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Latest news

Incredible exam results, 2024

9/8/2024

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We have had amazing success with our 12th Class (final year) Board Examination results which mark the completion of upper secondary school, and the end of our girls' time with us. In a state where 2.56million students sit this exam in our state, Uttar Pradesh, we had one girl ranked 5th and two ranked 7th, overall. The results were so amazing that TV news channels sent camera crews!

​We are really proud of our 2024 completers.
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Annual Update Letter

9/8/2024

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2024 Update letter
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Creative spirit

1/8/2024

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​Class 12 girls painting permanent decoration on our school walls.
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​Class 10 girls decorating their classroom for Diwali, on the theme of social media and mental health. 
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Class 12 girls preparing their working farm model for a science competition. The farm uses renewable energy sources.
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Annual Update Letter

15/11/2023

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You can read about the school’s progress over the course of summer 2022 – summer 2023 here.
Sponsor Update Letter
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Diwali 2023

15/11/2023

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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:
Diwali on YouTube
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For about two weeks leading up to Diwali, our pupils and staff are preparing and decorating the school. Here is a very short video of the girls preparing for Diwali (just over 2 minutes):
Preparing for Diwali
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!
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School Update

1/10/2023

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We have progressed well through the syllabus this year, and children are already starting to go back over what they have learned since April, revising and consolidating their knowledge, while some classes are still working through the syllabus. ​
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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.
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Chakarsi challenges

1/9/2023

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Life in Chakarsi comes with some interesting challenges, such as the presence of highly deadly snakes in this area in the summer months. Luckily this year we have a member of staff who is completely prepared to deal with this situation at school – our Taekwondo teacher knows how to tease them out of a hiding spot, to capture them safely so that they can be taken to a remote spot for release. 
Black cobra (1.5 mins)
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School Performance, 29 January 2023

1/3/2023

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It’s been slow for us to get to grips with video editing, but here we are, with a short, condensed video (shot in a limited way on an iPhone from the audience) from our special January performance. The theme was trying to achieve a more just society in India, and being true to Indian culture and heritage.

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​The programme consisted of segments of dance, most with a particular message of relevance to the theme, and also original dramas portraying life in India in various phases of history. Firstly there is pre-colonial India; then there is India under the British; followed by newly free India; and lastly by modern re-enslaved India, where people are chasing a certain westernised and culturally alienated version of success in education and careers. The day itself was a major success, with the audience of well over 1,300 people being riveted the entire time, with people talking about it in the local area for quite some time to come, and videos that audience members took of various performances circulating on the internet. 
School Performance (21 minutes)
School Performance - Uncut (38 minutes)
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Taekwondo Success!

21/1/2022

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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.
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Yet another COVID lockdown

21/1/2022

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4 JANUARY 2022 – AND THE RESUMPTION OF ONLINE CLASSES 10 JANUARY
Things were going pretty well, getting the children settle back into the routine of schooling. But now the Omicron variant is starting to spread in India and the government does not seem to view the importance of keeping schools open in the same way that other countries do. The government announced that schools would be closed down again from 4-14 January, however as with previous occasions we do expect this to be extended. 
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We are very disappointed about this renewed closure because we fear for our students, especially as major board exams are coming up next month for our class 10 and 12 girls.

In related news, our school has been selected as an examination centre which helps to raise the profile of our schools! Only female students from other schools will be coming in to sit exams with our girls. We hope very much that with online classes starting up again from Monday 10th that these board exam level students do not suffer too much in the run-up to the exams.
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Mateshwari Kanya Vidyapeeth
Chakarsi Village (old name Chak Aarfi), Uttar Pradesh, ​India
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Contact Us

Joanna Härmä
[email protected]

UK telephone
(Rosemary Härmä) 
+44 (0) 07837 775 190
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