RightStart or HeadStart - Searching for Bangalore Schools

Below is an email conversation I had on Bangalore Schools - Thought it would be good to post it on the blog site.

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Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:58:52 -0700

Let me give you a brief on my experience. I have a 5 year old and we have been very keen in getting her admission to the school that would be right for her (even though she would be joining Upper KG here). Especially since we were going to relocate in June and all schools would begin the first week of June (International IB schools begin in August as in the US). There are 3 kinds of schools as Arun mentioned.

• The traditional Indian schools (SSC, ICSE, CBSE) that are primarily academic focused and have a high student to teacher ratio
• The true international schools that are based on the IB (international board) curriculum. There are only a handful here.
• The mixed breed that are traditional schools with additional focus on whole rounded development or lower student-teacher ratios and primarily have ICSE or CBSE curriculum. Some schools have the international in their name but are really in this category

We were not interested in international since we are moving for good. Several expats who plan to return back to the US or whose kids are older and would probably want to go to the US for further studies opt for these schools.

We reviewed a couple of traditional indian schools like the NPS, Bethany's, Bishop Cottons. NPS is heavily academic and their graduates perfrom very well in the 10th board exams. The competition and stress level is also very high on the students. Bethany's and Bishop cotton are also similar but they also have higher student-teacher ratios. Admission for these popular schools begin as early as August-November the year before. We were late for all these schools. Yet we were looking for schools that have all rounded focus or at least not fully academic focus for our child so we are probably not going to try for these schools next year.

We also reviewed some of the mixed-breed schools and liked the approach of a few. Our child currently is enrolled in a school called Greenwood High (I believe they also have a web site). The school is nice though I think UKG curriculum is not as challenging for our child in the areas of reading and math. They do focus on writing though and Hindi. I have heard that they have a good curriculum in the higher standards as well. There are some other schools that look very nice and present a very progressive individual curriculum structure but I feel they are still experimental and haven't proved themselves in board exams (like Inventure though I liked their campus and approach). One school that we did like is Vidya Shilp and we will try for that school next year. They are well recognized for a wholistic approach to education.

NAFL as Arun mentioned is also a very good school (affiliated to NPS) but it was far for us from where we live.

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