Evening classes in the presence of parents

Mysore/Mysuru: While most of the private schools have started conducting online classes for their students, Kautilya Vidyalaya has adopted an innovative approach in this regard — conducting evening classes in the presence of parents.

Recently, the Karnataka High Court stayed State Government notifications placing restrictions on conduct of online classes by private schools. The Court’s order paved the way for schools to resume online courses. Earlier, for about a month, there was a heated debate going on about pros and cons of conducting online classes for students.

While in most of the schools there is no difference between regular classes and online classes, Kautilya is involving parents too so that they could monitor their kids while attending online classes. The most common complaint from parents and teachers is that their students are not attentive and engaged. Families in which both parents are working also have to face problems pertaining to monitoring and setting up online classes, especially for younger students.

To tackle these issues, Kautilya is conducting online classes in three sessions; from 10 am to 12 pm, 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm and again from 5 pm to 7 pm. Parents have been advised to be present with their wards in at least one of these three sessions and about 40 percent of them have opted for the evening session. In case of any network problems or if the family has only one mobile with two kids or any other issues, parents and their kids can attend any one of the three sessions. Over the last one week, Kautilya is in touch with parents of LKG to sixth standard students and starting online classes for all sections from July 13.

But for Class 7 to Class 10 students, Kautilya has been conducting online classes from the last three months. These classes are quite different from normal regular classes. 

Every week, students are being given a topic and learners are taught and encouraged to self-study, manage their time better and to properly use a text-book. Tutors are always on hand to guide learners. 

Three to four students are grouped together to strengthen their competitive edge. Every week, mini-tests are being conducted in which each student has to write within 30 minutes and after completion, results are announced within two minutes. 

In addition to these innovative measures, class representatives have been selected for each classes, who have been given the responsibility of handling preparatory work related to online classes.

Social distancing does not mean social isolation and there must be a way to feel connected to others. To this end, Kautilya is organising ‘Social Hour’ once in a week for LKG to sixth standard students in which both parents and their children can share their experiences. “During Social Hour, parents have the opportunity to showcase their talents while teachers are conducting activities such as quiz, memory games and pick and speech so that there is an opportunity to develop bondage and a sense of belonging within our community of parents, kids and teachers,” said Kautilya Vidyalaya Principal Dr. L. Savitha.

“These are challenging times, but we need to emerge stronger than before. We need these kind of innovative ideas to involve our students and encourage them learn new skills. Parents are very happy about our new approaches to online classes,” says R. Raghu, Chairman, Kautilya Vidyalaya.

“We cannot simply conduct online classes just like any other regular classes. Students may not be attentive enough as it might be boring for them. For this reason, we are conducting activity based Clip Chart model classes for our 7th to 10th standard students and getting very good response from them. We are giving suitable topics two days before hand and students are appearing for the classes with their charts and models related to each topic. LKG to 6th standard students are really enjoying their ‘Social Hour.’ In April itself, we have trained all our teachers for these online classes which they are now conducting from their homes,” said Dr. L. Savitha, Principal, Kautilya Vidyalaya.