Updates for 2023-24

Explanation: Play with friends, play with toys, play in the playground, play with educational tools, play with puzzles and boards, play with facilitators, play when free, and request play when facilitators ask to learn.  Play is part of everything. Play is a child’s serious work. Learning eventually occurs. We allow them to play without learning as well.

What is the advantage of implementing it at Diversity?

As some of our old and continuing parents must have witnessed, Diversity always strives to make a meaningful contribution to the developmental journey of our Vividers. In the pursuit of this goal, we have embarked on this journey from the birth of Diversity and embraced the changes in learning techniques as opposed to age-old rote learning, long overdue for an overhaul. Thus, Diversity with its baby steps proudly stands as one of the early movers and is well poised to successfully implement and adopt new age, progressive learning styles which are the need of the hour and calling for a change on the part of educators and schools. 

Whether this approach is detrimental to a child’s readiness for traditional K-12, i.e., the Macaulay education system?

Or considering how it is turning out to be positive in children’s holistic education.

a) Most of the time it depends on the child’s personality, parenting style, and environment in the child’s family. However, since the school is a child’s second home, it gives them opportunities to explore the positive sides of life.

b) In most of the research, the findings are that children who have been independent in their pursuits, accept change in the environment. They settle in any environment sooner or later.

c) While you consider withdrawing your child at any point, we help you understand your child’s character and discuss at length what education model can suit your child the best.

How do the initiatives work?

What does a child mean to Diversity and what is our role in the child’s life?

Explanation: At Diversity, we take your child as a complete human being. Every child brings energy, enthusiasm, positivity, and possibility to the system. The studio facilitator takes the child from where he/she is coming from, i.e., milestone, not from a grade or age, e.g., if a child at the age of FOUR is a fluent reader, our job is to allow him to create stories and help document them, hence the preparation around this milestone is going to the next, not teaching him letters from the beginning as he is a PP1 child and he would have to revise letters and learn their sounds and mixing them. This is when a mixed-age group environment benefits the learner.

In most cases, children guide us to cover horizontal or vertical spaces of a skill. Given a child’s needs and interests, covering lengths and breadths of skill is done through different approaches by the studio facilitators.

 What pedagogies or approaches do we use at Diversity?

Explanation: Children’s needs, desires, and interests to explore, learn, and acquire are the real forces to make a learning space worthy to be. Scientifically speaking, liberated learning spaces and educational institutes have been and are motivated to approach a child with simple and silly methods exactly like our life does to us, yes, with an intentional nudge to explore and learn new (if intended so). However, our parent partners can explore, understand, and look forward to witnessing us using different world-class pedagogies and philosophies-Old-age pedagogy of our Sanatan (Gurukul education system), Finland education system, Giju Bhai Badeka, Maria Montessori, Fredrich Froebel, Waldorf, Sudbury Valley, SummerHill, Rabindranath Tagore, Reggio Emilia and many more to create an unstated curriculum and paraphernalia for better absorption of what we want them to learn.

In a nutshell: Please don’t worry about these names: Great philosophers and pedagogies always have advocated and propagated liberation and enlightenment of the child through their education methods and approaches.

How are mathematical skills developed at Diversity?

Explanation: Developing mathematical skills in a child is like opening the universe to a child and it must be done thoughtfully.

For financial literacy, in layman’s language, according to the NEP-2020, the number world must make sense to the child at least as much as he can go alone for a brief shopping by the age of EIGHT in a well-child case.  Children with differently-wired abilities might take more or less time.

How is reading taken care of at Diversity?     

Reading opens doors for opportunities and self-growth.

We apply many approaches (top-down and bottom-up) to achieve learning reading. Nurturing reading further is taken care of by conducting programs like spell-o-thons, word-o-thons, and many more such activities throughout the year.

How are writing skills understood at Diversity?

Explanation: Writing is a big and complex skill and takes time and support to work on. Since our Vividers are being exposed to it from their childhood, studio facilitators are given the liberty to choose the mode of writing and flexibility of achieving various milestones for each child. Spending more time on writing at school and depriving a child of other activities does not serve the purpose. Each child has a personality and we guide each parent, on how to support us and what to look forward to.

This niche skill is to be carried out with a goal of continuous-development in mind all the time and the parents are guided as per the child’s personality.

That said, it is a beautiful skill to help sharpen your child’s brain. Parents out there are requested NOT to hurry or be pushy.

Studios allow mixed-age groups.

Explanation: Our Vividers have a timetable to group with a similar age group to achieve specific goals and learn concepts in a timeframe. However, activities like free play, festivals, clubs, field trips, and indoor games go with mixed age groups on certain identified days to reach their maximum learning capabilities and live a fulfilling childhood.

Please note that children know how to find compatible people, eventually, they discover their peers irrespective of their age. However, we have discovered that children love their age children and gang up with them. No need to worry about same-age play.

Note: Diversity invites all types of personalities, social strata, and neurodiversity. We don’t have a quota system. However, children with neuro-difficulties (with no labels given) need to be taken care of differently and would require a shadow adult to support the child and the system. This requires one-on-one meetings and discussions before the enrolment.

Vividers learn to follow their timetables and days without a timetable.

Explanation: Children come to school with the trust that it is a safe community to grow in being away from their families. The Vividers slowly get to remember their timetable and maintain it in a self-disciplined fashion as we do in real life. They learn to follow the school ground rules with us and discipline themselves. Diversity understands a great definition of discipline.

In the whole gamut of planning, we have figured out that 86% of the children quickly self-regulate themselves to follow the routine. However, some children take time to follow their timetables according to their needs, interests, and trust in the environment. They need more adult intervention and support. Diversity stays in touch with their parents while settling them in the system in a peaceful fashion and continues to keep adults’ FOMOs (Fear of missing out) and insecurities away.

Exploration and understanding of environmental sciences is what a Vivider wants

Explanation: Our Vividers can choose to do and not to do as per their interest and needs things related to info gathering and exploring it. Diversity is not going to shove/push info in their minds.

Please note in the current times, knowledge’s shelf-life is 6-to-12 weeks, and how funnily and fast, it reinvents itself. And also that, learning and life happen to them what they want, not what a child should know as per the syllabus or in competition what other schools’ children know.

Vividers can eat at any time, i.e., means whenever they are hungry, they can go to the café area and eat.

Explanation: Please note that at Diversity, we don’t force our Vividers to eat a portion that you are sending or put them in a timetabled eating schedule. They can go by their hunger time.  Also please note that children are social beings. They love to eat with their friends. Following a discipline happens by itself. Diversity gives it time

School timings: 9:30 am to 3:00pm with the flexibility of having the Vividers with us for FIVE hours.

Explanation: Our parents can choose the drop our Vividers off between 8:30 am to 10:00 am and get their child to attend any FIVE hours of the session. Vividers get to choose and go to the Studios where their facilitators are available at that time.

At Diversity, the adult-child ratio is 1:6 to 1:20 depending on the activity being conducted.

Explanation:  Diversity works in a studio model, not in a classroom model. Facilitators around them are to support all types of growth of our Vividers. Some activities require adults to be active partners whereas, in others, they are not required to handhold or spoon-feed children. The pertinent question should be how inclusive and warm the environment at Diversity is.

When the style of learning is heuristic, not mollycoddling, this question becomes irrelevant.

Also, when a child is stuck with a concept and not following it, he/she anyway requires 1:1. Diversity tries its best to address every child’s individual needs.

Curiosity, Discipline, Finishing Skills, Respect, Gratitude subsequently-peacefulness and happiness in every community member are part of the Diversity culture.  We keep reinforcing our conscious efforts relentlessly to uphold the culture of fairness and equitability. 

Explanation: For our Vividers’ happiness and peacefulness and their whole being, all of the above characteristics are of utmost importance. Children coming from diverse backgrounds eventually find themselves in harmony with the culture. They take their own sweet time to get an understanding of the culture; Diversity lays the playing grounds for effortless adaptation of the same. Diversity finds parents as its cohesive partners and seeks help as and when required.

a) Our Vividers have the facility of attending the Fortnightly General Meeting (FGM) where each stakeholder including our helping staff can raise their concerns, share their ideas, and get their problems solved. Even the youngest has a vote to raise his/her problems and get them solved.

b) The Fairness Committee (FC) helpssolve their problems in their hands and get them justice. Our parents can choose to participate and work in our FGMs and FC.

What side effects that our parents may expect during settling into such an independent learning environment

Explanation: Parents can expect misplacing belongings, unfinished tasks, unfinished tiffin boxes, soiled clothes, messy clothes, open lids of tiffin boxes, complaints of feeling bored at school, and many more. Vividers are given time, opportunities, and required emotional and physical support to fix their basic self-management and life skills. It can take one day to one year or longer. Our partner parents are made aware to stay informed and support us in children’s self-discovery and self-sufficiency. 

What learning opportunities and spaces are currently available in Diversity

Numeracy (financial literacy) and number world, geometry, languages (English, Hindi, and Telugu), music (Hindustani classical, semi-classical, and light music of rhymes), dance (freestyle and eurhythmics), stories, drama& talkie, leadership & presentation programs, unstructured sports and outdoor play, art &craft, needlework, mud and sand, culinary arts, projects around real-life skills (as small as learning arranging books in the library to big like design-thinking real-time project), project-based learning (like making a model for exhibitions), festivals and cultural events, reading, sciences, and other do-it-yourself activities, and Abacus.

Currently, the following clubs are running in Diversity but they are NOT limited to:

Nerdy, Readers, Sports, Mathemagic, Theatre, Dance, Creative Club, Play without goals.

Individual, partner, and team outdoor and indoor play, and sports (Invasion Games, Net Games. Fielding & Striking Games, and Target) are unstructured and go by their choice.

Explanation: Vividers are at their liberty to explore and play any games until the age of 12. However, for their all-around physical development, we play all sorts of games with no or some specific goals in mind, above all their physical development. Designing such games according to their growing needs with a scientific approach, Diversity keeps itself abreast all the time. 

a) Please note that Yoga and Meditation are compulsory for all the Vividers. Given the age of the children, it is not possible to make them do it forcefully; however, Vividers have to be in the environment in the same Yoga room, and they gradually start liking it.

b) Under the sun play is compulsory for all the Vividers in the park near the dog park in our vicinity.

What Technological tools are available for the children to explore

In a small computer lab, the children have all the minimum required tools (a printer, desktop computer, mics, etc.) and technology to explore with us, and the children aged SIX and above study computers and basic coding concepts in Diversity throughout the year.

Music

Vocal (Hindustani Classical, semiclassical in multiple languages, rhymes, and poems) 

Basic Percussion instruments such as bongos and other simple tools are a regular unstructured way of doing is available per the needs and age of our Vividers.

Being a busy or naïve parent, what should I do at home for basic numeracy and literacy and other EVS subjects, does the school provide books or study materials?

Explanation: The school procures and facilitates Cambridge books for the grades agreed upon by both the school and the parents and recommends some books according to the child’s milestones, the parents can buy from outside to help the child and the school for reinforcements of the concepts.

That said, the books are reference material for its parents.

We, at Diversity, go bagless education throughout the year.

We don’t force children to use books for learning and take it as proof of learning.

We believe in the learnability of a child, not what a child should learn.

Let’s enjoy colorful books with our children without forcing anything on them.

After Covid-era, the school works in all modes (Online, in-person, and blended) to take care of different requirements of different children at the discretion of the school. This is NOT a replacement for a regular in-person school  

Explanation: Optimizing resources and results, saving time, reaching better, increasing efficiency of operations, and above all diversifying ways of meeting the needs of the stakeholders are always part of Diversity.

Parents’ partnership and volunteering are also incorporated every year

Explanation: That’s internally discussed and done with the parents after our Vividers start school in June.

The assessment system of the progress of a child’s developmental milestones and skills at Diversity is continuous and formative in various forms and technology-assisted.

Explanation: At Diversity, grades, marks, or any scales are NOT used to measure the dynamic growth of a Vivider. It is not logical. Rather, it is a documentation and presentation of the ongoing growth of exposure and learning experiences. Interpretation and analysis are done to take the corrective measures to stay on the path and to decide the action plans. Such exercises are done to correct the system errors, modify facilitators’ training and education, and mend parenting styles. This is a continuous exercise. A transcript is given once a year to parents for the child’s record’s sake.

How do we do facilitators’ training

Explanation:  It is a continuous process.  The facilitators have individual and group training sessions throughout the year.