Understanding the IGCSE in detail

One of the biggest questions today facing Indian parents looking to enrol their child into school is which curriculum is the right one for their offspring. While the choice was limited to the state board, Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) earlier, the scenario has changed significantly with the introduction of international schools in the country. These international schools offer international curriculums like the International Baccalaureate (IB) and the International General Certificate for Secondary Education (IGCSE), which have become very popular amongst Indian parents, especially those who understand the importance of holistic education. Read on to know more about why IGCSE schools are seeing such a large number of applications every year.

The IGCSE, which was developed by the Cambridge International Examination in 1988, is offered by over 10,000 schools across 160 countries globally, making it one of the most popular education English-based curriculums worldwide. It is also one of the most flexible curriculums as it allows its students to choose from over 70 different subjects, thereby allowing them to pursue their areas of interest. While the core curriculum consists of a first and second language, Maths, and atleast one subject of Science, the student can choose what to study alongside these, with the freedom to choose from diverse areas, ranging from Social Sciences to Arts and Technology.

Many parents make international schools in Mumbai offering the IGCSE curriculum their top preference as they are impressed by the board’s approach to learning. It not only focuses on developing the student’s understanding, skill and knowledge in the subject content, but also provides them with invaluable opportunities to apply this acquired knowledge and understanding to new and unfamiliar situations. It teaches its students to be inquisitive and culturally aware, and equips them to deal with the outcomes of change.

The IGCSE syllabus is designed to make global citizens out of today’s students, and hence the syllabus steers clear of any cultural bias. However, a certain level of local relevance is maintained for each region. Hence, international schools in India teaching the IGCSE syllabus will definitely have a certain amount of Indian context to the syllabus.

Many international schools in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and other parts of the country are offering the IGCSE curriculum. If you’re interested in enrolling your child in an IGCSE school, you can start off by doing some secondary research online to know more about the various IGCSE schools in your area. Post that, you can ask around in your social and professional circles to get first-hand accounts from parents whose children are currently studying at these schools or have recently graduated from these reputed institutes. A personal visit to your top schools will give you a good insight into the school’s offerings. Do check factors like experience of support staff, safety, hygiene and accreditation before finalising a school for your child. Following this process will ensure that your child sets off on the best-quality academic experience with ease.

How International Schools In Mumbai Go Beyond The Classroom

Parents around the country are slowly but surely waking up to the effectiveness of international curriculums. This phenomenon has resulted in the rapid increase in the number of international schools in Tier 1 cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, and Pune, as well as smaller cities in India.

One of the main aspects that gives international schools offering the IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) and IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculums an edge over curriculums like the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education), ICSE (Indian Certificate of Secondary Education) and local state boards is the learning that students get outside the classroom that supplements their formal learning experience.

International schools stress on practical learning and hence, offer their students an array of opportunities to learn from real-world situations. Be it through science or language labs, or hands-on projects, the young minds get to put their classroom learnings to good use on multiple occasions during the academic year. Many schools also offer theatre, dance and other forms of visual and performing arts that have been known to boost holistic growth. Sports like basketball, cricket and football encourage leadership and team spirit, and hence these are taught by many schools. In fact, in Mumbai, where school playgrounds are a rarity, schools often tie up with local clubs to provide their students a space to learn and master these sports.

Soft skills are the need of the hour in the professional world, and international schools are catering to this need by helping their students hone their personality strengths and overcome their weaknesses. When it comes to technical skills, those are offered aplenty too. For example, skills like coding, which were earlier reserved for undergraduates, are now being commonly seen in even secondary school students.

If you look at the list of top 10 schools in any Indian city today, you’ll realise that many of them are international schools, and now you know one of the main reasons behind this!

What are Top Schools in India Looking for in Applicants?

With the advent of every admission season, you’ll find a whole batch of new parents scurrying around in the hunt for the right school for their child. The school admission process has now become quite an intensive one, thanks to the high level of competition for seats at the top schools in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and other cities. Many parents even hire experts to train their child to ace the interview sessions! If you’re a parent looking at enrolling your child in school this year, before you immerse yourself in the rigour of the admissions process, take a moment to understand exactly what schools today are looking for. That way, both you and your child can be better prepared when meeting the school representatives.

Schools across the country today are focusing increasingly on holistic development as compared to a couple of decades ago, when the focus was only on academic excellence. They’re looking for children who have the potential to excel in the classroom as well as outside. They want young individuals who can be thinkers as well as doers, and whose thoughts and actions both are motivated by empathy, respect, understanding and compassion for others.

Social skills are a key parameter that schools judge applicants on. Students who are able to mingle better with their peers are definitely preferred over those who tend to be loners. This is usually observed during play sessions conducted during the interview process, wherein the young children are put in a room together by themselves with some play materials and the school’s teachers and behavioural experts examine them.

Attitude and aptitude both are tested by schools during the application process, and a child who shows potential and the willingness to learn is the ideal candidate for leading schools across India.

Keep these factors in mind while applying to the top 10 schools in India or even schools lower down in the list, and your child is sure to have a better shot at success.

Understanding the CBSE in detail

Many institutes and experts in the field of education release annual lists of top schools across curriculums, including top 10 CBSE schools, top 10 ICSE schools and top 10 IB schools across the country. As a parent, it can get quite confusing to choose from amongst the various education boards in the country. If you’ve been doing some research in this field, you would have come across many parents who staunchly advocate enrolling your child in one of the top CBSE schools in Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru or other cities in India. Let’s take a closer look at the CBSE and understand the reasons behind its popularity amongst Indian parents looking to enrol their child in school.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) was first established as the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Rajputana in the year 1929 with the aim of effectively imparting education to the children of central government employees who had transferable jobs. The CBSE, in its current form, has grown to become one of the most widely available education curriculums in the country that is available in almost 20,000 schools across India as well as in schools in 25 other countries around the world. Controlled and managed by the Union Government of India, the CBSE is recognised by all leading global institutes of higher education.

The CBSE prides itself on its inclusive nature. Firstly, it allows for its medium of instruction to be either Hindi or English. Also, the top 10 CBSE schools as well as those further down the list offer many merit-based and need-based scholarships. This results in students from various strata of society attending CBSE schools.

The CBSE focuses on providing a stress-free holistic learning environment for its students. The curriculum is well-structured and relevant, providing students with up-to-date information on various topics. The CBSE curriculum, while ensuring that the young minds get their basics right across subjects, lays great emphasis on Maths and Science. In Class 12, students get to choose from a wide variety of subjects, thereby allowing them to follow their passions and delve deeper into areas that interest them.

If your child is looking to pursue engineering or medicine as a career in the future, then education experts recommend that you enrol him/her in a CBSE school. The syllabus and grading mechanisms of top entrance exams for engineering and medical colleges across India like IIT-JEE and AIPMT is similar to that used for CBSE, and hence CBSE students have a higher success rate when it comes to doing well in these nation-wide examinations.

Whether you’re looking for CBSE schools in Pune or any other city in India, you will see that you have many reputed names to choose from. When selecting a school for your child, consider factors like faculty, infrastructure and technology, teaching methods, academic results, and co-curricular and extracurricular activities offered. Given the easy accessibility of information today thanks to the internet, you can start by doing some online research on your shortlisted schools, and you can follow this up with interactions with parents whose children are currently studying in or have recently graduated from the schools that you’re interested in enrolling your child in.

Aspects To Consider When Choosing The Right School For Your Child

It’s that time of the year again - Admission season is right around the corner, and parents around the country are immersed in the intensive process of selecting and applying to schools for their children. Given the increasing awareness of the importance of the academic experience in shaping a child’s future, there is added pressure on every parent to pick the right school for their child.

There are many factors to consider when shortlisting schools for your child to apply to. While many people want to secure an admit for their child to the best school in India, it’s important to note down the factors that are important to you, and make a decision based on these considerations. You should look at aspects like curriculum, quality of teaching and support staff, infrastructure and technology used on campus to aid and supplement your child’s learning experience, academic results of the school in board exams over the years, and co-curricular and extracurricular activities offered. You could also look at other things like location of the school. This is especially important if you live in a city that faces a significant problem of vehicular density and traffic congestion. After all, you don’t want your little one spending hours and hours commuting to and from school every single day.

While you should definitely do thorough research on your shortlisted options, you should also take some time to understand the potential, ability and interests of your child. This will go a long way in helping you find the right school for him/her. For example, if your child is interested in pursuing a career in medicine or engineering, you should apply to the best CBSE school in Mumbai as CBSE lays great emphasis on Maths and Science, and the CBSE syllabus and grading mechanisms are similar to those used for nation-wide engineering and medical entrance exams like IIT-JEE and AIPMT.

So, take a moment to breathe amidst the chaos of application season, and rationally understand which school is the best fit for your child rather than just following the herd or applying to every school in sight.

What Factors Are Considered While Deciding the No 1 School in India?

With admission season coming up, parents around the country are frantically searching for the right school for their offspring. With the countless number of schools offering a variety of curriculums, such as ICSE, CBSE, IGCSE and IB, supplemented by an array of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, choosing a school for your child to embark on their academic journey can be quite a daunting process. To make it easier, less stressful and less time-consuming, every year, many education experts and organizations in this field compile lists of top schools across curriculums in different cities. Let’s take a look at the factors that impact this decision.

-          Quality of Teaching and Support Staff

The first and foremost factor is the classroom experience offered by the school. This is decided by not only the experience and expertise of the teachers, but also the teaching mechanisms and technology used. Support staff members are also assessed to gauge if they are up to the challenge of managing children in various kinds of situations.

-          Campus and Infrastructure

Schools are allotted points based on the quality of their infrastructure. If you peruse the list of top schools in India, you’ll realise that many of the reputed schools offer state-of-the art laboratories, tech-enabled learning devices in the classrooms, world-class sports facilities and the like. These enhance a student’s academic experience and ensure that he/she develops both conceptual knowledge as well as soft skills.

-          Learning environment

In stark contrast to the earlier approach where academic excellence was everything, both schools and parents today are stressing on holistic learning and overall development of the child. A school should offer a stress-free environment where a student can pursue their interests and express their views and opinions. Practical learning opportunities are invaluable in making children enjoy the process of learning.

While these factors are taken into consideration while deciding the best school in India, when you’re deciding the best school for your child, you must also consider factors like their aptitude and interests.