Newsletter, The Amaatra Academy - August 2013

1. Copyright © The Amaatra Academy 2013
NEWSLETTER
August 2013

2. Copyright © The Amaatra Academy 2013
Dear Parents,
Last month I was a attended the eIndia
conference as a speaker talking about how the
teachers in today’s schools need have
professional development for greater teaching
effectiveness leading to better student learning
outcomes. I did give them an example of all the
initiatives The Amaatra Academy has put in place
to ensure there is professional development
mapped for our teachers to groom them into
take greater responsibility.
Being a panelist, I was also interviewed on
several of my views on education and industry
knowledge gap. One question in the interview
was extremely interesting which is when they
asked me why the PES group who cater to
undergraduate and post graduate education
start a K-12 school. Well the idea was fairly
simple. The PES group is rated as the number 1
engineering college in Karnataka and we get
students who join our various branches who are
among the top 1000 ranks in the common
entrance test. As we saw the students who have
been joining our institution over the years, we
found a pattern where a good majority of the
students could not cope with the structure of
the syllabus or would not get the concepts as
they were used to the rote method of learning
or were coaching either in schools/colleges or
tuitions on how to crack the entrance exam and
boards. We felt this was leading to creating a
set of students who were not well rounded and
were struggling through their undergraduate
study. Hence the group came upon an idea; to
set up a K-12 school which would be a feeder
school to the students we would like to admit
into our undergraduate and postgraduate
institutions. Hence The Amaatra Academy was
formed.
As being a part of The Amaatra Academy, you
must have realized that through various
programs, teaching pedagogy and methods that
we focus on getting your child to understand
the concepts and also show them how they can
be implemented. This instils a love for learning
and makes them lifelong learners. We know that
just making them understand concepts are not
enough, we get them to understand how they
need to apply that to a board and competitive
exam scenarios. Our students also get coached
for all the leading competitive exams like –
Olympiads, NTSE exams, ASSET etc. All of this
preparation is to ensure that when your child
gets into the under graduate program of his/her
choice he/she will be able to understand the
concepts better leading to better technologists/
doctors/scientists and become well-rounded,
thus becoming successful in the chosen area.
We look to see each one of our students
featured in the honor roll of leading universities
or working in exciting start-ups contributing to
creating unique products or developing new IP
or researching on the next block buster drug or
designing next generation of building or
discovering next path breaking surgery
methods. We look to create individuals who are
on their path of success through our programs.
Please read this newsletter for more on the
programs we have designed to take our students
on this path of success.
Incase of any questions or clarifications, please
feel free to get in touch with me.
Prof Shivanan da R Koteshwar
Director, The Amaatra Academy
Editorial from the Director’s desk

3. Copyright © The Amaatra Academy 2013
Every Saturday all our students in grades 6th to 12th have super Saturday programs. The value added
program includes –
• Math days where our students will have fun with mathematics and enjoy a day of camaraderie with
university mathematics professors – our PES faculty
• Chemistry days where our students have 101 classes on chemistry to understanding complex chemistry
for higher grades where they are taught through experiments to make them understand how chemistry
plays a role in everyday life
• “Meet a personality series” in school , where we have authors or other personality who have been
successful to meet with our students to share their journey and what lessons they have learnt on their
journey
• Science Olympiad coaching: All students in grades 6th to 9th participate in this coaching weekly and will
trained for NSO, NCO, IMO and IEO. We are investing 70 hours per grade for Olympiad coaching. The
school has procured the necessary reference material and books. The coaching will be undertaken by
experts
• Class 11 students have booster basic programs scheduled where they learn the concepts necessary to
crack the IITJEE or NEET exams
Super Saturday Programs
Leading researchers in the area of student psychology have established a "significant" link between mental
health and academic outcomes. Research shows that well-nourished, active students have better
concentration, school attendance and test scores.
Regular exercise can help mitigate the effects of stress and anxiety, and more widely, exercise can be used
by all as a preventative means of ensuring a balanced mental wellbeing. At The Amaatra Academy, we are
working towards an awards scheme through which we can ensure we are able to tackle the issue of stress
levels our students’ experience.
From this year, as a part of the credit courses we offer, we have a 2 star award program designed for the
children where each student needs to participate in a minimum of 1 sport in school. This will ensure
30mins of moderate activity for 5 days a week. As a part of the credit course, we will initiate a project for
our students on led how to improve their health and learn about a healthy lifestyle. The program will also
have a community element, where the students will be encouraged to “Walk across the community” –
explore the neighborhood on foot to incorporate fitness in their regime. Along with this, we ensure all our
students compulsorily attend yoga classes scheduled daily.
Our staff at The Amaatra Academy are also doing their bit for this cause. The teachers are signing up for a
Million Step Challenge, a project that encourages teachers to take an average of 10,000 steps per day on
most days. This will ensure that the teachers will be role models to the students to adopt a healthier
lifestyle.
Healthy body and healthy mind

4. Copyright © The Amaatra Academy 2013
As communicated to you earlier, we have banned cell phones on our school campus as we are seeing many
instances of pupils’ texting when they should be working; Also using social networking sites when they
should be studying.
Looking at these scenarios plus post our discussions with you in our PTA meeting, the school management
has decided to ban students carrying any cell phone to the school campus.
Please note, that if we see a student carrying them in school, we will confiscate them. If the mobile phone is
confiscated, parents have to come and sign for them.
We hope you will all welcome and accept the policy as it will help create a better learning environment
Ban cell phone on campus
Amaatra “Go Green” drive, an initiative
supported by Schneider Electrical

5. Copyright © The Amaatra Academy 2013
We organized “meet a personality series in school”. As a first part to this series, we invited Mr. Sudipto Das,
Author of bestseller “The ekkos clan” to interact with students from class 8th to 11th.
Mr Sudipto Das is an engineering professional (B.Tech. IIT,
Kharagpur) lives in Bangalore with his family and has over 17
years experience in various aspects of chip-implementation.
He is currently VP Engineering, Design Services Group at
Mirafra Technologies. History, culture, language, writing and
music are of special interest to him. The Ekkos Clan is his
debut book. To know more about the author and the book at
http://www.sudiptodas.com
Sudipto Das, donated 5 copies of his book to our library.
Thank you Sudipto! We wish you all the very best and looking
forward for your
second book!.
Meet a Personality Series
Please feel free to revert to me or staff at The Amaatra Academy in case of any clarifications or to understand the progress we are
making on the topics discussed.