Vidya Bhawan Senior Secondary School

Founded in 1931, emphasising development of integrated personality of children and pioneering co-education in the state, the school has grown in various dimensions providing a well coordinated programme of integrated education from Nursery to Senior Secondary level affiliated to the State Board and launching Vidya Bhawan Public School in 2001 with C.B.S.E. affiliation and English as the medium of instruction. The school focusses on inclusion of all children in democratic processes of teaching and learning and cooperation. It emphasizes adventure, exploration alongwith self discipline and experiencing the joy of learning.

The School is located at one of the most picturesque location in Udaipur, close to historical and world-famous Fateh Sagar Lake. The school has large play fields, clean and green environs of gardens, parks and recreation grounds along with other infrastructure facilities. The school is a co-educational partially residential institution. The school is designed and architecturally patterned to have buildings to accommodate Nursery children, Junior and seniors separately. Public school (CBSE English medium) launched in 2001 is also located in the same campus.

The Senior, Junior, Nursery sections of Vidya Bhawan Sr. Sec. School along with the Vidya Bhawan Public School has a strength of 70 teaching and non teaching staff, 32 support staff and 22 daily wagers. The teachers are well qualified, competent and ever enthusiastic, geared up by the heads of different sections and motivated by the Heads of the institutions. The growth of children is nurtured through planned activities at all levels. Working towards less of text books and more of worksheets and activity based exercises are being designed and will further be systematically developed to enhance greater thinking, reasoning ability and cultivate reading and writing skills.

Evaluation systems are periodic, transparent and timely which is further being worked out to have close to a continuous and comprehensive system that is non stressful. The effort is to evolve an efficient system of feedback to the people in the school and outside. In the years to come the interaction with parents and community will be made more realistic, frequent and issue-based. Sports and cultural activities are given weightage and will take a front seat along with academics in the near future.

Learning through active play, participation, joy and creativity is the key-mantra for kids from play group through class II. The emphasis is on development of the ability to learn using as many languages as can be possibly accommodated. Gradual movement is towards learning to read both in English and Hindi. The Junior Section houses classes III to V with its own building on the main campus. The programme of studies and activities in this section is especially organised to provide a smooth transition from Nursery to Senior stage of schooling. Learning by active participation with an open class room environment is a common feature of this section.

A major innovation in the Junior Section is insistence on use of both Hindi and English as mediums of instruction. Conscious efforts are made to ensure that the children attain proficiency in communicative skills in English and donot remain shy or hesitant in use of the language. The senior section continues with the attempt to make children respect co-operation, value self confidence and be exposed to a variety of endeavours.

Over the last few years the options offered in the senior secondary scheme have been extended. Apart from Science and Humanities stream. Commerce stream has also been started. Apart from the Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Drawing and Geography labs the school has a well equipped computer lab with latest machines of advanced configuration and internet facilities to provide quality computer education for all from class III to class XII. Computer and information technology has been made a compulsory subject from the academic year 2001-02 for science stream at senior secondary level. Apart from this Computer and Information Technology has been inducted in the courses of study as an additional optional subject for all the streams. The school is contemplating to start teaching political science, philosophy and/or home science as some of the options along side geography and other social science subjects from the year 2006-07. The State Board Syllabus is adhered to by Senior Secondary School from VI to XII. Where a variety of streams of subjects are available.

Distinguishing Features

The school has trade workshops for carpentry, metal work and electrical appliance repair. Some other special activities of the school include the Vanshala, a ten day camp where children are close to nature, learn to share and live together, group system, Anniversary projects, guidance & counselling facilities for students, Evening games, Eco-Intach Clubs, House systems, Leadership qualities are developed through N.C.C., Scouts, Guides and Bulbul groups. The Library is well equipped. It functions to suit the convenience of the students. The library subscribes to several magazines, journals, videos, CDs and is also fast building up its resource bank of audio-visual and multi-media material like video cassettes and CD-ROMs on various academic topics. The library has over 25000 books ranging from fairy tales, encyclopedias, fiction, science, religion, arts, architecture and general knowledge to needlecraft, cookery and flower arrangements. Periodicals and magazines on many subjects help the students to spend many happy hours expanding their knowledge. The library is being up-dated constantly.

Residential Facilities

The school provides residential facilities for boys and girls on campus in six hostels having facilities that help the children live and grow in an environment that they can identify as their home. Trained staff members, including a housemaster, a matron and four wardens along with a whole range of support staff are entrusted with the well being of the children and to ensure that the needs of our pupils are fully met with. The hostel runs its own mess where food is cooked in most scientific hygienic and nutritious manner in a modern, well equipped kitchen with a large and spacious dining room. All boarders undergo thorough medical check-up periodically and frequently. The students have 24 hour access to one of the town's most reputed physician with latest medical investigation, nursing and after care facilities at a very low cost. The school store supplies goods, stationery, school uniform and other such items of daily routine of both boys and girls of all ages The school canteen provides fresh tasty and nutritious eatables on payment.

Foreign Volunteers from all over the world have been part of Vidya Bhawan's educational culture in various capacities and for varying lengths of time. Every volunteer contributes in her/his unique way while working and staying with Vidya Bhawan on regular activities, conducting research, undertaking independent teaching assignments and tutorials, etc. Both, the volunteers and the organisation, grow and learn from this multi-cultural exchange.

Realisation of the schools' mission and vision statement

Over the past 5 years there has been a paradigm shift in the entire thinking and working of the school staff which will further be facilitated through inter-personal communicative skills, democratic functioning of meetings at different levels, goal oriented work culture to ensure harmonious and productive interaction among the staff and students both horizontally and vertically. We hope that in the years to come teachers as eternal students should have become more conscientious of their challenging jobs and will act as facilitators and empower their students. Academically we expect that each and every student would have attained better communicative skills both in English, Hindi and in also another regional/foreign language. Career Counselling activities would have become a regular feature and we would have started sessions to give them advanced level coaching. Students would have to be groomed to face challenges both in their life and career at all levels. Apart from intellectual calibre they should have become a stronger personality with emotional integrity, moral courage and be professionally advanced along with ethical values. We should have moved forward with the basic values of Vidya Bhawan to create a responsible citizen, thinking individual who will be a humane human being.