Children’s education involves two major institutions – the family and the school. We will briefly outline the school’s role in fostering children’s development.
The primary function of the school is to provide academic instruction to the child. The school should present concepts and ideas in a clear and engaging manner that enables the child to comprehend and apply them. The school should also offer physical education to the child. The school has a unique advantage of having a large and diverse cohort of children in each age group, which creates a competitive environment for sports and other activities. Moreover, the school is an irreplaceable setting for social interaction and collaboration among children. The school should ensure that children learn to work in groups and adapt to others. The school should also cultivate the child’s creativity and artistic skills. All this can be achieved in the Holy Faithann Way, only because of … Planning
Planning is our secret ingredient for success. We are passionate about planning every aspect of our education. We have a clear schedule for how much time we devote to academics, sports, and other learning activities. This also allows us to plan ahead for the non-academic events that make our education fun and engaging, such as science fairs, fun fairs, gatherings, Diwali carnivals, and more. A Day……………At School Many parents and students wonder why they should opt for a regular six hour school instead of a day-boarding school or a residential school. We will explain the philosophy and benefits of Holy Faith school, which follows the Holy Faithain Way™.
A regular six hourschool is different from a residential school. In that it allows students to spend quality time with their families every day. This way, they can learn about their own values, customs, traditions, and beliefs from their parents and relatives. They can also develop emotional ties and bonds with their family members, which are essential for their well-being and growth. At Holy Faith, we respect the ancient Gurukul system of education, but we also believe that students need to balance their academic and personal lives in the modern world.
A regular six hour school is also different from a day-boarding school in that it offers a more comprehensive and holistic approach to learning. At Holy Faith, we do not just teach lessons in a traditional way; we expose students to concepts through discussions, activities, thinking and debating sessions, and multimedia resources. We use e-Learning as an aid, not as a replacement for teaching. We also ensure that students are physically active for about an hour and a half every day, and that they participate in various co-curricular activities like drawing, craft, music, drama, labs, computers, and more. These activities help students develop life skills such as dealing with constraints and controlling emotions.
As you can see, Holy Faith’s regular six-hour school; it is a unique and innovative way of education that prepares students for the challenges and opportunities of the future. By choosing Holy Faith school, you are choosing the best for your child. PROGRAMS LEARNED IN ACADEMICS We envision education as a holistic and enlightening experience that does not stress or bore the children. We believe that the optimal way of learning is through individualized and interactive instruction that allows the child to learn at his / her own pace. However, this is not always feasible or desirable in terms of cost and engagement. Therefore, we have devised a ‘golden mean’ that combines the best of both worlds: programmed learning.
Programmed learning is a method of designing a sequence of instructional events that produce a consistent and measurable effect on the behavior of each students. The learning material is presented in a kind of textbook, computer, or teaching machine. The medium presents the material in small steps or larger chunks. After each step, students are given a question to test their comprehension. Then they are shown the correct answer immediately. This means that students make responses at all stages and receive immediate feedback.
The advantages of programmed learning are:
- It allows students to learn at their own pace and level of difficulty.
- It reduces the need for teacher supervision and intervention.
- It provides immediate reinforcement and motivation for students.
- It ensures mastery of the material by requiring students to answer correctly before moving on.
We implement programmed learning in our school in the following ways:
We give students first exposure to a concept with the help of multimedia-rich presentations. The content of the presentations is designed in such a way that there are lots of comparisons to known situations, ideas slowly build up on one another, and there are lots of recaps in between. This makes the introduction to a concept gradual and interesting for the students.
We answer students’ difficulties in the class, ask them pointed and thought-provoking questions, and help them assimilate the knowledge they have gathered. After each concept in the lecture, we pause and ask questions. The student has to answer them. The session proceeds for each student at a different pace. Once the whole lecture is completed in this way, we can safely say that most of the students have attained basic proficiency in that topic.
We also have infinite problem-generating widgets, which help students get enough practice for mathematics.
We have classroom sessions where we ask students questions that require them to give their opinion or find their own solution to a problem. There are arguments, discussions, debates in these sessions. We also answer the classic ‘standard’ questions in class. We utilize the advantages of having a group to the fullest.
We ask students to write on our printed worksheets, which is easy for them, as they have now understood concepts very well.
We give students access to the electronic lectures and quizzes at home. Parents can set tasks for their children on weekends, just like we do in school.
We give students projects and research assignments that are related to the topics. Some assignments involve actually performing a certain experiment, another may involve reading a book, interviewing a person, reading an article, commenting on a situation after doing research etc.
Therefore, in the Holy Faith ,we take care of everything your child needs at an academic level. The child gets revision, repetition, instant evaluation and parents and teachers get detailed reports on all these activities. This helps the child understand, prepare for the examination and if the results do not match a child’s potential, repetition and more practice can be done. SPORT As the popular Indian saying goes Sar salamat toh pagadi pachaas (Only if your head is in good condition, you can try out fifty different hats) we know the importance of having a sound mind in a sound body. But our idea of teaching sports goes far beyond that.
As parents and guardians, we know that having sharp academic skills is really important to succeed in the real world. But, all those skills are useless if one does not know how to handle himself, present himself and deal with peers. In the real world, we do not function as solo individuals; we are usually part of a team. We follow sometimes, lead at others and work with a group for a certain end goal the rest of the times. The task could be as involving as putting a man on the moon or as simple as getting a presentation ready we still work as a team. So, we need to teach our children how to be a part of a team.
When you want to make a child understand teamwork, leadership, strategy, the ideas of winning and losing, what better way to do it than do it through sports? The sports ground becomes the classroom for all these real life skills. Children are taught the basic skills in a sport. Then they are told the rules. They know what is allowed and what is not. Then, they get to play a game. They have to use the skills they have learnt, co-ordinate with their team, communicate quickly, understand body language, control their emotions and try to win. If they do not win, they have to learn to accept defeat, figure out what went wrong and sharpen their skills. Then, they try to win the next time.
Isnt that exactly what we do in real life? With sports teaching children so much and building character, it is really hard to imagine an academic program without sports in it. Every school must teach children sports. By sports we mean proper sports, not just a PT class or allowing children to run around randomly.
So, learning sports helps our children build character. This is the real personality development. You cannot develop a childs personality by attending a 21 day crash course by some fancy socialite. This is the grooming that the child receives to make him or her ready for the real world.
And that is not all. The child actually learns to play so many different games from class 1 to 10. Even after the child leaves school, as a young adult, he or she can continue playing the game as a hobby. This maintains good health and is a great way to relive stress, make friends and have a good time. It keeps the child busy and away from bad influences. It is a known fact that people who are into sports as a serious hobby are less likely to indulge in alcohol, tobacco, drugs and other bad habits in later life.
The next big advantage is that as all these sports are compulsory, each and every child has to play. Normally, the parent has to take initiative to take the child for a sports class. What are the criteria that help you choose a class? You may ask questions like is it close by? What is the timing? Are there kids my childs age in the class? Is it affordable? If most of these questions have favourable answers, you go ahead and join.
Your own inclination also has a major role in choosing the activity for the child. So, if you were the table tennis champion in college, your child joins a table tennis class. Well, there is nothing wrong with that. But those are not the right reasons to join a sports class either. And in an environment like this, many children end up not learning anything at all.
If the school integrates sports in its program, no child is left out. When the children of a class learn together, the competition is excellent they are all roughly the same age and evenly matched. They understand each other better and get to see each other in a whole new atmosphere. Kids discover new talents within themselves too. A child who is not doing so well in the class may receive great praise from a sports coach. This gives a child a good feeling and the urge to try better in other areas too. When all children getting instruction are the same age, the program can be properly designed too. They all start at the same time so the lessons are structured properly, they build on top of each other and children get fairly evaluated from time to time.
This simply cannot happen in a setting other than a school. In an outside sports class, different children join at different times, their ages are different and they are all at different levels too. Training just cannot be as effective. Sometimes the space and equipment are not adequate either. This problem wont occur in a school.
Over the years we have seen that children who are really good in one sport are also good at many others. We could find this out because we give children exposure to so many different kinds of sports. If the child had joined a hobby class outside of school, parents would not have experimented with so many different activities. Imagine how much the child would have missed out!
Competitive Sports: Many people may now pose a question because we want to give the children exposure to so many activities, the child is not getting enough training in one sport to be competitive. Not true! Remember we are two bodies grooming the child : home and school. At school the child learns about new things. If the school finds a certain child exceptionally gifted at basketball, the school talks to the parents. We then advise you on how the child can continue training, what level we think the child can reach, what outside competitions we think the child should participate in etc.
And in whatever way we can, we also try to accommodate the child for special training. So you can take the child for coaching after school to hone those skills. The best part is you know exactly what to do and how to do it now. There is no vague effort that wastes the time and energy of both parents and children. For the other children who are not state and national level sports material, there is no loss either. The children attain a reasonable proficiency in many different activities that enables them to enjoy many games later on. You know that you enjoy watching a tennis match more if you have actually played tennis. So our children are better spectators too!
BAGLESS DAY: Holy Faith English School is a one-of-a-kind institution that provides children with a plethora of activities without burdening them. In fact, Holy Faith has been a bagless school from 2023 .Recently, the Human Rights Division and the education department have recognized the physical stress caused by heavy school bags and have demanded a reduction in their weight. However, Holy Faith is ahead of the curve. From its inception, Holy Faith envisioned a school that would provide a wide range of activities without requiring students to carry bags.
So how do we achieve this? Through creative thinking and careful planning! We identified the items that students typically carry and eliminated the need for them. Students have their own set of textbooks at home, while those needed in school are kept on campus. As a result, no textbooks need to be transported between home and school.
In place of notebooks, workbooks, and supplementary books, we provide students with worksheets – both printed and plain. Each period’s activity is planned at the beginning of the year, with the necessary sheets printed and distributed to each class at the start of the period. These sheets include revision materials, learning exercises, and activities. Thanks to intensive planning, all activities are carried out systematically and uniformly, with continuous improvement year after year.
Being bagless does not mean that parents are unaware of their child’s progress in school. Children take home the sheets they write on in school every day, as well as any printed sheets given to them in class. At the beginning of the year, children receive files for each subject and are expected to file these sheets when they return home each day. As a result, by the end of the year, these children have written and studied significantly more material than students in traditional schools. The entire education system is documented and improved upon annually, resulting in a higher academic quality than any other school.