Pawan Kalyan - Proud Parent of Oakridge International School

Tollywood's most favorite actor, Pawan Kalyan, the proud parent of Oakridge International School shares his experiences on the school.

Fish Pond Clean up - Experience of a student on her CAS activity

IB has been a new, but so far a pleasant experience for me and one of the many new initiatives and activities that I am experiencing include the concept of CAS. For our second CAS activity, a group of students from 11^th IB set out to clean up the junior school fish pond. Beforehand, several of the seniors had mockingly warned me about this activity, and naturally, I was apprehensive and reluctant to get filthy.

 

I promised myself that I would be open-minded during this activity, so I immediately jumped into the pond in order to catch the fish, along with a pair of hot-pink gloves that I brought along for my comfort. The larger fish wriggled and squirmed out of my hands with no effort, so I settled on catching the smaller fish, which politely obliged. 

After removing the fish from the pond, more students began to wade through the waters, and we started to scrub the stones and sides of the pond. The real job was cleaning up the pebbles which were covered in a slimy green coating that was stubbornly removed. I quickly fell into a pattern which allowed me to effectively clean the stones, chatting with my neighbors in the process. As it had only been a few weeks since IB had started this was a great activity in which I bonded with the other students, outside a classroom environment. It gave me the opportunity to collaborate and work to achieve a common goal together, and get to know each other along the way. I can truly say that I have become closer to a couple of my ‘fish pond buddies’, however I will always remember their stench afterwards.

The scrubbing ended and we refilled the pond and returned the fishes back to their now restored home. This was my favorite part of the activity: releasing the fish, and watching them with contentment, swimming around in the now clear and glistening waters.

This activity was a new challenge for me, but had many useful outcomes. Firstly it was a joint successful effort, but every single student showed perseverance by not giving up as it was a tiring activity. In addition, I think we all developed a couple of home cleaning skills, which most of us did not have before.

At the beginning of this activity I was not very happy with the idea of wading around in murky water. However near the end of the activity, after getting over my initial fear of becoming dirty, I jumped into the water to give a helping hand without hesitation.

“Management of Children with Learning Difficulties”- Workshop

(Dyslexia and Attention problems)

Venue :Montessori Training and Research Center

The workshop was organized by Dr. Usha Naik a leading child psychiatrist DAAP and Mrs. Manisha president [DAAP]. Mrs. Begum Bilquis Latif was the guest of honour. Workshop was attended by teachers of many reputed Montessori schools in Hyderabad.

The 2 day workshop dealt with 4 main aspects

· Sensory Processing Disorder by Mrs. Farida Raj- Special Educator and Author of the book “Breaking Through

· Assessment by Mrs. Pooja Jha- Rehabilitation Psychologist

· Behaviour Management by Mrs. Gouri Reddy- Child Psychologist

· English Teaching by Ms. Afshan Jabeen- Dyslexia Therapist and AMI Montessorian.

The main aim of the workshop was to sensitize parents and empower teachers towards children having difficulties such as ADD, ADHD and slow learners. The session emphasized on “Specific Learning” issues at school level and showed ways to recognize and help children ‘at risk’. We also got to know of diverse teaching techniques in English for such special children.

During the sessions, Dr. Shakila Naidu added valuable insights and shared her views on the topics covered. The OIS

S.I unit teachers got an opportunity to present the techniques/ teaching strategies used in our resource room.

The presentation on behaviour management was beneficial; we could implement a few activities in the 3B classes in our school.

In all, it was a good learning experience.

Face painting competition

   

The amphitheatre came alive with lots of colour and life as we witnessed the inter house face painting competition where the student artists painted their models unleashing their hidden potential . The participation from all the four houses was overwhelming, as many as 120 students participated in this event making it a grand success. Instantly the students were metamorphosed into beautiful imaginary beings and animated faces.They came out with their artistic best and creative ideas.This event created an aura of excitement and festivity in the school campus. The students of Preprimary were on their healthy food campaign and were awestruck by the on-going activity.The sight took the breath away from the passers by for a moment when they saw a number of students over the steps of amphitheatre engaged in this wonderful activity.

The recipient of overall trophy for the first place was Rabindranath Tagore and 2^nd place was shared between Mother Teresa and Amartya Sen.

Principal’s Morning Assembly Message

 

“I witnessed the manifestation of the Oakridge vision,”...this was Capt.Bajaj speaking on the 10k run in the morning assembly. He said he took great pride in the fact that there were lot of students from Oakridge who took part in the run."I am really proud,” he said and I feel, “WE have been successful in giving good values and education to our students.” Sharing his thoughts with the students he also added that he believed education is a community issue and not always confined to teaching in a four walled room.

“It was wonderful to observe,” he said “the Oakridgers picking up bottles that were discarded and appealing to people not to litter which reflected the positive influence which the school has through the CAS, Green Rangers and various activities undertaken in school.”

The Principal also shared a mail from a IB student Srimukh , which speaks on investing time productively so that one can reap the benefits in terms of happiness and peace. It says....

Imagine there is bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank. Its name is time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance, it allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against 'tomorrow'. You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success. The clock is running. Make the most of today.

Green Drive...bl​ogpost

Education and awareness are essential elements of the ‘Green Ranger s ‘ initiative.

A Green Drive was planned, organised and conducted  in school  by the students of Grade XI IB on the 29 of November in the school campus. . Their efforts are truly commendable. The students distributed 350 bamboo shoots generously donated by the A.P.Forest Department. All the children were given some information about the plants they had acquired. The response was overwhelming and the shoots were picked up by enthusiastic junior school students within minutes. 

Padma Priya one of the students actively participated in the activity besides Apoorv Saraogi, Akshat and Vivek from the Green Rangers Club. There were 15 other student volunteers who were also helped by the junior school children in shifting the plants inside the campus. It was good to see the junior school students  put up a sincere effort in helping their seniors. This initiative by the students goes to reflect their understanding of the role of plants and animals in nature, their commitment in promoting tree plantation and in creating awareness on the ill effects of deforestation.

To make sure everyone associated with OIS  gets a tree friend we will be getting more saplings and doing a repeat performance of the  event.

Green Rangers Club