Newsletter for Week July 4 to July 8

The Calorx School began its academic session on July 4, 2006. And since the first of the school is a very important event for every child, we ensured that there were enough day activities to help them understand their campus, peers and teachers better.

The day began with a breakfast session, where both the students as well as parents enjoyed a lip-smacking meal of roulades, pakoras, fruit punch and dhokla.

Parents play an important role to ensure a smooth transition from home to school, also, since the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) requires a special kind of approach inside the classroom, it is important that parents understand the pedagogy of The Calorx School to help facilitate a smoother teaching-learning process.

The campus is spread on 25 acres; the students need to explore it and become comfortable with the space that will become their learning tool for the coming years.

Therefore, the first day was planned in such a way that the children explored the campus with their parents through a improvised Treasure Hunt. All the students were given a map with specified spots marked on it. These spots (areas/rooms) have a special pedagogical significance for each child and so the children had to visit each spot, participate in an activity related to that spot and move on to the next spot.

Parents as well as students were seen on campus planting trees, playing football, painting on a wall, having a jugalbandhi on the tabla, playing doctor, listening to teacher-voices on the computer, serving water to each other and performing a skit.

Once the activities were over, the students had to find their classroom and the class-teacher.

The parents were then given a detailed write-up on the various themes and projects that would take place throughout the year, a list of the conceptual development that would take place and the skills that would be developed. They were also provided ‘The Overview” of The Calorx School, which gave them an idea about the pedagogical philosophy of The Calorx School and the three programmes of the IBO.

Once the parents left, the students began with their classes. The main aim of the day being introduction and settling of the children, the students did various group-formation activities where they introduced each other and learnt more about their peers.

Throughout the week, the children have been learning by doing. They have begun working on their Units of Inquiry as well as their specific projects.

Every Saturday teachers spend time training as well as preparing for the next week in advance. They have been trained to ensure a multi-sensorial approach inside the classroom keeping in mind that the immediate environment is a learning tool.

the past one month all the teachers have been working on preparing the curriculum and planning their day-to-day activities.