Swami Vivekananda Vidyalaya, Lodhar
(Site visit, 25th June 2015 by Shaibal Dutta , Asha SV)
I reached IIT Kanpur around 11 AM. There I met Mahendra and few other members of JagritiBal Vikas Samiti. JBVS manages two projects in the out skirts of Kanpur, ApnaSkool and Sawami Vivekananda Vidyalaya, Lodhar. We immediately set out to visit SVV, which is up to 8th grade and lot of students graduating from ApanSkool, whose parents are settled in out skirts of Kanpur, join SVV. As per teachers of SVV the top ranking students in class 6-8th are from ApnaSkool only. The school was closed from summer vacation, so I didn't get chance to meet the students. I have prepared separate site visit report of ApnaSKool.
SVV has brick and cement school building. Some portion of the building is kuchha and made of mud. The school has the court yard which is used as assembly, prayer in the morning and kids also do PT (physical training) in the morning. The school has science lab. It contains some models e.g. Function of the heart and lungs, some dissected animals like frog, mice where displayed in the biology section of the lab. The library has about 4000-5000 books. These books include picture story books e,g, Amar chitrakatha, which students like to read a lot. There are some reference books related to syllabus for various grade levels, these books are used by teachers. There are some encyclopedias of world geography etc.
I visited some of the class room and in my opinionthe condition of the class rooms are below average. I think they can be at least white washed and can be decorate with the charts made by the students in various types of events e.g. science fairs, project works, sports events , Maps etc. This is not expansive and clean and decorate class room always provides a conducive environment for the studies.
There is a computer lab in the school with a server machine which is used to host the web page of the center. The computer lab has a 4 terminal machine, 3 laptops and 10 tablets.
Computer science teacher has taken the initiative to create website of the school , where the achievement of the school is show cased as well as the pictures of events in the school. The school also publishes the monthly newsletter. This is an initiative taken to enhance the creative writing skills. The students write poems, articles on various subjects by hand and them type them in computer. The teachers help them in proof reading and organization and print the new letter to be distributed in the school. Some of the copies of the news letters are attached with the report.The resources in the computer lab are used by the students to prepare the monthly newsletter and create projects of the curriculum (
Schools hours and schedule.8:30 AM to 4:00 PM. Sports activities of the school includes carom ,kabbdi, badminton, chess etc. Every day there is a activity period. The activities include art, library, science and games etc.
Here are the list of teachers and staffwho were present in the center at the time of visit .
Name / SubjectAnnpurna Dixit / Principal and Hindi/Sanskrit Teacher
Uday / Computer Teacher
Dhrurv / English Teacher
Manoj Kumar / Science/ Math Teacher
Pradeep / Science/ Math Teacher
AnuradhaMisra / Hindi/Sanskrit Teacher
Zuvaida Khan / Social Studies Teacher
Deepa / Hindi Teacher
Raju / Math Teacher (He also looks after accounts and office work for JagritiBikas office.)
There are about on average 25-35 students in each class. Each class has separate roll call register and each class has a class teacher who takes the attendance every morning and each month counting is done how many days the student has attended the school.
The teachers seem to be passionate about working with the students. The average salary of teachers is in the range of INR 6000/- to 10000/- . All the teachers are graduate and some of the teachers has bachelor’s degree in education. The structure of the organization is pretty much flat. The position of the principal is rotatory.
Three day SCIENCE WORKSHOP for SVV teachers was organized on Dec26-28 ,2014. Teachers were trained in topics of Electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics and ways to teach science topics to students in easy and entertaining ways. SVV also organized a three day MATHS WORKSHOP from 9th June to 11th June. This workshop was conducted by experts of Eklavya team. The training involved how to make teaching mathematics fun and interesting for kids The use of teaching aids, playful ways and encouraging environment helps students to learn.
After talking to teachers it looked like they have third monthly exams, half yearly and final exam. The passing cut off marks is 33% , 50% is second division and 60% is first division. As per principal about more than 50% students attain second division. The school has no child left behind policy. If couple of weak students the teachers arrange extra classes.
Every exam has 20% of the marks are allocated for project work. The project work involves writing the report on educational tour. This year students has visited city of Varanasi. I have got few projects file for the display. The reports are quite impressive. The social studies teacher also initiated a social science project for students of 7th grade, where the students visited neighboring areas. I have collected the project reports of the students.
SVV has great emphasis on science. School organized science mela on 14th of November. Students demonstrated P.T to welcome chief guest from IIT Kanpur. Besides students from SVV, students from various centers of ApnaSKool demonstrated their models and experiments. The science exhibition was visited by parents , students from nearby schools and professors and students of IIT Kanpur. .SVV celebrated their annual function on 29th march 2015. Students performed many plays and dance programs. Parents enjoyed the program very much.
Success Stories:
Glories Victory:
Like the last Six years this year also our school’s kids proved their talent at Kanpur Zoo. The occasion was “Wild Life Week 2014”.SVV is glad to inform you that our Students have won the prizes in Kanpur Zoo. Near about 20 schools participated in the events. details is below---
Dilip(4th) & Mustkeem (3rd) won Third prize in "Three Leg Race"
Dilip(4th) won First prize in "Frog Race"
Four students SVV have got prizes in environment -competition. This competition was held on 26th Aug.2012 by NSS students and ShikshaSopan of IIT Kanpur. In the first round 20 students were selected out of 300 students . 4 students (Tanya, Arjun, Subhash and Sandeep)of our school got place in top 20. In second round (31st Aug.2012) 3 students of our school were selected in top 8. In the final round (1st Sept. 2012)Tanya held 2nd position, Subhash 3rd position and Sandeep got 4th position.