MEETING CUM WORKSHOP FOR PARENTS/GUARDIANS OF GRADES-I TO VIII HELD AT LFHSS
A meeting cum one-day workshop was held for the Parents and Guardians of the students of Grades-I to VIII on 28th May 2016 at LFHSS Auditorium. The meeting cum workshop which started at 9:30 AM included the newly introduced Curriculum of My Pedia under Pearsons Education, a special session of Builders Self-Development Programme and a session of interaction and discussion with the parents by the Chairman, Mr. Andrew Ahoto. Around 300 parents and guardians attended the programme.
The first session of the meeting which started at 9:30 AM began with the introduction and prayer by Mr. Prabhat Mandal, Principa (Academics). Then Ms. Marlee of Pearsons Group took over for the session on My Pedia which is a newly developed curriculum program for students of Grades-I to VIII under the Pearsons Education. According to Ms. Marlee, My Pedia is an integrated program whose main objective was to help children develop Application and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). All elements of learning are tied in together under this program. The textbooks under My Pedia enable inter-disciplinary thinking and the worksheets enable practice across levels of thinking. Another part of My Pedia i.e. My Pedia Digital enables learning of Digital Natives. My Pedia also helps in giving real-time information to parents on their child’s progress on a regular basis.
The rest of the first session was spent on making the parents enlightened on the various positive aspects of My Pedia such as better levels of questions, analysis of Cognitive Skills of children and provision of best practice methodology. In short, My Pedia according to Ms. Marlee, supports parents’ aspirations for their children’s education.
The 2nd session of the programme was taken over by Mrs. Darly from Builders Self Development Programme which is taking care of Life Skills Education in LFHSS since this year. She opened the session with the quote “It is easier to Build strong children than to repair broken men”. She gave the example of an iceberg in comparison to a child. Like an iceberg a child’s major persona remains hidden below the surface of water unexplored. The resource person talked in length about the attributes of a balanced child, viz. Physical, Social, Emotional and Cognitive. According to her, children these days are not properly given the right parenting resulting in wrong values being imparted and thus leading to negative impacts in their lives. Due to lack of anger management tactics at home by the parents and also due to negligence of the parents, children’s mentality changes for the worse and thus leads to a communication gap between the child and the parents. Suicidal and violent attitudes mostly develop due to wrong parenting, according to Mrs. Darly. Also most of the children develop addiction to all kinds of substances due to negligence and indifference of the parents. She emphasized on the immediate and most urgent need for parents to help their children develop the right attitude and also to help their children to learn how to deal with emotions. Before she wound up her motivational sharing, she requested the parents not to talk ill about the school or any teacher in front of their children as it would give a very wrong signal to the children. She closed the session with the quote, “To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today.”
The third and the final session was taken over by the Chairman of the school, Mr. Andrew Ahoto who firstly thanked the resource persons and also clarified the position of the school on the question of postponing of Cycle Tests from Monday to another week day. In his encouraging speech the Chairman said that parents must not expect a miracle from the school where their children spent only about 6 hours. He also underscored the importance for today’s students to avoid rote learning and told the parents not to encourage their children to memorize their lessons. He expressed his happiness on the wonderful Class-12 results this year and also stated the fact that Livingstone always welcomed challenges. He was of the view that Livingstone always resolves to equip the students with both knowledge as well as skills so that they can face challenging situations in life. In this regard, he was optimistic about Builders playing a dominant role.
Before the meeting came to a close, the Chairman announced a proposal of starting Remedial Classes if the parents feel the need for it. The need for such remedial classes arose from the fact that Private Tuitions are becoming a menace in recent times due to extravagant costs and also the blind dependence of the parents on such tuitions. He sought valuable feedbacks from the parents who were present in the meeting. Speaking on behalf of the Parents, Dr. Inato Zhimomi expressed his happiness and satisfaction for the meeting and viewed such a gathering as very encouraging. He was grateful to the school authorities for organizing such a programme for the parents. Another parent also expressed his immense happiness on such a programme being organized by the school for the parents. The programme ended a with a word of thanks from the Chairman, Mr. Andrew Ahoto. Apart from the Chairman the other dignitaries present during the meeting cum workshop were the Principal (Academics), Mr. Prabhat Mandal, Director of Junior High, Mrs. Ani Yepthomi, Hostel Superintendent, Mr. Zakir Hussain and some other mentors.
