"We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far."
Swami Vivekananda
V-Excel News
Music is all encompassing. It knows no boundaries. Time and again we have experienced this magical phenomenon when we see our
children truly enjoy the reverberations of music and musical instruments. So when renowned Carnatic vocalist, Smt. Bombay Jayashri,
enlivened our children with her melodious concert at our school, we were very happy. We earnestly thank her and her team for giving
us an exceptional program, and despite their hectic schedule, performing for our children. Our sincere gratitude to Mr. S. Hariharan,
a keen well-wisher of the V-Excel family, for introducing us to her.
Citibank has an annual Global Volunteer Program. Under this program, Citi employees all over the world, volunteer at different
local social organizations. For the past five years, Citibank employees in Chennai have been choosing our organization as one of their
partners. On 24th July, the Community Giving Day this year, eight of their employees volunteered. While few of them were engaged in
systematic documentation of our library books, the rest helped us in making props for our Sports Day, scheduled for 17th September.
They exclaimed that it was an extremely enjoyable time for them, as they were dabbling in free drawing, colours and paints after many
years. Kudos to their spirit of giving!
Kaleisdoscope Learning Centre
The heat of the summer in Chennai was broken by huge grins of the children at KLC, as they celebrated Water Day on the
July 9. It is really interesting that free play - using water as its medium - encourages social interaction, communication, speech,
gross motor skills in the most natural and enjoyable manner. Teachers and children are one and the emotional loosening up that happens
is worth watching. Suddenly the school portico was filled with "children" against 'special children' where caution has to be exercised
and non participation is as much the rule as participation. Children really had a great time!
Parent meetings were held on July 18 and 20 to explain the curriculum and answer queries regarding the systems at KLC.
The first in-service, held on July 9, was conducted by John Miller. A practical exercise followed by a lecture was very well-received
by the teachers. The second Friday of every month is slated for a lecture series from John and we request all interested teachers and
other staff to join us from 2.15 p.m. to 4.00 p.m., whenever possible, to benefit from these simple and meaningful lectures.
The Block 1 review was held on July 24 and it was heartening to see how well the children had learnt this month. Abinash of Grade
2A will be our first child study candidate for this academic year.
The red T-shirts are out and the school looks different now during the day. The dressing and undressing which was a part of the
ADL (Activities for Daily Living) program is now done customarily as an everyday ritual.
Academy for Teacher Excellence
The academic year 2010-11 for the teacher trainees started off on the 15th of July with an orientation session about the course.
The eagerness and anxiety was palpable among the teacher-trainees. The first week started with lectures by Mrs. Gita Bhalla (Principal, KLC)
on Anthroposophy, an approach used at our Center to teach children with Autism. The lectures were followed by trainees observing students at KLC.
With the start of the introductory lectures on Human Development, Special Education and Autism, curiosity levels among the trainees
seemed to be increasing. Queries and discussions enlivened the classroom atmosphere.
The trainees also started work on the various assignments given by the lecturers. Overall, the course took off with an energetic and
active start.
Early Intervention Unit
The month of July has been a very eventful month.
We are in touch with the 10 children who have joined different primary schools and play schools across the city. We are happy
that they have settled there well.
New children inducted into Early Intervention Unit are now coming in as scheduled and the therapists are busy implementing the
prescribed programs.
We undertook development screening for children under two years of age and programs were devised for those assessed for specific
sensory needs.
We conducted a meeting with all the parents to familiarize them with the new goals set for their children. Home training and home
programs have also been initiated.
Bridges Learning Academy
Based on a detailed assessment and analysis of all the students, we found that three homogeneous groups could be formed.
Each teacher in-charge of the respective group will coordinate all the components drawn up as a program.
Apart from the academic work essential for children with learning disabilities, we have integrated Eurythmy, Occupational Therapy
and Story-telling, along with few other co-curricular activities. These introductions are expected to facilitate learning and act as
a catalyst for holistic development of our children.
We are happy to welcome two new additions to our team. Mrs. Chitra Natarajan has joined us as a special educator while Mrs. Usha
has volunteered to help us with our children.
We have begun practice for Independence Day on 15th August. Children are very excited about their performance and are eagerly
looking forward to these sessions.
V-Excel Remedial Centre
Remedial programs for each student were elaborately planned by John Miller, Mrs. Gita Bhalla and Puja Bhalla. Apart from curriculum
designing, they will also be mentoring the teachers in charge of the implementation. The student programs have been discussed
individually with the parents.
To augment our knowledge on the school philosophy, John conducted an in-service program on traditional games. One such game is
Ghilli Dhanda. He introduced grade I and grade II level of the game. The game enhances eye-hand coordination, motor coordination,
tracking and concentration in the children. Teachers had fun playing the game. Following the game was a short informative lecture on the
pedagogical law which explained how the four bodies (physical, etheric, astral and ego) of the teacher affected the four bodies of the
students.
Teachers from VRC also attended child study along with the KLC teachers. All thoughts and energies were focused on the child
and working experiences with the child were shared and John summarized the study output.
Rural Outreach Program
The Government has stipulated that there have to be eight awareness camps and two medical camps in every block. By now, 75% of the
awareness related work is completed and 6 camps of the Phase I have been held in Villipuram. The rallies for generating widespread
awareness are well-attended; in fact, one of them had over 1,000 people! The group includes school children and teachers, special educators,
self-help groups, scouts, heads of institutions and the general public.
Instead of two special educators per block, we now require five. Hence a recruitment drive has been the need of the hour. The
appointments have to be such that various disability areas such as Hearing Impairment, Mental Retardation, Autism, Deaf-Blind and
Visual Impairment are covered. This process has been the highlight of this month.
Vocational Training Unit
The field trip this month was to the Vandalur Zoo. These times of fun every month are very important; it boosts the "happiness quotient"
of everyone's life.
Our calendars for the next year are on the theme Happiness Quotient. With brush strokes as the page background, the Warli
designs really stand out very well. The beauty of these calendars is that everything has been done by our children, right from
designs to screen printing!
We had a huge order for our Bhoomi Mitra cloth bags, thanks to our Counselor Nithya. Tailoring and Screen printing are primarily being
done by the students and the good news is that, for the first time, they will be getting paid for their work! Some part of tailoring was
assigned to underprivileged village women, through National Agro Foundation, and they too were paid for their support.
We also supply newspaper bags, made by our children, to a shop.
Mrs. Shikha Kaushik has joined the VTU team. She is the mother of Devyani, one of our students. Shikha is a highly qualified person
whose training in special education is balanced by inputs from Camphill. We have one more new addition, Mrs. Uma Swaminathan, who comes
as a volunteer on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings. She mainly works with Vishal and is increasing his repertoire of activities.
Shikha and Uma certainly bring new life to the Unit!
There is regular counseling for parents, thanks to Parimal and Nithya. Parents have started opening up and are sharing their concerns
with our counselors.
Mrinalini's movement therapy has been excellent. It is beautiful to behold the way barriers are broken in non-threatening and
enjoyable ways.
Counseling and Assessment Unit
Children have fairly settled in their classes and all activities of our department have been streamlined. This month about 60 children
from school received play therapy and six children from outside have received play therapy. Parental counseling has become our main focus
and all the parents will receive atleast two sessions. We have seen about 15 parents across different Units; appointments are being followed
up systematically.
There has been some increase in counseling clients from the corporate sector.
The demanding nature of diploma course, and the fact that few students are parents of special children, makes the ATE course stressful.
To prevent burnout of students, this year we decided to add counseling as a part of the course. Supervisory counseling began from this
month, as our proactive step to ease course pressure.
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
Academic Concepts, Inc.
1403 Merrywood Drive
Edison New Jersey 08817
Tel: (732) 572-3748
Tax ID: 22-3632715 E-mail us
