Change of Guard

After the election on 22 August, we have a new Parent's Representative on the Management Committee. Vivek Bhushan is our new rep. for the year 2009-2010.

Brimming with ideas- as many of you already know, he organizes the sports every morning at the School, and has recently started the adults Yoga session. He has already had a meeting with the parents reps. from earlier years to take stock of long-standing issues and to reaffirm the values of the School. Which, you might like to recall, is what drew us to put our children in this School in the first place...

This blog will continue for the foreseeable future, and one can only hope that as the year passes more of you will participate by sending your comments, adding to posts, and so on.

Yoga for all

A parent has written in to draw attention to two facts. One, that there are a number of parent volunteers who take the time to coach MIS children who come for sports in the morning. It is largely due to these efforts that we have a diverse range of different sports that children can participate in, and get coached in.

A welcome offshoot of this is that parents who come to drop their children have the opportunity to take a yoga class themselves! This will go a long way in making the chore of dropping the kids off at school a bit sweeter. And healthier.

What's on the the MIS website

Since it can be difficult to find:

• The School Medical Team has addressed the students and advised them about precautionary steps to be taken against H1N1 infection.
  
• The school functioned smoothly today (11th August).
  
• No further case of H1N1 reported.
  
• Students should refrain from attending school only if they are genuinely ill.
  
• We expect the school to function in full strength from tomorrow, 12th August 2009.

10th August Notice

Just repeating what is on the School website:

• Attendance for students on Tuesday, 11th August 2009 and Wednesday, 12th August 2009 is not compulsory.
  
• While there is no need to panic, students suffering from cold, cough or fever should abstain from coming to school till they fully recover. Parents please take special care!
  
• Tests scheduled for 12th August, 2009 have been postponed till further notice.
  
• Students wishing to wear a clinical mask are allowed to do so.
  
• The fumigation of the primary section has already been executed.

The comment in red is mine.

H1N1

As many of you would have learned by now, one student of MIS Class 5 D has tested positive for the H1N1 virus. As a consequence, all students of 5D are advised to stay at home on Monday 10th August 2009.

Some pertinent facts. The student in question did not travel out of Delhi in the recent past, and neither, apparently, did anyone in the family. The student uses the MIS 16 bus to come to school. The fever was detected on August 5, namely Raksha Bandhan and the student has not come to school after that.

The School has taken all precautions as advised by the Delhi Health directorate. The rooms where the student is likely to have gone have all been fumigated. Every child in the class as well as many in the bus have been called up personally and given instructions on what precautions to take. Again, this is on the advice of the Directorate.

As a precautionary measure, classes for the Primary and Pre-Primary sections of the school will be suspended on Monday, August 10, 2009. Any further advisory will be posted on this site as well as on the website of the School, namely http://www.themis.in


Please call 011-23921401 if you have any doubts about H1N1: This is the number of the Outbreak Monitoring Cell.

For effectively monitoring and protecting our students, it is very important that you also stay alert. Parents are strongly advised not to send children to school in case of any uncertainty: in case your child is not fully well- please do not send them to school.

Results

Another year goes by... and the MIS results are impressive. Here, in a nutshell, is the index of the school's performance in the Board Exams.

Class X:

Of the 178 students who appeared, 1 got a compartment, 2 obtained a 2nd division, while the remaining 175 passed in the 1st division. The leaders were Oishika Chakraborty (97.2%), Ritika Sinha (96.6%) and Sreetika Ray Mohapatra (96.4%). A clear gender divide here... as in the Class XII performance (see below).

The total number of distinctions was 778, with 3 students scoring perfect 100s in Mathematics.


Class XII:

Of the 164 student who appeared, 163 passed in the 1st division. Malika Garg had 96% in the Science stream, Bhoomika Arora had 91.8% in the Humanities stream, while Swati Choudhary got 95% in the Commerce stream, with 699 distinctions overall.

How does this compare to last year? Or previous years? Or to other schools? Please write in!

PTM, 2 May

This is for all the parents who, for one reason or the other, could not come to the general body PTM that was held today in the new Hall of Grace at M.I. S. A very large number [over 1150] were there, given the importance of the point under discussion: the fee-hike.

Briefly, what happened was as follows. After introductions, I summarized the main points and voiced a number of the concerns that you have communicated to me over the past week, and invited other parents to bring up other points that had not been discussed. A lot of parents raised very pertinent issues and articulated their concerns to the School management. Overall, I would say that most parents were in agreement with the need for an increase in the fees, but they also wanted the school to be responsive on other matters. I will discuss this below.

• One very positive outcome of this meeting was the setting up of a smaller group of about a dozen parents who will meet at the school on Tuesday, 5 May, to look at the school budget and accounts, and suggest any ways of an overall "tightening of the belt" so as to meet the monthly expenses.
• There is a move to make a smaller group of a recommendatory nature, with representation from teachers and students in addition to parents to discuss other problems: quality of teachers and teaching, facilities, sports, and so on.
  
• Many parents expressed satisfaction at having a general body meeting of this kind, and wanted this repeated in order to look into other issues that are of concern to us. Again, there is a request out on this front, and I think there will be some move to have such a meeting soon.
  

Legalities aside, it was good for all of us to meet and share our feelings about how the MIS is run and what more can be done- by parents, as well as by teachers and school management- to make the school bring out the best in our children. The specifics are too long to go in here, but as they say: Watch this space.

Mr Basu, Manager of the MIS tells me that about 95% of those who came to the meeting gave their concurrence to the fee increase, but, importantly, that there were about 50 parents who were NOT in agreement.

The minutes of Tuesday's meeting of the smaller group that will look at the accounts will be posted on the net, and hopefully things should be clearer then.

Meanwhile, here is a link to an interesting article that has just appeared in New York Magazine, called How not to talk to your kids. Something in it for all of us.... Enjoy!