"The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be....."
Robert Fulghum
V-Excel News
On the 8th of March, Mr. Anil Srinivasan, a noted classical pianist delighted the children with music that was gentle and beautiful. Trained in both classical as well as western music forms, he has worked widely with great names in the music industry. At our school premises in Mandaveli, staff and children swayed to the soothing notes and cheered as he winded up with a song vocalized by our very own Vedanth Bharadwaj.
With an aim to support children with special learning needs in an inclusive setup, Isha School had organized a workshop in Cuddalore last month where our team had oriented their teachers towards the tenets of child development and the basics of special education. As a next step, on the 22nd of March, Mrs. Gita Bhalla, Principal of our special school, and Ms. Puja Bhalla did significant work in the form of observations, assessments and teachers' meetings. They demonstrated some of the strategies of working with children with issues concerning behaviour, concentration, interest in academic as well as non-academic areas.
The requirement of professionals such as special educators, physio and occupational therapists, counselors, is rising at V-Excel due to the increasing reach of our services in Chennai and other Centers. Please do spread a word among your friends and colleagues to encourage persons with relevant background, interest, and experience to approach us at any of our Centers or e-mail us at info@v-excel.org.
Kaleidoscope Learning Centre
Review meetings were held with parents in the week of 18th-22nd March. This is a customary meeting between the principal, the teachers concerned and the parents of children from specific grades to get a close look as well as a bird's eye view on where the child is at present and what are our hopes and dreams for her/him. Over the years, we are finding more understanding developing among all people concerned with the child. And when the parents, teachers, therapist, counselor meet with this deepened understanding, it is much easier to plot the road map of our children's life. It is also very heartening that with the passing years it feels like a big happy family where support is no longer restricted to just the child but is offered to the extended family. There is much more meeting of minds, sharing of experiences, and yes, planning for the future keeping the interest of the child in mind.
The colour week concluded with Holi celebration where children played with organic colours. Each colour was enjoyed by the children and many had different experiences with the different colours; the calmness blue and the active mood of red touched many.
Five children participated in a dance program arranged by Ability Foundation on the 9th of March. It was a large social event and the children greatly enjoyed the experience.
Teachers and therapists are busy completing the year-end reports for the children. These documents are a brief history of the year that was just completed and the details of their progress in different areas of academics, self growth, work and play skills, physical and motor abilities etc. These reports form the baseline for drawing up their next year's goals.
Academy for Teacher Excellence
The month of March was very eventful as we started the IGNOU course on CESE (MR) in Solapur. Our faculty members, Parimal and Maria stayed at Solapur for a week to complete the 30 hours of contact sessions. We have eight students enrolled for this course in Solapur, out of which 5 of them are parents, one is a special educator, one is a speech therapy assistant and one is a sibling. Many from this group are a part of a Center run by the parents of children with special needs.
Another important event was the Southern Regional Course Coordinators meet at Cochin on the 21st and 22nd of March. More than 100 professionals comprising of special educators, physio-therapists and speech therapists from various organizations across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka met together to discuss issues related to conducting of examinations and inspection of organizations to get RCI recognition for new and on-going RCI courses. V-Excel was represented by Mrs. Maria Josephine, our ATE Coordinator.
Early Intervention Unit
We had an extremely busy month with parent observations and review meetings. Many children have shown improvement in the critical areas of speech, language and communication. Expressive language facilitation was the goal for the last term and the results showed its concrete output; many children are able to express their basic needs, including toileting needs.
Parents are trained on implementing ADL (Activities of Daily Living) skills at home with an emphasis on independence in feeding. Given that the EI children are in the 0-7 age group, ADLs is an important focus area since an improvement in independence guarantees better functionality for life.
'Play' in its true essence has potential to trigger maximum learning and enjoyment. However, it is one of the less understood areas and we therefore organized a special session for parents to demonstrate how to facilitate play with children. It was an interesting program and was appreciated by all the parents.
It is indeed encouraging to get children in as early as possible for identification and intervention for developmental delays. We recently are providing therapy services to two infants under the infant stimulation program. We see a growing need in this area and are assessing boosting of resources for infants.
As a part of the research project on early intervention, the staff interviews by professionals from Kalanjiyam Trust are in progress.
V-Excel Satellite Centres
One of our students from the Nashik center, a child with autism, participated in a music competition conducted by her school (regular) in March. She sang "Nanna munna raahi" and won the second prize. Kudos to her for standing before a crowd of 100 and singing at the Annual Day function!
The Nashik Center featured in the Marathi Daily Lokmat on 5th March and English daily Lokmat Times. We have been receiving a lot of enquiries since then and are gearing to extend support to more children.
We are planning to have campus interviews for therapists for our Erode Center. At present, we have nearly 40 students; 25 consultations were done in the last week this month.
Mrs. Lalitha Sridhar, one of our senior professionals, visited Tirunelveli on 22nd and 23rd of March as a part of her work on satellite centers. The program there has consolidated very well with the parents appreciating our work and co-operating with us at every step.
We get lot of children from villages around Tirunelveli to the center. They have to commute around ½ hour-2 hours to reach and hence we do experience drop-outs. The other reason for irregular attendance is parents' inability to pay for the services and the commute. At present we have 2 therapists, 2 special educators, 1 front office person, and 2 helpers there.
V-Excel Remedial Centre
March rings in the time to review our performance over the year. During this month we reviewed our programs for children in terms of our achievement of the goals. We also held discussions with parents and touched base with schools. These reviews and the feedback from schools help us redesign their goals to the next level, wherever necessary, and also critically evaluate our strategies for the benefit of the children.
We held meetings with our teachers as a part of V-Excel's formal performance evaluation process. Frank in-depth discussions helped us understand our strengths and weakness and gave us direction to work on ourselves.
We completed two assessments and have started remedial work with a new child who is proving to be a huge challenge for us. An eight year old with academic skills of preprimary level, and comprehension, vocabulary and language skills far above her age level, she is defiant, impulsive, hates learning but challenges us to get more and more creative to hold her interest. She has underlying emotional issues which need to be addressed and her trust to be won before learning takes place. We are striving towards this.
Rural Outreach Program
This month we took on the initiative of providing nutritive biscuits to children from various pockets of Villipuram district. Distribution of biscuits was done in Resource Rooms, Day Care Centers and schools where children with disabilities are provided care, therapy and educational inputs. We sincerely thank Britannia Industries for their generous ongoing support in this area.
Vocational Training Unit
The Vocational Unit is buzzing with activity. As a part of its growth, we are progressing towards having a production unit for our trainees who have achieved independence in making of certain products with a fair degree of quality. In this process, wedding planners have been contacted and samples are being made to showcase our capabilities.
Jute bags made by the trainees seem to be popular and we have already executed three orders so far, totaling to 150 bags. The trainees have proficiently executed an order for 1200 thamboolam bags as well. They also packaged gift towels for a wedding order.
The screen-printing unit has got a regular order for printing on bags to be supplied to a packaging unit run by a parent of the VTU.
Anandhi, one of our Counselors, conducted sessions for the trainees while the physio-therapist worked on their personal hygiene and growth into adulthood. A plan for an interactive session with parents is on the cards.
Counseling and Assessment Unit
The month of March was a hectic month, with parent meetings, final reports and regular counseling sessions. One of our psychologists visited Solapur Center for technical guidance and for the IGNOU course.
Two of our psychologists attended all the parent meetings of KLC which are conducted as review meetings at the end of the year by the KLC coordinators. We are a part of this exercise as our team is closely involved with parent counseling and education programs.
Our regular play therapy sessions and counseling sessions continued. Apart from that we conducted seven consultations and had our regular counseling desk. We had to also rush for three emergency cases this month to the location; the situations are taken care of.
There has been an increased demand for workshops from corporates on stress management, extreme depression and destructive tendencies for high stress job employees, from schools on special education and to address parents as well as children on various topics ranging from discipline to sex education.
A very unique 360? feedback was witnessed this year when our children also did their review of the year with one of our play therapists! They wrote what they enjoyed the most and what was their favorite activity in the play sessions. It was really heart-warming to see their positive responses!
Contact Information
V-Excel Educational Trust
#1 Norton 2nd Street
Mandaveli Chennai 600 028
Tel: 91 - 44 - 24620243
91 - 44 - 24956373 E-mail us or visit us at www.v-excel.org
V-Excel Center for Research and Rehabilitation
(In assocation with S.V. Sarada Foundation)
50 Sreyes, M.G. Road
Shastri Nagar, Chennai 600 041
Tel: 91 - 44 - 24522061
91 - 44 - 24521986 E-mail us
Academic Concepts, Inc.
33 Pine Street
East Brunswick New Jersey 08818
Tel: (732) 619-7944
Tax ID: 22-3632715 E-mail us
