24th October 2009 - The Scindia School

The quarter began with thereopening of the School on the 8thof July. The students came backrejuvenated after a long summerbreak. The campus which lookeddesolate in their absence startedbustling with life on their return.The school also accorded a warmwelcome to the new students.Though homesick at first theysettled down soon and gave aglimpse of their talent through anenjoyable ‘Freshers’ Evening’.We boast of an enviable IT facilityand it’s a matter of great pridethat The Scindia School has beendeclared the winner of eINDIA 2009Awards in the category 'DigitalLearning ICT Enabled School of theYear'.Continuing with the constantupgradation of infrastructure, thesquash court has been renovatedto meet international standards. Ithas been provided with importedmaplewood flooring. A new lawnhas been laid around 40m radius ofthe existing Madhav Pavilion CricketPitch as phase I of Sports FacilityDevelopment Programme.Appointments have been made to allthe societies of the School. The newposition holders are shouldering theresponsibility with great dedication.EditorialCelebrationsThe quarter was marked by various celebrationsand the students enjoyed the festivities with greatenthusiasm. Janmashtmi and Ganesh Chaturthiwere celebrated with great religious fervour. Theentire school gathered for bhajans and aarti.Prasad was distributed to all.Independence Day was celebrated on Saturday 15thAugust. It was an impressive ceremony completewith march past, band display and devotionalsongs and speeches at astachal.InitiativesOn Monday 31st August the staff and the studentstook an oath of nonviolence. The entire schoolcommunity pledged to stand up against violenceof all kinds. This will go a long way in fostering anatmosphere of harmony in school.Encouraged by the success of the Cambridgeformat of debating, which was introduced in theMiddle School level last year, the same has beenintroduced at the Senior School level this year.AcademicsThe term began with two ambitious academicinitiatives each with its definite objectives. Theseare, ‘a grade based system of testing and assessmentfor classes VI to VIII’ and ‘a rigorous programme ofacademic effort and guidance for class XI Sciencestudents’The programme for senior students involves dailyclasses for an hour in the evening for additionalteaching, exposure to advance concepts andclarifying doubts. The idea is to complete thesyllabi (both theory and practical) well in time sothat adequate revision of the CBSE course can becarried out. Other purposes are to prepare studentsfor some of the competitive exams and satisfy theirappetite for the subject to a maximum extent.The school has acquired some Teacher ResourceMaterial for this purpose from a competent source.It is probably needless to mention that teachersinvolved are working hard and giving their best tothe students.The objectives behind the initiative for youngerstudents are also manifold. We desire to ‘free’them of their dependence on marks and all thecompetition it entails. At the same time we wish toknow their areas of strength and weakness moreaccurately and comprehensively. Accordingly,a set of skills (and a few aptitudes) has beencarefully identified for every subject and students’progress in these will be monitored continually.Qila Quotes | Editorial | 5All departments have begun evolving a rubricto clearly detail competence level in a skill thatcorresponds to a particular grade in their subject.Of course, students will be given ample supportand guidance in the process. The report formatshave been completely altered keeping in mind theabove parameters.We hope that both these programmes will lead toa much more vibrant academic environment oncampus meeting students’ needs at various levels.In near future we hope to extend the learning fromthese to other groups of studentsVisitsAs part of the efforts undertaken by The GermanSociety four boys were granted 100% scholarshipunder the PASCH project (Schulen Partner derZukunft) Two of them attended a course inGermany and the other two went to Yercaud inTamil Nadu.Seven students went on an exchange to differentschools in UK. They attended classes there andwere exposed to the teaching strategies followedthere. They also got a glimpse of the culture andtradition of the host country. All the students cameback enriched and shared their experiences withthe school.VisitorsJoseph O’Neil and Joshua Bowden have comefrom Newcastle, Australia through an organizationcalled Lattitude. They will be in School till theend of December. They are teaching English tothe junior classes and participating in the schoolactivities wherever they can. The students areenjoying their lessons and we hope they have arewarding stay here.The Career Cell organized a visit by a representativefrom The British Council and The CanadianEducation Center, New Delhi. All the doubts andqueries of the students regarding the variouseducation and career options were clarified.CompetitionsA large number of competitions in school keptthe school life vibrant and gave the students anopportunity to display their diverse talents. Thehighlights of the quarter were the Inter HouseAquatic Meet and the Athletic meet.The School hosted the HH Maharaja MadhavraoMemorial Hindi Debate which elicited enthusiasticparticipation from various schools. The debate waswon by The Scindia School.Qila Quotes | Student Achievements | 6 VOL 5 | Oct 2009StudentAchievementsThe C.B.S.E. awards certificates of merit in each subject to the top 0.1% of thesuccessful candidates in order to recognize their merit and outstanding performanceat its Secondary School and Senior School Certificate examination. Samridh Agrawal(Social Studies) and Vineet Mittal (Maths) of class X and Samarth Singh Ashiya(Political Science) of class XII were awarded the same for their excellent grades in theBoard Examinations.Palaash Bhargava, whose name was shortlisted from the merit list of CBSE, class XBoard, has been sent an invitation by CSIR, a government body, to visit their regionallabs and work with a scientist for two days in December.The Scindia School hosted the Limca Book of Records Quiz 2009. A total of 60teams from all over the city participated in it. Three teams from our school took part inthe quiz. The team comprising of Neeraj Dhodi and Sankalp Rathour reached thefinals and were adjudged the runners up. They have been awarded certificates andmedals for the same.A team of boys participated in a Literary and Art competition held at Vidya DeviJindal School, Hissar. Jivitesh Mazumdar secured the second rank in the artcompetition and Anirudh Sood stood second in the Declamation competition.A team comprising Tarang Tripathi, Ujjaval Agarwal and Anirudh Todi participatedin the Miss Saroj Srivastava English debate held at Welhams. Tarang Tripathi wasadjudged the best speaker in the first round and also the overall best speaker. Theschool team stood second.Harshit Krishna of class XI has made us proud by participating in the Junior SwimmingNational Camp which was held in Jaipur.Samridh Agrawal was adjudged the best speaker in the first round of the HH MaharajaMadhavrao Memorial Hindi Debate hosted by The Scindia School.In the final round of the same debate Samridh Agrawal and Aakash Surana wereadjudged the second and third best speakers respectively.