• Create a rich academic and natural environment that nurtures the child’s innate curiosity and exploration, encourages the capacity for inquiry, and fosters a love of learning.
• Provide a warm, friendly, learning environment for children based on strong student-teacher relationships. Teachers are friendly, caring, and easily approachable.
• Each student’s individual interests, capabilities, and accomplishments are assessed to create a specific plan that enables each child to reach his / her full potential. Each child is encouraged to explore their interests and adequately challenged.
• Student participation in class and school are emphasized. Students participate in campus life and take responsibility for various activities that creates a sense of community, belonging, and responsibility.
• Discussion and group dialogue are used as a method to prompt reflection about the world around them, encourage exchange of ideas, and strengthen communication skills.

Curriculum

Children by nature are adventurous and have a feel for things around them. This natural tendency toward exploration is extensively used in our curriculum by drawing examples from life that are meaningful to them.

We do not emphasize rote learning and memorization. Instead, we make educational concepts a reality by encouraging children to Explore, Engage, and Experience the world around them.

The focus of the curriculum for the younger children (ages 4 to 6) is on building and sharpening language and numerical skills through singing and play. With a focus on explorative learning, many indoor and outdoor activities are used to educate and engage children:

• cooking (children actually cook food using firewood),
• drama-music-dance: listening and reciting rhymes in English and Kannada
• hands-on Art: clay-art, craft-making, gardening,
• exposure to farm animals and farming with a focus on honoring nature and caring for the world around.
• Nature walks, Bird watching, cloud watching,

These activities are used to teach academic concepts, and awareness of the self and the world around.

From the age of 8 years, we begin to teach subjects separately as disciplines in combination with a few of the above activities. The school uses the curriculum and standards established by the Karnataka State Educational Board and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as guidelines.

While academic and critical thinking skills are emphasized, the nurturing of their artistic inclinations and physical abilities are given equal importance.

Where possible, teaching is enhanced and illustrated through projects and activities, allowing for experience wherever possible. The projects are interdisciplinary, and emphasize an exploration of the world around them in various ways.

By the age of twelve, students are introduced to abstract concepts in various disciplines, and are encouraged to examine, clarify and test ideas presented to them. They learn subjects with more rigor. The teachers focus on enabling the child to reach his or her utmost capacity in performing at both academic and extracurricular activities.

Academically, although each student’s talent and aptitude is taken into consideration to ensure optimal learning based on the child’d potential, a common foundation is emphasized to ensure that all children have adequate knowledge and skills regardless of their individual talent or aptitude.

Though tests and examinations are conducted to evaluate students progress in learning, we do not use comparative grading as a parameter of progress in learning.

Assessment

The school conducts periodic assessments to evaluate the student’s academically and non-academically. As the classes are small, children receive a lot of individual attention, and our teachers are generally quite familiar with each child’s strength and weaknesses. All the academic courses are supported with material for practice and review. The teachers have a regular conference to discuss each child’s accomplishments and educational needs. They collectively develop an integrated strategy to support each child’s achievement of their full potential and help in overcoming any difficulties and challenges.