The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

SCHOOL BUZZ
Schools were a beehive of activity in the week gone by
Smriti Kak

IT's been an action-packed week. Annual days and sports days have kept our little friends on their toes. Not that they mind it, wouldn’t we all do anything to stay off books for a while!

Let’s begin this week’s buzzing with little bundles of joy, who had their sports day on Sunday.

Kangaroo Kids

Arjun, Ria, Tanya and Rahul in their vibrant moods and little red dresses were there. So were the other Kangaroo kids, with their mummies and daddies and uncles and aunties.

To celebrate their Sports Day Kangaroo kiddies got together and bowled over the audience with their performance. While some ran like professional athletes, others chose to turn the tracks to a ramp, where they could walk, a la royalty.

What was interesting was that the parents were far more excited than the kids were. And for those, whose little ones made them proud by winning, they just couldn’t wipe off the big smiles off their faces.

To cheer the kids and perhaps to show what kids are good at and mums and dads are better at, parents participated in a race. It is very necessary to add that the kids won hands down. (Sorry, parents don’t look half as cute as kids on a racing track!)

In the ‘Fireman’ race, where the kids had to run with small buckets, Jyoti and Anoushka came first, Mahir and Arushi were second and Aryan and Aradhan came third. Nirvan and Shreya stood first in the ‘Doctor-Patient’ race, Rakshit and Arushi came second and Rahul was third.

Kangaroo Kids is a pre-school for kids between two and four. It has two branches in the Capital and is well known for its unique and effective teaching methods.

Congrats to DPS

The highlight of the Annual Day of DPS,Vasant Kunj,was the ballet ‘Sambhavani Yuge Yuge’,based on Krishna’s Raas Lila.

Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj, celebrated its Annual Day at Kamani Auditorium. The two-day function was marked by gaiety as the hard work put in by both the students and the teachers paid off well.

The Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, was the guest of honour, while the Chairman of the DPS society, Mr Salman Khurshid, presided over the function on the first day.

On the second day, the Director of Education, Mr Gyanendra Srivastava, was the guest of honour and Mr Vikram M. Thapar, Chairman of DPS, Vasant Kunj, presided over the function.

Addressing the gathering, Mr Thapar said that DPS, Vasant Kunj, which had been rated as the third best school in Delhi, was in fact the best of the DPS lot. He went on to say that he could muster the courage to say this since Ms Shyama Chona, Principal of DPS, R.K. Puram, was not present, or she would have slit open his throat, much to the amusement of the audience.

The programme began with a song, ‘Vande Mataram’, the music for which had been composed by the school’s music teacher. The melodious rendition of the song moved the audience. However, what caught almost everyone’s attention was the tiny Kanika, a student of class I, whose performance was amazing.

The Principal, Mr Vinay Kumar, gave a brief of the various activities, which took place in the school and informed that 15 students had made it to the IIT, 30 to the DCE and an equal number to various medical colleges. A big applause for the meritorious students!

The highlight of the day was the ballet, ‘Sambhavani Yuge Yuge’, based on Krishna’s Raas Lila. Beautiful sets coupled with scintillating performances had the onlookers mesmerised. The whole show had been woven together like a piece of tapestry and the entire DPS family needs to be congratulated for the excellent show.

Fun week

A student puts forth her point of view during a debate, which formed part of the activity week being held at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya.

It’s a special week for the students of Sardar Patel Vidyalaya. They are celebrating their activity week, which promises fun and frolic and loads of incentives.

Inaugurated by Mr K.P.S. Gill, the activity week, as it is popularly called, began on the 13th of this month and will end with a valedictory function on the 22nd.

During this activity week students participate in sports as well as literary activities. Elocution, debates, recitation competitions are held in both English as well as Hindi. The school encourages fluency in other languages like Gujarati and Sanskrit. Recitation competition for these third languages helps the children learn and love the language.

For the sports freaks, it is the perfect time to shine as they sweat it out in the sports field. Races, jumps and the most exciting part, the tug of war, are all an integral part of this week.

The day is divided to give equal time to each activity. So, when in the mornings you have the speakers exercise their vocal chords, the afternoon sun is for the athletes. The students of each house (there are four of them) are divided into senior and junior groups.

The house with the maximum score gets to lift the winner’s trophy. There is, however, a very interesting aspect of these competitions. To encourage students and to do away with unnecessary pressure, the school has devised a way of inspiring students to perform and win incentives. Instead of the usual 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes the participating students who score above a stipulated percentage are awarded merit certificates.

The atmosphere right now is bubbling with ceaseless energy. Keep track of this column, we’ll tell you what happened at the valedictory function.

Laurels all the way

Students of DPS, R.K. Puram, have emerged winners in practically all competitions they have participated in. In Kolkata, Mohaimin Altaf stood second at the national-level Inter Institutional English Debate earlier this month.

In the recently held inter-school festival held at DPS, Noida, the school won the coveted overall Best School Trophy. The students won the 1st position in Nrity Anjali (choreography), 1st position in mosaic (creative writing and drawing), 2nd position in English debate and the 3rd position in the quiz.

Finally, in the Senior English Debate held at Modern School, Barakhamba Road, the team comprising Nikhil Hari Seshan and S. Suraj walked away with the 1st runners-up prize.

For slum kids

DPS Shiksha Kendra, a Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, venture, is a school for marginalised children living in slums. The school is presenting a soul-stirring dance drama at Talkatora Stadium on January 11 next year at 6 pm. The play, which is directed by Mrs Vasvati Misra, is about the dreams and aspirations of young children living in slums. They want to gain good education and rise high in life but are faced with the reality of life that in order to gain good education they need money and the support of the elite.

The dance drama addresses the inner agony of these children who aspire to go to big schools and universities but are left in rags on the streets, ignored by all and sundry. Through the depiction of the lives of Vicky, Tinku and Shibbu, the three main characters of this dance drama, the play imparts the chilling message that theirs is the fate of 12 crore children of our country.

In short, ‘Akhir Kyo?’ is a determined effort at social awakening through intense introspection. It urges all sensitive and right-minded members of society to not only ponder deeply on this enormous problem faced by cruelly deprived children but also to make a genuine efforts towards their upliftment.

AIDS education

To impart the necessary information that schoolchildren must have about AIDS, theatre personality Feizal Alkazi and Martha Farrrell conducted a daylong workshop on AIDS awareness at the Indian Social Institute in the Capital.

Founded by Modicare Limited, the Rai Bahadur Gujarmal Foundation (RBGM) conducted a workshop, which included an interactive session on AIDS awareness and adolescent issues.

Alkazi spoke on the issues of peer pressure, assertive behaviour and the various impacts of HIV, including the economic, social and emotional aspects.

The workshop started with an ice-breaking exercise in order to make the students comfortable and then went on to bring out adolescent issues through an interesting detective game followed by a quiz.

Towards the end, more serious issues like family relationships came out of the closet. The students were then asked to give a feedback on what they had learnt and how they planned to carry forward the message on AIDS in their schools.

It is for the first time that corporates have decided to educate children vis-a-vis social issues, which remain behind closed doors.