The class teacher requires the support of these inputs to meet the curriculum demands of individualised planning.
A "Life Skills Functional Curriculum" has been developed for each child within the section so as to guide their development in a focused and strategic manner particular to the circumstances of each child as an individual. The life skills curriculum has a time horizon of 6-8 years in the areas of cognitive development, social competency, leisure, home management and employment. A grounding in life skills prepares children to deal resourcefully with people and situations they encounter in the community, helping them manage finances and interact in social and family dynamics, appreciate their own rights and respect the rights of others.
Our emphasis has always been on how the child's routine is structured through the day. The academic content has been individualised to cater to the needs and abilities of each child. Some of the children follow the mainstream curriculum, some a parallel curriculum and the others a functional curriculum. The Functional Curriculum has been designed to prepare the children to function as independently as possible in an integrated society. They share the same time-table as the mainstream and participate in all activities, hobbies, physical education and performing arts as provided in the time-table of the regular school.
Successful integration requires modification in functional real life ways - our belief is that, in essence, life is the curriculum.
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