– Puja Pant, Vice Principal, Ecole Globale International Girls’ School
Learning is a purposeful and important activity but one that happens best in a joyful environment. It is only when and if the students enjoy the learning process that they bring excitement, energy and curiosity to the classroom. Therefore, as educators, it should be our prime objective to create a joyful classroom environment as it facilitates faster and more effective learning. The best way to achieve this is through a healthy cross pollination of different subjects and pedagogies.
The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (2023) (NCF-SE 2023) emphasise the importance of art integration for experiential learning and for deeper understanding of subjects. Learning ‘through the arts’ and ‘with the arts’ is believed to lead to a better understanding and construction of knowledge about different concepts.
In keeping with the ethos and recommendations of the New Education Policy, Experiential Learning, Interdisciplinary Activities and Art Integration have been embedded at all levels at Ecole Globale International Girls’ School with special thrust at the middle school level.
Art experiences, both visual (drawing and painting, clay modelling, pottery, paper crafts, mask and puppet making, heritage crafts etc.) and performing arts (music, dance, theatre, puppetry etc.) are practised as standard pedagogy for maximising educational outcomes. Role play, JAM, data analysis, Fun with Sports, craft work, making models and comic strips, show and tell are just some of the activities that are regularly undertaken. Field trips are also an integral and much enjoyed part of classroom learning.
The joyful, innovative and democratic learning spaces that we provide to our girls make the journey of knowledge acquisition as interesting as the destination. The lessons, across all classes, are planned with a view to nurturing the curiosity of the students as they interact with course content in a fun-filled and playful way with peers and teachers.
The girls learn to collaborate, connect and share. The students are engaged intellectually, creatively, emotionally, socially, or physically thereby fostering a positive learning environment where our girls feel a sense of passion and excitement about what they are learning.
Well-planned, supervised and assessed experiential learning programmes helped stimulate academic inquiry by engaging students in hands-on experiences and reflection. They are now better able to connect theories and knowledge learned in the classroom to practical application of the same in real life scenarios.
The interdisciplinary projects/ activities bring together different curricular disciplines around common themes, issues, or problems. The learners are encouraged to make connections across learning through exploring clear and relevant links across the curriculum. They acquire the skill to synthesise and then integrate these ideas into a more complete, and hopefully coherent, framework of analysis.
It is extremely satisfying that by fostering joy, innovation, and interdisciplinary learning, Ecole Globale has created an environment where students not only acquire knowledge but also develop critical thinking skills, creativity, and a lifelong love for learning.
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