GKV, like all schools nationwide,  stopped functioning normally around March 2020 ( AY 2019/20 ) and has been unable to resume , even as of May 2021. One full Academic Year 2020/21 was ineffectual due to the pandemic. Online classes conducted , via Zoom, by our partner school Jayendra for their students  has been made available to GKV students from 6th to 10th standard. The GKV teachers support Jayendra teachers in conducting these classes. Of course the students of GKV   do not have typically have computers with Internet facilities at home  – they make do with smartphones with data connectivity. The attendance and participation of the students in these online classes has been about 70% or so . 

For Classes 1 to 5, Whatsapp is the main application used  for teaching and learning. Teachers from GKV are highly committed to do their best with this constraint and send assignments to children to work on at home and submit for correction. For the kindergarten  school children also they adopt this approach.

While the above is hardly a substitute for attending school, this at least keeps them in touch with their studies and will enable them to  make up when they start attending school in person, hopefully, in the later part of the Academic Year 2021/22. 

All our teachers and staff are continuing as before and their remuneration is being met. Teachers who are not dependent on public transport (those who are staying in nearby areas) come to the School to utilize the computer facilities, as needed, to provide lessons to the students, electronically or live on Zoom. Though our students do not have computers at home, they were exposed to Computers when they were attending Classes in school and this to a great extent facilitates our providing remote learning to them. The outcome is not, however, equal to in-class learning with teachers but this will facilitate them to a great extent when normal functioning of School resumes as they will not be out of touch with studies!

There are limitations to these approaches and improvisations are done to the extent feasible to provide the best possible learning outcome to students and to keep them in touch with curricular discipline. Our passionate and diligent teachers are committed to working closely with the students once in person classes resume to help them catch up with their learning. 

All the students are continuing their education and we are glad to share the encouraging  situation that there are no drop outs. It is unfortunate that pandemic has disproportionately impacted the economically disadvantaged in all facets of life including education!

 29  students  of GKV, comprising of 17 girl and 12 boys,  passed out  from the 10th standard of GKV in the Academic Year 2019/20.  Out of these, 17 Girls and 5 Boys wished to continue their Higher Secondary studies and all of them got admissions in Jayendra Higher Secondary School, our Partner School. The remaining 7 Boys joined  Polytechnic Courses as they wished to acquire trade skills and join the work stream. 

In the first batch of students who completed their 10th in 2019, 16 of the students joined  Jayendra and they are now in 12th Standard.

Our Trust will provide assistance to a total of 38 Students to pursue their education till 12th Standard. This support will facilitate them to pursue their ambitions further, either to continue their studies in Graduate Courses  or in suitable professional training courses to enable them enter the job market.

Presently we have up to Class 10 and we continue to have one Section in each Class from LKG onwards. In the  Academic Year 2018-19, our first batch of Class 10 passed out and the results were outstanding. All the Girls got through and almost all of them secured over 70% in the Board Examinations. Out of the total of 34, only one boy missed out narrowly.

As the school is currently up to 10th standard we counselled all of the 33 students to pursue higher education and reach out to us in case any financial support was required to do so. We decided to support all the 18 students(16 girls , 2 boys) , who  got admission on merit ito 11th standard in Jayendra Higher Secondary School. We are now supporting them for studies in Class 11 and 12 at a cost of around, approximately, Rs 400,000/, per annum, by scholarships. Many of our generous well wishers came forward to support this initiative.

As is well known job and career prospects are very limited if one does not puruse at least a vocational course in a polytechnic after 10th standard.  However, we were delighted to learn that most of these students and their parents want to puruse higher education and aspire to complete 12th standard and a college degree.   It is the same for the students of 10th standard in the academic year  2019-20,  We plan to offer similar support, as needed, to them as well with the patronage of our Donors.

However, from a longer term perspective,  it was felt prudent to develop GKV into a Higher Secondary School .  Towards this we decided to take  up construction of the balance  6 rooms, 3 in each wing, in the first floor of the building .  Given that the cost of construction continues to escalate it was felt that it is better to construct sooner than latter and mobilise funds from donors to supplement the trust’s resources. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the scheduled start of construction in April 2020 had to be postponed . We  hope to start the same in the September 2020 timeframe with a goal of completing at least one wing by March/April 2021. 

In addition to the physical furnished classrooms  we , of course, plan to add qualified and committed teaching staff for the Higher Secondary Section and well equipped separate  laboratories for Physics, Chemistry and Biology.   We look forward to  support from individual well wishers as well as from institutions to be able to achieve this!

This year’s  founder’s day (8th August – the birthday of Gita Kirshnamurthy)  celebration at GKV had by now the customary vibes of high energy, enthusiasm and excitement.  Following is a brief overview of the evening including a few photos-  all well wishers of GKV are encouraged to experience this first hand if feasible.

The children of class 9 put up a science exhibiton with work models of physics and chemistry experiments which was a great effort. The program started with several songs by the school choir in Tamil and English – some of the Tamil songs were recitations from the syllabus with music composed by the music teacher. Mrs. Usha Raman and Mrs. Nirmala Ramarathnam of Jai Sankara Trust, Rev Paul Hunt(retd from Emanuel school), Sue Taylor (interim head of a UK school and Bhasker Sharma – represntative of Gita Krishnamurthy Trust addressed the parents.
This was followed by mini-convocation for the children moving from Kindergarten to 1st grade, Awards to the 1st and 2nd ranking students(both girls) of the outgoing 10th standard class and General proficiency awards for a student from each class/section. The parents of outgoing 10th class children were extremely happy to collect a check for about Rs 3000 from the higher education support scheme ( setup and contributed by a well wisher of GKT).   The evening concluded with  several skits on themes like respecting others viewpoint, conservation of water etc with the evening culminating with a wonderful dance performance on national integration by higher class children.

It was a very satisfying evening for the staff and children of GKV as well as the parents who were able to attend the function.

Staff and students from Emanuel School, London have been visiting GKV every year since 2012. During this visit they work with the students and teachers on the English language as well as co-curricular activities such as arts, music, games etc. This year the visit, led by Ms. Rosalind Tendler, took place in July 2019. 

The annual sports day for primary classes was held during their visit on 26th .Musical chairs for the LKG children was enjoyed by all. Balloon Bursting for the UKG, Water filling for Istd were very enthusiastic and lively. Tough fight was given by the girls also. It was amazing to see the children energetically bursting the balloon of others. Hoops running, Coconut shell walk and hockey ball tribbling were played by the kids .The most interesting game was “Sack race”. Everybody enjoyed the sack race played by the kids The Emanuel students  wanted to play both balloon bursting and sack race and thorughly enjoyed themselves doing so.  The winners were given the cups by the Emanuel staff. TNPL player Rajagopala Sathish of Kanchi Veerans graced the evening as a special guest providing a highly cherishable experience for the children.