Thursday, April 12, 2007

Big Day for Us


Our son Aadhu starts 'regular' school -- Class I -- today. He will go to the Kendriya Vidyalaya on our campus.

The KV system in Bangalore has this tradition of starting the academic year in April; classes go on until the first week of May, and resume at the end of the summer vacation in late June.

I have already written about how happy we have been with the Montessori system Aadhu went to during the last three years. It would have been lovely if he had had an opportunity to continue in that system, but there is no Montessori school in our neighbourhood for Classes I and beyond. So, our choice was made for us: he gets to go to the KV in our campus. And (at least) four of his friends from our residential complex are with him in the same class!

He is excited about his new school. So are we.

13 Comments:

  1. Rahul Siddharthan said...

    Congratulations! I've always felt that the most important thing in a school is not the quality of the teaching but the quality of the classmates and the general atmosphere. At KV IISc this should not be a problem.

    The teachers matter too in that they should not be actively nasty people, and at least a few of them should be encouraging and enthusiastic, but it's ok if they aren't brilliant at what they teach.

  2. anandi said...

    Congrats!!
    It's always a great feeling to start a new thing in life.

  3. Anonymous said...

    Abi,

    Convey our congratulations and wishes to Aadhu. I hope in the true Tamland style you will arrange for a band to play music as you take Aadhu across the road to KV (while you will be distributing Mysore Pa from Krishna sweets to junta on the way! :-)

  4. Anonymous said...

    Congratulations and best wishes to Aadhu,

  5. Tabula Rasa said...

    yes, and please don't hesitate to link to his blog :-D

  6. Anonymous said...

    Congrats Abhi! It must be a very very special day for you and family. Wish little Aadhu the very best.

  7. Krish said...

    Congrats and best wishes to Aadhu from both me and Aarthy.

  8. Venkat said...

    Abi,

    Good wishes for the podiyan! Brace yourself for excellent and difficult questions.

    Don't allow him to create myspace/facebook profiles for another 10 years, at least.

    I have a doubt; in India school year begins sometime in June/July, if I remember correct. This is unusual time of the year to begin schooling! What has changed since I left (12 years ago)?

  9. Rahul Siddharthan said...

    venkat -
    "I have a doubt; in India school year begins sometime in June/July, if I remember correct."


    It's entirely dependent on the school, though schools in one city tend to follow a similar pattern. What you say applies to most schools in Madras, but not in Delhi, for example. I suspect KVs all over the country follow the same calendar, since they were meant for children of government employees with transferable jobs.

  10. Patrix said...

    Congrats! And don't worry about him attending KV. At least his foundation was strong. I attended KV for three years and it wasn't bad.

  11. Abi said...

    Rahul, Anand, Guru, Surya, Krish, Prakash, Venkat, Patrix: Wow! Thanks for those greetings.

    Here's a 'kutti' (quick) update:

    We visited the school yesterday to check out the classroom; it's spacious (some room to run about!), and reasonably well equipped (children's classroom furniture are so cute!). And we met the teacher, who seems quite nice too.

    At the end of the day yesterday, Aadhu and his friends came home in a happy frame of mind, and were looking forward to getting back to the classroom the next day. So, it has been a good start.

    Rahul: Most of the kids from our apartment block are studying in our KV (some do, of course, go to places like DPS and NPS). So, you are right: we are happy that he has classmates that he knows (and likes) from our neighbourhood.

    I agree with you on the other stuff about the teachers too.

    TR: Sorry, Aadhu doesn't have a blog (as far as I know). I'm hoping that he will follow Venkat's advice about MySpace and FaceBook.

    Patrix: Thanks for that reassurance! KV is a pretty good school system -- and our campus KV is quite good. It's just that I liked the Montessori system better.

    Venkat: As I said in the post, this quirk seems to be unique to KV (and thanks to Rahul for coming up with more info). All the other schools generally follow the same routine, with 5-7 weeks of vacations during April/May/June. To my knowledge, only the KVs follow this system of starting the academic year in April, with vacations during May-June. As Rahul said, they probably follow this routine all over India.

  12. Anonymous said...

    Congratulations. Wish Aadhu well.

    I have heard that the KV system in Bangalore is quite good. One of my close friends, who went to a KV in Bangalore keeps boasting about synthetic tracks and all that.

  13. Anonymous said...

    abi,
    many congrats on this. and here is wishing young aadhu all the best.
    shekhar