Staff Vs Parents Soccer Match......Highlights

Staff Vs Parents Soccer Match

Saturday Soccer ! What fun ! A Parents vs Staff match !

Tha Chairman, Mr. B. Arogya Reddy and the Principal greets the players

All set to take the first kick !

The birds eye view of the game.

Wow, that was a good one !

Go for it Viji !

A good goal, man !! The parents team after their first goal !

Our two commentators - Ms. Rozario and Ms. Sharma.

Good Job !

Parents -2, Staff -2

If it hadn't been for Wing Co, I think the parents would have won 8-2 !!

The winning goal , by the Parents ! Dont miss our referee, Vishal Repaka of grade 9

Well played !

All the players !!

The winning Team !

And the staff team !!

vada sambaar by the tree !

And puris too ! Mr. Munawar Mehdi, The parents Team Captain, shows off his injured knee !

High Tea with CIE

Welcome, Mr. Corish and Ms. Jones !

Dr. P . Prasad of CfBT appreciates our events' timeline.

The Reception Committee, all dressed and waiting !

Welcome, Mr. Andrew Corish !

A tilak on your forehead that says, you are very welcome here !

Mr. Mahender Reddy, our Director & Ms. Ratnalekha Shetty, our principal, escort our visitors into the school.

Ms. Urska Anumanchi with her choir, all set to sing !

Mr. Vinayak Sudhakar, Schools Development manager, India, Cambridge International Examinations, welcomes all our special guests and all the Heads of the CIE schools of Hyderabad.

Felicitating the guests!

Mrs. ratnalekha Shetty, our principal, adresses the august gathering.

Mr. Andrew Corish, Examiner Business Studies, talks of his experience in India

Our little choir, they sing so well !!!

Lots of little pieces played on the piano, for our guests.

A networking event alright !

Schools Bring Us Together

In an age where segmentation of markets, segmentation of society, keep people apart from those who think differently, who look differently, who live differently than they do, schools bring us together to learn from and with each other.

 Mrs. Sharma you make learning Hindi so easy

We smile and enjoy when we study together 

"Ms. Asha please teach me how to make a boat"

 Green, Orange,Yellow we are ready to sail our boats in the water shallow

 Its so funnnnnnnnnn to be in SCHOOL

We are such great friends

At Sancta Maria, there are teachers who make the classroom into something special. They listen to students,play with them . There are students who look forward to class those classes so that they be in deep learning environments. And in all those places, the learning goes far beyond acquisition of knowledge and skills and content. In all those places, there is meaning and wisdom and passion.  

Sancta Maria Children's choir

Our very first chance to perform. We are a new, small choir. 9 girls from grades 2 and 3. We chose simple songs to start with:

1. Three kittens (translated from Slovene language; Tri muce so sle na potep by Janez Bitenc)
2. Lullaby (translated from Slovene language; Uspavanka za Evo by Andrej Sifrer)
3. Little bear (translated from Slovene lanuguage; Medvedek na mosticku by Janez Bitenc).

Why Sports is Important for Women

I would like to share an article – ‘Why sports participation is important for women and girls’ written by Tiffany Brown.

· As little as four hours of exercise a week may reduce a young woman’s risk of breast cancer by up to 60%; breast cancer is a disease that afflicts one out of every 8 American women.

· One out of every two women over the age of 60 suffers from osteoporosis (brittle bones). Females today should not desire to relive the experiences of previous generations of women who were not permitted to play sports or encouraged to participate in weight-bearing exercises that are necessary in establishing bone mass.

· Females who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self esteem and lower levels of depression.

· Young women who play sports are less likely to be involved in an unwanted pregnancy; more likely to get better grades in school and more likely to graduate than girls who do not play sports.

· From childhood to adulthood, females who play sports have a more positive body image and experience higher states of psychological well being than girls and women who do not play sports.

· Sport is where the males traditionally learned about teamwork, goal setting, the pursuit of excellence in performance and other achievement -oriented behaviors critical for success in the work place. In an economic environment where the quality of our children’s lives will be dependent on two-income families, the women of today cannot be less prepared for the highly competitive workplace than men. It is no accident that 80% of the female executives at Fortune 500 companies identified themselves as former “tomboys”- having played sports.

A couple of quotations...

I thought it would be good to share these quotes by Einstein:
"Logic takes you from A to B. Imagination takes you everywhere."
"Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

A mind that is learning

What do we mean by learning? Is there learning when you are merely accumulating knowledge, gathering information? As a student you study maths science and so on ; you are learning, informing yourself about the subject. You are accumulating knowledge in order to use that knowledge in practical ways. Your learning is accumulative, additive. Now, when the mind is merely taking on, adding, acquiring, is it learning? Or is learning something entirely different? I say the additive process that we now call learning is not learning at all. It is merely a cultivation of memory, which becomes mechanical; and a mind that functions mechanically like a machine is not capable of learning.  Learning is something quite different. A mind that is learning never says, “I know” because knowledge is always partial whereas learning is complete all the time. Learning does not mean starting with a certain amount of knowledge, and adding to it further knowledge. That is not learning at all; it is a purely mechanical process. Learning is never cumulative. It is movement of knowledge which has no beginning and no end. 

The Hunger Games: A Gladiatorial conquest?

NOTE: I wanted to share something about a book I had read of late, and compare it to a movie that I have always loved. I shall also say that there is a spoiler alert, since I do mention events in The Hunger Games that might ruin your read if you haven’t yet managed to lay your hands on it! So, if you have read the book, or if you don’t mind the spoilers read on…

For a short preview, you might want to watch The Hunger Games Trailer and the Gladiator- the trailer.

The Hunger Games, a book by Suzzane Collins, tells the story of a seventeen year old girl named Katniss Everdeen. Katniss lives in a world where there is an anarchic rule by the Capitol over twelve districts. The districts had originally rebelled and this led to the Capitol reinforcing their rigid authority by introducing something called the hunger games. Here, two children from each district between the age of 12 and 18 (one boy and one girl) are chosen to compete each other in an arena until only one survives while the rest of the country watches the televised version. Katniss, a girl from District 12, which supplies coal to the Capitol, offers to participate in the hunger games in her sister, Primrose Everdeen’s, stead.

Through the three novels that Suzzane Collins spins, we see an act of rebellion against the reign of President Snow and the Capitol. What is interesting about this novel is the comparison between a future that Collins creates and a Roman past. After reading the books, I happened to watch the movie Gladiator (2000) by Ridley Scott and I was struck by the similarities. It is true that Collins herself has acknowledged the influence of Roman history in writing her book- Roman senators, the idea of the arena and the weak pitched against each other or other natural forces (in the gladiatorial games it would be other animals, while in the hunger games it was also weather and other natural phenomena), and the people watching the entertainment.

The gladiatorial games were for the entertainment of the masses. However, in the movie, Maximus (a Roman general who becomes a slave and is compelled to enter the arena) proves that he will not obey the command of his emperor. He, at every possible chance, throws dirt at the face of Commodus’ reign. Maximus, through three vivid instances (his three games in the Colloseum), defies the crown causing Commodus to retch with anxiety and eventually leads to his death in the extraordinary finale between him and the erstwhile general. Similarly, Katniss, through three different instances (the three novels), defies President Snow leading to his overthrow in the end.

It is fascinating to see the similarities between the appearances of the commentator and the senators in the film and the gamemakers in the novel. The clothes are similar: the gamemakers wear purple robes, while the senators don white. The people of the Capitol are said to dress ‘differently’- with plastic surgery and plenty of makeup.  This is akin to commentator Cassius in Gladiator.

 - Cassius

  

It was really curious to see that only the people from the Capitol were named after Romans: Cinna, Portia, Caesar, Cato, Octavia, Flavia, Plutarch, Seneca etc. While Katniss, Prim and Gale and elements of nature in them. Even Rue (meaning compassion) and Thresh (related to the agricultural ‘threshing of the corn’) have more ‘humane’ names. This could be percieved as a nature-culture shift.

Finally, there is an amazing similarity between Haymitch Abernathy who trains Katniss and Antonious Proximo, a gladiator trainer who buys Maximus. Both men primarily look out for themselves, and yet they accomplish so much more for their chosen candidate. Both of them have a rather antagonistic and yet protective approach to the people who go into the arena.

I found a lot of similarities between the story and the movie. And for those who love the arena, both the book as well as the movie are a must read/see.

Reading for Young Kids

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” 

― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

Ika completely focused on her book and nothing else! 

Group reading session in PP - 2

Spoorthy and Sharon enjoying their book in the Tree House

Praval engrossed with his book under the tamarind tree

In the cool breeze, under the tamarind tree. A tree house that invites all. Plenty of books for children's interest in the library, and a small library in the class itself, for their easy access...

In such an environment, who wouldn’t want to read?

Here at Sancta Maria, we understand how important reading is for younger children. We have specific times when we all sit down to read, kids and teachers alike. We read Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss, Bright Sparks Series, Ladybird Series and various other titles for the children to choose from. 

Believe it or not, all the kids read them, and they seem to do it all so easily.

I often see children tell me the names of their favorite chocolates, how do you think they read it out from the wrappers? Obviously, it is something that comes to them naturally. Reading is something that children can do without any prerequisite knowledge; Of course, I don’t mean that reading doesn’t need guidance, but you’ll notice that reading, is very different from writing. While the procedure of writing involves teaching them about the strokes and letters, reading will just take place by seeing the structure of words that they see in their everyday lives, for example, the aforementioned chocolate wrappers, and advertisements in the television.

Reading is very important to our lives. To learn anything new, the most basic skill required is reading. Thus, it is often impressed that children be taught to read from a young age itself, as this also helps to cultivate the habit of reading in them.

Festival of COLOURS

When I was asked to write a blog, I had no idea as to how to start it and from where... went through a couple of blogs and thought of many topics. But it was a pleasant surprise to note that tomorrow is the  festival of COLOURS and there is lots that I wanted to share.......

The colorful festival of Holi is celebrated on Phalgun Purnima . Holi festival has an ancient origin and celebrates the triumph of 'good' over 'bad'. The colorful festival bridges the social gap and renew sweet relationships. On this day, people wish each other 'Happy Holi'.At Sancta Maria, we celebrated holi today.. The kids were geared up since morning, waiting eagerly to splash colours and to play HOLI.. They played till their hearts content and the teachers equally enjoyed..... Wow!!!!!! it was such a fun to see everyone drenched in coloured water from top to bottom, thoroughly enjoying this wonderful day.... The grade 1 kids were so excited since morning, that they were hardly interested in any other activity till they went to the play ground with their friends......  My heart filled with joy and happiness to see the kids and staff having so much of fun!!!!!!!!!!!! Some of the Grade 1 kids asked me when we went back to our class-" Maam, when would be the next holi?" when I replied , after 365days, the obvious answer from them was-Ohhhh, after sooooooooooo many days!!! Like them, even I wish that this wonderful festival of COLOURS come very often, may be once in a month.......... I wish 

Sancta Marians, with a splash of colour

The celebration of an explosion of colours

The rainbow comes to life

Grades 1-9 begin their celebrations...

Mr. Sai plays with the children: "Who will get drenched next?"

Looking for more water to throw

Calling out to others to come join in the fun

The Pre-Primary celebrations begin with great verve and enthusiasm...

"Painted" pink!

Can't wait to get their hands on the colours...

And I wish you a happy Holi!

The children gather after their game of Holi!