With each coming year, India is on its way to becoming one of the largest networks of education in the world. With the Indian education system making significant progress and reforms in recent years, educational opportunities are made available to all the segments of society, irrespective of the caste, creed, religion or socio-economic backgrounds. India being the home of traditional schooling since ages, due to the latest changes in technologies and teaching methods across the globe, creative/skill-based learning is on the rise and schools are changing their ways & routines on a regular pace. The learning environments in the schools are more competitive than ever before, and parents are in a constant search for a school that makes their children into abled individuals, ready to face the outside world. With a prime purpose of building young minds of today into spearhead dynamic personalities of the future, Podar International School is the unseen benefit to the complete schooling experience; a child would prefer for his/her academic endeavors.
Envisioned towards providing quality education with a focus on development that is in harmony with the needs of the individual child in an era of globalization, Sheth Anandilal Podar founded the Podar Group of Schools in 1927. What started as a single institution is now a multi-school, multi-city, multi-brand entity, ambitiously working towards building an institute of global standards.
Tapping into Social Change
Headquartered in Mumbai with seven schools in Santacruz, Podar Group of Schools is an ever-growing network, which has a wide spectrum of brands including pre-primary options, Primary, and Secondary schools, a Junior College, Part-Time Courses & Teacher-Training courses. At Podar you can pick from a wide choice of educational streams including CBSE, ICSE, Secondary School Certificate (State Board), IGCSE (Cambridge) & International Baccalaureate (IB).
With excellently recruited teaching team as well as the immense importance, technology is given at the school; Podar has managed to achieve laurels in the education field. Going ahead with the excellent record of accomplishment of serving the society via brilliant academic coaching, Podar International School, Magadi Road, Bengaluru was started in the year 2014. Since then, the school’s journey has been of learning and its efforts towards instilling strong leadership qualities among children are note-worthy.
During a brief conversation, we had with Mrs. Gayatri Vijendra, the principal at Podar International School about the working of the school, she stated – “Each student of our school, right from grade 1 gives his/her 100% towards being the best, as they are trained towards it”. We could not ask for a better explanation than this, regarding how the school benefits children in becoming unique yet talented individuals, ready to take their place outside into the real world.
Technology-based Teaching & Learning
Podar International School endorses and promotes technology in every aspect of teaching and learning. The use of technology in teaching strongly emphasized, with state-of-the-art computer labs and interactive boards installed in classrooms, the schooling experience is given an all-new definition.
We continued talking about how unique the teaching and learning of Podar International School is when compared to other schools in the neighborhood and the country, Mrs. Gayatri stated – “The best and the most unique part about our school is the curriculum”. Adding to her earlier statement she said – “Podar Group of Schools houses an innovation center in the headquarters, where more than 100 dedicated interdisciplinary educationists work towards creating a global standard curriculum”. The hard work and efforts put in by the personalities working at the innovation center, resulted in an integrated curriculum. Using the curriculum, lesson plans are made, and the teachers are trained in it well beforehand, so that they are at ease with the teaching and can provide smooth quality learning to the children. The integrated curriculum is at par at all the schools of the Podar family, and most importantly, the subject divide is omitted in this curriculum. A theme is picked, and based on the theme all the subjects and topics related to it are taught under one umbrella, giving rise to an increase in scientific temper among the children studying at the school.
For children from Junior Kindergarten to fifth standard, there is a special mnemonics program developed at Podar, which helps them build words via visual and verbal clues, in turn helping them develop their language skills. The school exhibits brilliance in every effort they put in. Proving this statement correct, the school believes in a concept called flipped classroom where there are no exams for Grade 1 & Grade 2, but only revision tests. Moreover, for classes beyond Grade 2, the school promotes a no exam policy. The school holds two tests every year and they are termed as ‘Cycle Tests’. These Cycle Tests have a thorough blueprint, from which 15-20% of the questions are application-based, giving an opportunity for the children at the school to be creative thinkers. Due to the intensive efforts put in by the school in terms of effective use of technology in education, the Podar Group of Schools was awarded the “Best ICT enabled school” in all of India.
Going down the lane
Currently Podar International School holds classes until Grade 10. Going ahead, the school has undergone inspection for starting a Senior-Secondary school, and are looking forward to do so in coming years. The school wants to take up the task of creating socially productive, knowledge-oriented individuals out of the young students studying at the school. In addition, the focus of the school is towards developing the three most important Ds’ in the life of a student – Devotion, dedication, and determination, in turn helping them excel in any endeavor they wish to pursue.
