Highlights this year include a school fair where children sold handicrafts and food they made to the school community. There were games to play and other activities which were a big hit with parents and teachers alike. In September, Class 12 girls were taken on an overnight field trip to Delhi where they visited museums, temples, Red Fort in Old Delhi, and some famous markets. The girls found it exhilarating – the one downside was the pollution!

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We had a wonderful Diwali celebration at school, with a cultural programme of drama, Ramayana recitation and song, all drawing on stories around Diwali. You can find a short video here:

Usually we just let each class decorate their classrooms as they wish, and then teachers and we as the family behind the school tour each room and admire what the students have done. This year, because we won’t do a major performance like we did in January last year, we decided to prepare a short play about the origins of one of the key Diwali traditions; special decoration of the corridors of the school for all to enjoy, and some singing from the Ramanyana Hindu epic of the story of Ram and Sita which is what Diwali celebrates (the end of their 14 year exile in the forest). This last part is done in a form of Hindi that is a bit like what Shakespeare is to English, so every five lines for the 41-line text, there will be a pause for explanation of the story in modern Hindi. 
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We also had a bazaar for the children to sell crafts they had made, as well as breakfast and snack food that they had prepared, some at home and some at school. All of our student vendors sold out and it was an interesting experience for them – these children don’t usually get to do much with money!

We have started a Debate Team, and our students are going to state and local competitions and winning basically all of the time just because of the reasonable preparation that we help them with. In fact, it’s mostly Gaurav helping to test their thinking to develop their ideas and prepare. The sad thing is that most other teams appear at these competitions entirely unprepared, so we are actually someone disappointed that there aren’t teams giving our students more of a challenge.

Similar can be said for our Taekwondo team. Just yesterday, 31 October 2023, our team came back with several first and second place achievements in another regional competition.
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On a less-positive note, this year has seen a rise in illnesses with many students, staff and family members having to take considerable time to recover. There hasn’t been anything in the media about whether this might be a strain of COVID, but the illnesses have been serious with many people being hospitalised and some even dying. We hope this situation will soon improve.

On 9 January our talented Taekwondo fighters travelled to Bijnor to take part in an inter-district competition. Our six fighters came away with 3 gold medals, 1 silver medal and 2 bronze medals. They really enjoyed the day and we are very proud of them considering that there were thousands of competitors present.