Saga of the School

The Past

Silver Oaks was founded as a State Board School in 2002 and taken over by a new management in 2005.

The journey of a conventional school to a CBSE school and then an IB school is certainly interesting and worth going through as a case study.

Guiding the parent community towards concept based education and helping them come out of the negative influence of rote learning trends, was indeed a challenging task. To make them see the national policy of education and that learning has a larger meaning than earning high percentages, was an uphill task.

We as a School believe in meaningful education where character and competence are equally imbibed into the young people of our School.

We began to ease out SSC by waiting for the last batch to pass out. CBSE has been introduced in all the classes.

Going further, when we as Silver Oaks aspired to align with IBO, our intention was to introduce a student centered methodology that would involve students in the learning process.

By 2007, we were emerging as a good school and we didn’t need an ‘international brand’ to promote ourselves.

Our vision is to groom young people who will live for a purpose and learn to apply. Therefore all learning is connected to their character and competence.

Since IBO has done extensive research in concept based education and exploring the world through transdisciplinary themes, we as a School ventured into this new world of learning although it is very expensive to sustain the cost of the IB accreditation.

It was already a functioning school where parents joined their children in a SSC/CBSE school. If making the parents see the CBSE advantage was one challenge, making them see the IBPYP advantage was a herculean task.

 Parents’ apprehensions, teachers’ abilities and students’ readiness were our matters of concern.

The belief in the society that international schools are for the privileged children whose parents are globe trotters and for whom future education is tied up in foreign universities, added to our concerns.               

The elitist image of these international schools is more associated with fancy infrastructure, conditioned environment and high fee structure and we were nowhere in this league. 

  The Present

We raced with ourselves and competed with ourselves. The journey with IBO began in June 2007 and there has been no looking back. After many workshops from the IBO and a visit of pre-authorization in April 2009 we are now awaiting our authorization visit in November’10. 

Consistent efforts and perseverance in all our teachers have led to phenomenal improvement in the young people who come to our school.

They can talk about every concept behind a fact. They can interpret their own personalities through different attributes.They can recognize each other’s attitudes and skills. Their learning has a complete connection to their lives now. 

The school has been sustaining the high cost of IBO only because we found our own ways of conserving our funds.

Since 2007 we have refrained from publicity about our school completely. Our students are our brand ambassadors since then.

For every seat that falls vacant, we get 10 application forms. And every interaction with parents during admissions, we get to hear that they want their child to study in our school because they are impressed with their friend’s or a neighbour’s child who is in our school.        

Our Acorns live the Culture of the school-

"Speak softly and pleasantly  Smile always 
Be positive and progressive 
Feel good Look good and Do good
 Have and show confidence"

Most of them display our motto in their behavior-

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high"

Taking inspiration from Gandhiji who said:

“My life is an indivisible whole,
and all my activities run into one another… My life is my message” .

We developed systems with congruent patterns that would make character and competence meet each other at every angle.  

And the inside-out approach of the School is indeed creating wonders with the personality of every young person. Character and Competence are given equal importance.

A junior School student talks about being principled and mixed fractions in the same breadth while a senior school student proudly claims his effectiveness through the 7Habits and competence through his top scores in ASSET (a national level competence test).

Now, Acorns developed a sense of equality, respect for public property and conserving resources through Stationery Policy.

We have some of them who used one pen with 2 refills for 6 months. And all of them use a pencil till it does not fit into their fingers anymore.

Reading Policy has developed readers who read more than 6 books during the academic session. Reading as a hobby is fast catching up amongst the acorns.

Looking at the quality of articles written by students as a part of the creative writing policy, we are sure that we will have poets, writers, news reporters and authors emerging from these young people.

Homework is usually given to recapitulate and practice what has been taught in the school. However Homework policy has been developed to remind these young people that it is your work and you are accountable to complete it.

Birthday is for celebrating life. So acorns are encouraged to celebrate life as a gift and as a mark of respect for the life given to us, help other lives that are not as privileged. We are proud of many acorns who have learnt to live life in simple ways by cutting down on their birthday parties and diverting that fund to an orphanage or an old age home.They are beginning to believe in gifting books and plants as gifts on special occasions.

The teaching team @ Silver Oaks played a constructive role in developing these congruent patterns.

We invested more on training teachers as positive individuals and progressive teachers.

From developing the website to designing the invitation cards or stage decoration for school events, we have been self-sufficient by tapping the talents of our team members.

Our mission of educating the young people who will make a positive difference in the society and build a better world gives us immense satisfaction both professionally and personally.