India™s Premier Day-cum-Boarding Schools

To enable access to students from Indias geographically huge states, 61 well-reputed day schools have also invested in residential facilities for out-of-town students. These schools are rated and ranked separately this year Disaggregation and subdivision of the unwieldy league table of the countrys most well-known day schools into several rational categories has enabled a number of high-performing schools which were lost in the lengthy composite league table to move into the national limelight. To enable access to students from across Indias geographically huge states, if not from across the country, 61 well-reputed predominantly day schools have also invested in const-ructing and/or maintaining residential facilities for out-of-town students. Your editors believe that such institutions constitute a unique category and need to be rated and ranked separately. This subdivision of the day schools master list of last year has most spectacularly benefited The Valley School, Bangalore, awarded the high-est aggregate score (1308) of all day schools by respondents of the C fore survey. Daly College, Indore; a clutch of DPS schools in Delhi NCR ( R.K. Puram, Dwarka, Mathura Road, Vasant Kunj and Noida); Modern School, Barakhamba Road (Delhi); Centre for Learning, Bangalore; Pallikoodam School, Kottayam (Kerala); Sai International, Bhubaneswar (Odisha) and Greenwood High, Bangalore, make it to the Top 10 table of the newly created category of Indias 61 most reputed day-cum-boarding schools. Subdivision has also vaulted several other recently-promoted schools into the national limelight. Among them: DPS, Noida (#46 to 10); Ebenezer International, Bangalore (45-12); Emerald Heights International (119-13); Royal Global, Guwahati (35-14) and St. Peters, Kochi (62-18). Similarly, all the way down the day-cum-boarding sch-ools league table, a host of hitherto obscure day schools which are highly reputed in states and cities have received national acknowledgement and recognition. The subdivision of day schools into four categories is a good idea for ease of comparison. We have no objection to it because quite frankly in the Valley School, its not our philosophy to encourage competition, so high ratings and rankings dont really matter. However the excellent rankings given by respondents to KFI (Krishnamurti Foundation of India) schools in the latest survey is an encouraging sign that parents and teacher communities have begun to assess education excellence in a radically different way. In the Valley School, we dont prescribe textbooks or exams until class VIII. This is to encourage children to learn at their own pace and interest, so they develop love of learning. Our emphasis is on harmonious and cooperative learning without head-to-head competition. Therefore the high ratings we have received on the parameters of special needs education, life skills and conflict management, and parental involvement give us particular satisfaction, says S. Jayaram, a former banker who switched tracks and signed up with the Krishnamurti Foundation, Chennai in 1989, served in three of its schools before being appointed headmaster and principal of the CISCE-affiliated Valley School, Bangalore (estb. 1978) in 2008, which has 370 students and 80 teachers on its muster rolls. On the other hand, the indefatigable Bijoy Sahoo,…