Q. Where is the school located?
Ans. About 25 km from Nashik on the road to Trimbakeshwar and about 6 km short of the temple.
Q. Isn’t the distance a little too far to travel for children? Especially pre-primary?
Ans. Yes, it is. Parents need to choose the school depending on how fragile and frail the child is and consequently how well the child will be able to take the travel by bus.
Q. Which Board does the school follow?
Ans. ICSE board for Grade I to X.
Q. What is the difference between ICSE & CBSE Board?
Ans. Both are national boards and CBSE affiliated schools are found in the remotest parts of the country. ICSE schools are generally found in the towns and cities of the country.
Q. How is ICSE more preferred and why?
Ans. ICSE is preferred by some people who say that it fosters thinking skills to a better extent.
Q. Will the child from a state board back ground cope with the ICSE set-up?
Ans. Certainly, provided the child is basically inquisitive and is not yet completely in the mould of rote learning. The ease of changeover also depends on the dexterity of the child in English language. OIS can assess this and counsel the parent appropriately keeping the interest of the child in mind.
Q. Does the school intend to venture in IB or IGCSE?
Ans. Yes, we may take up IB Diploma at some point of time in future. No timetable has yet been prepared for this.
Q. Being a residential school, what are the extra benefits offered to the students, even if they opt for day boarding?
Ans. Closer academic supervision and support, Physical education in the morning, Games, athletics and sports in the evening, Weekend Kalaprakash, Sunday special art classes, Special extended games sessions on Sundays, Morning nature walks and treks, Better exposure to teachers from different backgrounds and interests, Astronomy club and star gazing, Post dinner walks, Learning to share and live with children of different cultures.
Q. How do you justify your fees?
Ans. We don’t need to justify. We are a school involved in providing world class, holistic education to school going children. We have a very good Infrastructure and distinguished teachers from all parts of the country to provide a rarely pluralistic and encouraging ambiance to the children. We have been rated as the 12th best residential school in the country.
Q. What are the timings? Isn’t 7:30 too early?
Ans. We design the timetable to provide the students a sensitive and robust outlook in life with a rich and intense exposure. The timetable is normally quite demanding in any good residential school. Children do learn to gain and enjoy the same if parents do not come in the way!
Q. Are the faculty member’s locals?
Ans. No, most of our faculty members are from far and wide. We have teachers from almost all parts of the country and hence we are able to provide a diverse exposure to our students.
Q. Student-teacher ratio?
Ans. For about 300 students we have about 56 teachers, including four sports and games coaches. The student to teacher ratio in any teaching class varies from about 12:1 to about 27:1.
Q. What teaching techniques are used in the classrooms?
Ans. Progressive, activity and learning oriented teaching-learning processes are used in our classrooms by most of our teachers. The children normally enjoy their classes. The school is intensively working upon teacher learning and development programs so that the children learn through discovery oriented approaches more and more.
Q. What extra-curricular activities do you offer? Are the Day boarders benefitting equally?
Ans. We offer a range of extra-curricular activities right from games like cricket, football, handball, volleyball, basketball, swimming etc. To athletics, Day scholars do not benefit as much as the residential scholars. The school makes effort to expose the day scholars to the maximum feasible during the daily timetable.
Q. Boarding facilities? Caretaker-student ratio?
Ans. The hostels are provided with facilities like hot water, smaller dormitories with a maximum of eight children per room and the minimum of four children per room. All the hostels have indoor games like carom, chess, word puzzles. The hostels are provided newspaper and some magazines. There is a common room with TV and DVD player but children have access to it only during specified hours during the weekend. The ratio of house parent/mother to students varies ranges from 11:1 to about 20:1. Obviously, the smaller children have a smaller ratio.
Q. How many students are accommodated in one room?
Ans. About four to eight students are accommodated in each room.
Q. Aren’t the hostels air-conditioned? Why?
Ans.Hostels are not air-conditioned and they will not be. The school would like a certain kind of austerity to be built in so that children experience childhood more naturally with appropriate exposure to the elements. The school provides opportunity for the children to learn to climb trees too!
Q. What extra-help is offered to weak Students?
Ans. Due to the academic level based vertical grouping in few subjects of the junior school children of the about the same academic proficiency are together and hence the hesitation reduces. There are two supervised homework slots per day for the residential students. The school makes an attempt that different subject teachers are available for supervising on different days of the week. This provides adequate scope for the weak children to clarify doubts.
In a residential school like ours it is not possible to provide one-to-one tuition to children. We also want the children to learn to become independent minded over a period of time and a child needs to be taught to persistently take charge of his or her academics and seek clarifications necessary from teachers. Parents need to understand this change of approach otherwise the intent of a residential school is not served. And if this change of becoming more and more responsible for oneself is enabled in children sustainable development and growth can be expected.
Q. Calendar holidays? In day and yearly boarding?
Ans. For the day scholars and residential students the same pattern of holidays is applicable. A calendar is prepared and given to each child.
Q. What kind of sports is offered to the pre-primary children?
Ans. We have a jungle gymnasium, sand pit, park type play implements outdoors. Indoors we have little toys of different kinds to nurture better motor skills and coordination skills.
Q. If not toilet-trained, are there helpers to cater to such needs of the children?
Ans. We require children to be toilet trained and the staff available is only for attending emergencies!
Q. What are the features of the mess? How many times do they have non-veg served?
Ans. Is the Jain food section separate and carefully prepared? From June 2011 we will be providing vegetarian food with eggs served for breakfast. We also serve Jain food regularly. Yes, there is segregation of the cooking zones to cater to the requirement of each segment of students and teachers.
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Welcome To Sapkal Knowledge Hub
Dr. Ravindra G. Sapkal, Chairman, Kalyani Charitable Trust, Mumbai, had a splendid vision of providing education and ample opportunities to the children and youth of India to excel globally in different professions. His dream included providing globally acknowledged education to the children and adults enabling them to pursue diverse careers and contribute to the national development of this incredible country India. June 2006 marked the first milestone for Kalyani Charitable Trust with the successful establishment of Orchid International School (OIS), a co-educational residential cum day boarding school which has a scenic campus at Anjneri Hills, Nashik in Maharashtra. OIS witnessed great success in imparting challenging, meaningful and internationally recognized education to children.