Annual Emanuel school visit and sports day at GKV

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. 

 

GROW-BY program to improve reading skills

 

In order to improve the reading skills of its children GKV partnered with  not for profit organisation, India Literacy Project (ILP), to work on their library project called
GROW-BY. ILP runs a number of sub-programs under the Multi-Dimensional Learning Space program.  The principal, Ms. Kausalya, along with a couple of other  GKV teachers in Nov-18 visited a state aided school in Kadayam about 40 km from GKV to observe the MDLS programs run by ILP volunteers.  

GKV chose to run two programs – the Science Lab and the Library initiative.
On 30th , 31st  May 2019  ILP volunteers alongwith GKV teachers catalogued 1000+ books in the GKV library into the GROW-BY categories to ensure each and every book was tagged. The color of the tag maps the book to a certain level of reading skills. The program defines  a structured process to assign children to a reading level and periodically  assess their progression  from one level to another. 

GKV decided to rollout the  library program  for Classes 1 through 5. Accordingly a timetable has been drawn up to include one library hour per week per class. Classes 3 to 5 physically go to the library while classes 1 and 2 have the period in their classroom itself. The library classes, now in their fourth month since school session started in June 2019, have been a success so much so that students from senior classes (class 6 onward) also come over to the library in their free period to go through the books! Thanks to the enthusiastic efforts  of the teachers of GKV this initiative  to ensure every student is capable to read, comprehend and converse in English & Tamil is well and truly under way!

A young budding artist…

It has been the endeavor of GKV to provide holistic education to its students and encourage them to pursue their interests in sports, arts, music etc.  It comes as no surprise that these children from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds have diverse immense talent which only needs some nurturing and mentoring to blossom. One example of this is Rajanainar of class 5 who has been at the school since LKG. Due to his interest in drawing he drew a picture from a photograph and sent it to a local Tamil newspaper that runs a section to encourage young artists. It gives us immense pride that his drawing was accepted and published in the paper. 

 

First batch 10th class students are all pursuing further education

 

Gita Krishnamurthy Trust made a conscious decision not to add 11th and 12th grades to the school, at least, for now. Nevertheless, the Trust was keen to ensure that all of the 33 students of Gita Kirshnamurthy Vidyalaya who passed the Tamil Nadu State Public examinations in 2019 (the first outgoing batch of the school) took up further education based on their academic and career interests and financial ability. It is immensly satisfying to note that these children have all sought admission in various schools, colleges and polytechnics in the area. 

Fourteen girls and two boys are studying in Sri Jayendra Golden Jubilee School also administered  by our partner  Sri Jai Sankara Trust.  Most of them have opted for either the Mathematics, Biology or Accountacy, commerce streams. These students are financially supported through generous donations of Gita Krishnamurthy Trust’s well-wishers.

Five Children, including a girl, have joined a polytechnic (Sankara polytechnic and Ramana polytechnic) .Six students have taken admission in 11th standard of Sarah Tucker college – a government aided institution.  Many of these children have opted for Maths, computer science group. 

The parents of all these children received a little over Rs 3000/- each from the Trust towards supporting their further education. This is thanks to the Higher Education support scheme conceived and setup  two years ago by a friend and supporter who is passionate about helping ensure that children from economically and socially disadvantaged families are not hindered from pursuing further education due to lack of finances.

It will be the continuing endeavour of the trust to keep in touch with these children and provide what ever support(financial or otherwise) that they need to complete their studies and take up employment of their choice. 

Inauguration of GKV school building on 8th August 2017

 

The school building facade

Every year, at GKV, August 8th is commomerated  as the Founder’s Day, usually with a snack or meal for the children. This year, when Mrs. Gita Krishnamurthy would have been 74 years old, was special as the formal inauguration function of the school building was held on that date.

GKV started functioning in a rental building in June 2009. The land for the school building was acquired in 2012 and the Bhoomi Puja for the school was done by Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal in July 2013. After all the necessary permissions, the construction of the school building was started in October 2013. With the ground floor classrooms almost completed the school started functioning in the building from the academic term of June 2015. Now with the partial completion of the 1st floor including the facade, the school building has 22 rooms, which will meet the needs for the next few years, including rooms for a computer lab, science labs and library.

The inauguration was formally done by Mr. Sandeep Nanduri, the Collector of Tirunelveli district on 8th evening. Other guests of honour for the function were Dr. A. John De Britto – Registrar Manonmaniam Sundaranar University and Rev. Paul Hunt, Senior Chaplain, of our partner school, Emanuel School of London. All except three trustees, who had other commitments, of Gita Krishnamurthy Trust and family members of Krishnamurthy – the Managing Trustee of GKT were witness to the momentous milestone. The whole function was planned and executed by Mrs. Usha Raman and Mrs. Nirmala Ramrathinam, Principal and Correspondent, respectively, of Sri Jayendra Golden Jubilee School, with the enthusiastic assistance of Teachers and Staff of Jayendra and GKV.  The formal inauguration with ribbon cutting was followed by the traditional lighting of the ceremonial lamp by Krishnamurthy and his family members and the unveiling of a portrait of Gita Krishnamurthy.

Just as the formal portion of the inauguration kicked-off on the stage located in the grounds of the building, it started raining heavily forcing the trustees and guests of honour on the stage as well as the hundreds of parents, children and teachers of the school to take shelter in the School Building. After a brief hiatus, the function resumed in the lobby at the entrance of the building. Mr. Nanduri unveiled the plaque and both he and Dr. Britto talked about the importance of education and the hugely positive impact GKV is making to the under privileged in the area. Mrs. Usha Raman felicitated the guests of honour, the Trustees of Gita Kirshnamurthy Trust as well as the many vendors and partners who contributed to the school over the years as well as the Building Contractor, the Artist who painted Gita Krishnamurthy’s portrait and Dr Ramakrishnan from Aravind’s Eye Hospitals, a large socially active Organisation, who also carry out periodic eye check-ups for the children. Venkat, Gita Krishnamurthy’s son and a Trustee of GKT, talked about how Mrs. Krishnamurthy used to teach underprivileged and physically differently abled children in the after school hours,  while working as a teacher in the different cities she lived. It would have given her immense pleasure to see GKV and the manner in which it is being conducted.

 

Once the rains stopped, the cultural program by the children of GKV  was held on the stage to enable the parents and all other guests to enjoy the same. It is worth mentioning that all the Invitees as well as the Parents of the children waited till the rains stopped.

And what an amazing 45 minutes of dance, music, mime and skits it was!! The energy level, enthusiasm, confidence and talent of the children , performing for the first time ever on such a large stage with sizeable audience, was incredible and everyone enjoyed it thoroughly. It provided a fitting finale to a very satisfying  evening to all those present as well as to the children who put in many hours of practice.

A grand dinner was hosted to all those present after the programme by the children was over.

The GK Trust would like to thank the trustees of partner Sri Jai Sankara Educational Trust as well the teachers  and staff of Sri Jayendra Golden Jubilee school and GKV, without whose commitment and tireless efforts all these years, this milestone could not  have been achieved. Needless so say, the contributions and support of numerous family members and friends as well as  Organisations such as  Grand Circle Foundation, USA, Infosys, Juniper Networks and Microsoft have helped us to get to this stage in our progress to set up GKV. We do look forward to the continued support  from all our well wishers to enable the school to provide holistic, quality education and enable the children to achieve their and their family’s aspirations!!