Orchid Theme Fair gets its due at World Education Summit

The school made its mark in Innovation in Math Education. Several schools vied for the Innovation in Math Education award and The Orchid School made it to the top three.

Around 50 schools across the country were nominated for different categories.

The summit was marked by conferences,exhibitions,workshops and stakeholders in the field of education from all over the world attended.

“We were expecting to win as we had submitted a detailed proposal supported by video recording of the fair,photographs,documents and powerpoint presentations,” says Lakshmi Kumar,director of the school.

The fair,says Sangeeta Kapoor,primary coordinator,was the culmination of a process that began with planning,exploring,brainstorming and zeroing-in on concepts. It culminated in an exhibition-cum display,with children taking the lead role guided by the teachers.

“To begin with,teachers went through training to learn techniques of experiential learning. Children from nursery to Class X were trained to follow a systematic process of exploring the experience,learning and then moving on to presentation. To ensure clarity of concepts,exposure was given through games,panel discussion,visits,sessions with guest speakers and so on,” she said,adding themes like shapes,mathematics in architecture,symmetry,tricks,puzzles,numbers in daily life and banking were explored. Projects were based on concepts like geometry,measurements,golden ratio,origami,data handling,Vedic math,unequal balance and more. “Children were able to relate these concepts to real life. For instance,triangles are used in architecture as it provides additional strength the structures. At home,various concepts are used in day-to-day life like time,measurement for cooking and designing the house among others,” she added.

Elucidating on details that must have impressed the jury,Kumar said,“The fair was taken beyond textbooks through dance and music. Concepts like geometric and arithmetic progression,sequence,symmetry,angles,time and integral components of mathematics were showcased through songs,music,Kathak,Bharatnatyam,and contemporary dance.”

A documentary by Purnima Karhade,a teacher with The Orchid School and Jaya Ramesh,the mother of a student of the school,also featured at the fair. The duo,with a handycam in tow,explored nooks and corners of the city asking people including a tailor,vegetable seller and dry cleaner,the importance of calculations and numbers in their profession.

Talking about the challenges faced by the school authorities while putting up the unique fair,Kapoor said it was difficult to keep all adults aligned to the theme. A lot of time went into making children understand and explore the projects. Besides,it was a difficult task identifying age-appropriate projects.