Dear Friends,  

It's again that time of year where anxious parents spend most of their time checking DOE Guidelines, points criteria of schools, filling and submitting forms. I've been part of this journey couple of years back and hence understand the pain parents go through. This platform by Mr.Vohra and team is indeed a great life saver. Anyways, a key challenge after filling up for forms etc is - which school to choose (in case you are lucky to have got through in draws, or your waitlist confirms, or if its first come first serve case). Hence in order to assist parents, I'm sharing feedback of the school where my son is currently studying - Nirmal Bhartia School (NiBS) Dwarka, Sector 14. 

Initially, in 2015-16 session, when my son was entering formal school, he got admission in Nursery in Modern Convent School Dwarka, Sector 4. I had penned feedback for Modern Convent in another post. You can access it by clicking here. In 2016-17, we changed his school to Nirmal Bhartia, wherein he was enrolled in KG. Like I did for my post on Modern Convent, I will touch upon pros and cons of Nirmal Bhartia to help you assess. In case anyone of you would like to discuss anything, I would be more than happy to assist. I am reachable on 9810556482:

Pros of Nirmal Bhartia School

1. Personalized Attention and Teachers: It is no surprise that the school has been consistently rated as No.1 in India, when it comes to personalized attention. In Nursery and KG, they have 30 students per class and 2 teachers, which makes it a ratio of 15:1. Beyond the numbers, the teachers genuinely give sufficient attention to each kid, which is required in these initial years. In all our interactions with our son's teachers - they indeed were aware of every little aspect of his behaviour in school - to the extent of his eating habits, what he likes to eat and not. This attention makes the kids really comfortable and boosts their learning. The school and it's principle take great pride in their teachers - and so far - I agree with them. The teachers indeed are handpicked and are great with kids. Just to give an example - our son was generally chating with one of his teachers sharing how pollution happens etc (which he had asked us generally over a chat at home). Now the teacher - to boost his confidence or to genuinely teach other kids about pollution, asked our son to give a 'guest lecture' in other classes of KG and Nursery. So there he went - sharing his gyan. And what this did - was to encourage other kids to share their thoughts in classes .
2. The Teaching Methodology: The teaching methodology at NiBS is a welcome change from the usual run-of-the-mill education system of ours. The emphasis is on learning through experiences with teachers and parents being active participants. There is no strait-jacket approach for teaching a concept. This perhaps is visible - even from their class-layout, which is a beautiful roundtable and chairs layout, as opposed to the usual class room benches. As for learning - when the kids are taught about neighbourhood and the institutions around us - they go and see those institutions (for instance the kids went to police station to learn what police does). Similarly when learning about food items and their importances - they had a month long theme when kids kept a diary of the different kids of things they ate and by the end of it - most kids started teaching their parents that junk food should be avoided !! Similarly when - learning words - the emphasis was on sounds and phonetics - and as we are seeing now, the kids have started attempting reading and writing biggers words on their own (purely on basis of phonetics they have learned).  So without being slow in covering 'curriculum' the approach makes learning fun. No surprises that to wake up our son in morning for school; all we need to say "Ok, aaj school ki chutti kar dete hai"

Cons of Nirmal Bhartia

1. Fees : Roughly - the fees is approx around Rs 180,000 for the year (including transport). For those living outside dwarka, it might touch Rs 2 Lakh. This is the total for school fees + transport + uniform + books. For salaried people, like me, no matter what's your CTC - I'm sure this would pinch the pocket !
2. Transport : The transport team leaves a lot to be desired. It is quite erratic at times. Your scheduled drop may be at 12:25, and there would be days when you pick your kid at 12:45 ! While this has been raised with school administration, but it still needs huge improvement
3. The Space: In Dwarka, schools are usually in 2 configuration. Those built on 4 acre of land and those on 2 acres of land. Naturally the ones in 2 acre have lesser space at their disposal and hence - the outdoor area available to kids suffers. NiBS belongs to the category of schools build on 2 acre of land. Though in NiBS they have still tried to have a small football ground, a basketball court and badminton court, besides a swimming pool; but it obviously can't match the outdoor and sporting facilities available in schools with larger space

Hope this feedback helps.  All the best. 

regards,

Bindesh