Do you encourage your children to do art and craft? Do you talk to them about your cultural heritage and your past? It is crucial to develop an awareness in children of our rich heritage of arts, design and crafts; as it gives them a sense of identity and belonging. As per our National Education Policy 2020, arts education develops critical and creative thinking skills which help in the holistic development of a child.
Keeping this in mind, we at British Council have used this theme for our online summer school. Summer School 2021 at the British Council is a unique two-week online course, where your child will improve their language, communication and critical thinking skills to prepare them for a sustainable future. This is an exciting opportunity to learn about and celebrate the diversity of Indian cultural heritage from around the country and use this knowledge to create and design their own products.
We successfully completed our first batch of summer school and if we might say so ourselves, it was a resounding success. Parents and students gave us a lot of positive feedback. Here is what some of them said.
"I learned how to create stories and loved making puppets." - Riyaan Pungliya 5-6 years
"I like the teacher a lot …our kids are enjoying her class and more alert in the class as teacher is a very good conveyer of the information to children" - Vivaan Hawalkhod 7-8 years
"I like the class very much. It is very interesting, and my teacher is very good." - Anuraag Krshna C V 9-10 years
"I have started speaking English more confidently, the course is therefore very helpful." - Jane Venus George 11-12 years
"This is really very nice summer school children can learn well. Thank you" - Sashi 13-14 years
"Our teacher makes this topic really fun and informative through different interactions and discussions. So, I enjoy attending these classes and am looking forward to the next week." - Yoshee Jain 15-17 years
Our friendly teachers make sure they create a positive and fun environment in the class. Children are engaged and they learn while playing games.
Our very young early years (5 to 6 years) retell folktales using puppets and storyboards. They draw ideas from traditional art forms like Warli and Gond and design a product.
The primary learners (7 to 12 years) are introduced to folktales from various parts of the country and identify the structure of a story. They are introduced to grammar structures and vocabulary that they use to write their own folktale. Adil Hussain, of the Life of Pi fame, narrated a folktale called the Jackal and the Camel for our young audience. In week 2, they explore art forms and reasons why for their decline. They finally design a product to sustain this art form and present it using chunking and intonation.
The secondary learners (13 to 17 years) create the content for an app that can help artisans reach a wider market base sustainably. They collaborate with peers and develop their team-work, critical thinking and problem solving skills.
In addition to the exciting content, we also had a super hit set of competitions. Younger ones dressed up as their favourite character from a folktale of their choice while the older ones wrote a story based on the embroidery on a Katha dupatta.
The hour-long online class is supplemented with some fun tasks that children can do at home. We encourage our learners to work on their own, thus building a strong foundation of a lifetime of independent learning.