Education at ATS Valley School, Derabassi, Punjab is based on the premise that each child must be nurtured independent of their peers and should be encouraged to compete only with herself/himself.
Ranked among the top 10 schools in Mohali, the school takes pride in its innovative curriculum and carefully designed research backed programmes that ensure holistic student development.
True North Programme: Building Character
Based on a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania (USA), this programme is based on the premise that individuals need an internal compass to guide them in their life’s journey. Our forefathers used a compass to guide them while traveling and before the introduction of the compass, they were guided by the Polestar. Today, when people travel for adventure, they still use a compass. Several functionalities of the smartphone are based on the GPS, which is also a compass.
Therefore, if we see life as a journey and an adventure, then we will agree that there should be a compass to guide us to our destination.
The compass inside all of us should point to a direction called the True North. It is the orienting point, the fixed point in a constantly spinning world that helps one stay on track as an individual. The True North guides us through life with the right values and aims and the correct means to get there, knowing that the shortest and easiest route is not always the correct one. It also helps us choose and stay on the longer and more difficult, but correct, path.
ATS Valley School, Derabassi, Punjab offers the True North programme from LKG onwards, customised at various levels to suit students’ ability to comprehend. It is a character building programme wherein children are taught through different activities embedded in their regular learning schedule.
This programme helps promote self-control, sharing and caring, gratitude, responsibility, curiosity, honesty among students. Parents are also encouraged to engage and assist their children in assimilating the learning acquired through this programme. The well-designed modules include questionnaires and activities to ensure an engaging and interactive learning experience.
Lesson Planning & Dynamic Curriculum: Nurturing lifelong learners
A unique feature of education at ATS Valley School, Derabassi, Punjab is the creative and innovative Lesson Plans. Be it teaching between the lines, teaching outside the topic or a full-fledged 360 degree plan, it helps us excel and distinguish ourselves from our counterparts.
Focus on ‘Reading Skills’ from Early Years
Right from Kindergarten, we focus on the reading skills of a child. Reading from the early years ensures better development of a child’s brain. Reading is also an easy way to improve language skills and enhance concentration/focus.
Teaching between the lines
They say there is learning in between each line of a chapter. That’s how we make our lesson plans. For eg. a word or a sentence and the maximum knowledge and information we can find about that.
360 degree Lesson Planning
360 degree learning is the idea that all aspects of our surroundings and experiences impact how we learn. It encompasses the student’s environment and the way space is used, how teachers plan and deliver lessons and the way in which students engage with the subject and their peers. Teaching a chapter as a whole isn’t enough. Hence, our focus remains on teaching all components of a chapter in detail.
Teaching outside the topic
This focuses on the What, When, Why, How, Where, and Who related to the chapter and it is done before actually teaching the topic/chapter from the book i.e. before opening the book.
X-Why-Z Programme: Developing mental capacity
Curiosity is something that sparks imagination and creativity. For curiosity building, we have introduced an X-why-Z programme from grade I onwards that encourages a child to ask a ‘Why’ question every day.
This programme effectively helps create a learning environment where children question everything which not only fosters curiosity but also hones their research skills.
Everyday, each child submits a question on a rotation basis and this question is displayed on the notice board the entire day.
The ‘question of the day’ from each class is discussed and an appropriate answer is figured out. The very next day, the students and their respective class teachers have a rigorous discussion on it followed by an explanation of the answers. Only the question which is based on a child’s observation is chosen and not those that are sourced from a book/encyclopedia.
A few interesting questions asked by our students are:
- Why does the tongue rest on the palate?
- Why does cold water and warm water taste different?
- Why does the wheat flour, which is white in colour, turn brown when you add water to it?
- Why do chargers come only in Black and White colours?
Masti Ki Pathshala: Building confidence
Confidence is an important aspect for a child’s mental as well as physical growth. We ensure that every child becomes stage friendly and confident enough to face a crowd through the following activities.
- Speaking Activities- We have child-sized podiums in each class. Students of each class engage in speaking activities on the podium which helps them overcome their fear of speaking in front of an audience.
- Besides that, we conduct Masti Ki Pathshala twice a year which is yet another platform where they showcase their talent.
- We also conduct MGA — Monthly General Assessment of children to keep track of their progress (outside academics) wherein every child is assessed, discussed and steps are taken for their further development. Areas where we assess a student in an MGA are peer relations, hygiene, food habits, etc.
The aforementioned programmes are a testament of our focus on holistic student development. At ATS Valley School, Derabassi, Punjab we are committed to nurture our students as hard working, fearless, confident, aware, thoughtful, social and self-sufficient citizens of the country.