THE ORCHID SCHOOL

Warm greetings once again from the Turquoise Desk!

There is much to talk about for this month, ranging from the Pre-Diwali visit to Hampi to the celebration of Children’s Day, and from the onset of full-fledged drill practice to the start of the Third Formative Assessment, or FA3.

The trip to Hampi was an enjoyable experience, but was one that benefited only the few students who were present.  At the same time, the school organised a function for the celebration of Children’s Day in school.  As it was a Monday, all the children were present to enjoy the experience of the teachers performing for them for a change!  The morning session was dedicated to classes so that the afternoon was free for the presentation by the teachers.  The teachers’ presentation involved a song by a preprimary teacher, a short skit of an Orchid’s student on ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’, a game of Antakshari (where the students were asked to bail the teachers out when the teachers did not know a song!) and, finally, a dance program that formally began with teachers dancing and ended with the students coming on stage to dance as they wished!  It was a good day for the students, who did not get any homework or need to complete any FAs, and who were allowed – for the day – to enjoy themselves with minimal involvement of the teachers.

Coscholastic development was also helped by the week-long Community Service project that was hosted by the counsellors, Gauri Kulkarni and Preeti Parekh.  Each 6^th Standard class was divided into groups of three, and these groups went to each of the Tara Mobile centers that cater to the day care of children of construction workers.  Each group had a chance to interact with the children at their respective center for four days, and took part in activities that were simultaneously creative and fun.  The Orchid students learned that the knowledge that they had was not better than that of the Tara children, only different.

However, in school, all fun must be combined with responsible learning, and this has been particularly true this month.  Scholastic and coscholastic activities ranging from the Annual School Quiz to the FA3 ensure that the students learn to their greatest potential.  In terms of the Annual Quiz, held by the same group who hosted the Heritage Quiz the earlier month, the quiz was won by the Orchid School students, and the School also took away the Best School Award as the final two teams were both from The Orchid School.  Two of the Turquoise family, Aruneema Deshmukh and Gautam Marathe, were among the participants.

The FA3 is currently in full swing, and should be complete within the second week of December.  All the teachers involved were pleased with the overall performance of all the Turquoise students, and they – in turn – showed great affinity to the 10-mark tests given with only a short period of notice.  Among the FA3, the students have had 3 Fas each in Hindi and Maths.  The Hindi syllabus for FA4, the fourth Formative Assessment, will be most likely given next week.  Meanwhile, the portion in Maths is moving along smoothly, with 2 chapters having been completed from the beginning of this term.  Likewise, the children have completed 4 FAs in Social Studies and 4 FAs in English, with one more of each remaining and most likely being completed in the next week itself.  In Science, the class is learning about estimation and measurements this month, which included the activities of measuring their own pulse rates (we discovered that girls have slightly higher pulse rate than boys!) and measuring the time period of simple pendulum and to see how pendulum can be used for time-keeping.

With the FA4 starting shortly, it would be most beneficial to the students to start preparing from now.

Well, that’s all for now in terms of a Turquoise Update… See you next month!