Setting out with SBOA

The LKG admission process for the year 2014 has started @ SBOA School and Junior College, Anna Nagar west Ext. Chennai. The below information is from the official site www.sboajc.org/lkg  Application for admission to LKG for the academic year 2014-15 will be available only online. The link for registration will be open at this site from 9.00 AM on the opening day and will be available for 3 days. 19.2.2014 - Wednesday 20.2.2014 - Thursday 21.2.2014 - Friday   Eligibility: Children who are born between 01 December 2009 and 30 November 2010 Instructions : Enclose the printed original Registration form with the required supporting documents in a sealed envelope superscribed with Registration number on the envelope and drop it in the box provided at the school office on or before 24.2.2014(Monday). List of supporting Documents to be attached with the Registration Form at the time of submission. Attested Photocopy of Birth Certificate of the Child.

Admission season is at hand, soon many schools in Chennai are going to throw their gates open to receive applications for the next academic year. Choosing a school is  quite a job and sometimes with the options given it's a tough decision to make. Few of the overall criteria to consider are..... 1. Distance from the school - Anything more than the recommended 5km radius is too much of a strain on the kids. 2. Mode of transport - School buses are as vital as good infrastructure in picking a school. If you cant walk to school then the most sensible option would be to use the school bus. So do check if this facility is available and adequate. 3. Board and Curriculum - In Chennai there were a few different boards till most of them were consolidated into "Samacheer Kalvi Thitam". Right now generally the question is between CBSE and The State Prescribed Board. Each  has it's advantages and disadvantages, research and find one that will fit your ward's need

The books for all classes are generally given out during the last week of April. The kids are all waiting to take a peek into their brand new books for the coming year. The tamil books are the stateboard books and you can download them from the below link http://www.textbooksonline.tn.nic.in/ The CBSE prescribed NCERT books can be found in the below link http://ncert.nic.in/ncerts/textbook/textbook.htm SBOA uses a variety of publishers from Macmillan to Cordova for different subjects and all the books will be provided by the school. For us parents it's a mad rush to finish brown papering the notebooks and binding the textbooks! "Mummy, not the orange paper take the light brown ones, I like them better" with suggestions that sound more like ultimatums, I'm dreaming of the day that they will cover their own books! But according to my wiser father, I might as well give up as he reminds me that he covered my books all through my school years!

I'm putting my second child in SBOA this year, and the first round of admissions are in progress. My! the fees have gone up this year, but looking at the other schools, including Matric schools, SBOA has managed to keep the fees lower than the city average. The admission process was smooth and quick. We finished meeting the Principal in about 30mins from the time we got there. All that's left is, to pay the fees and start the joining formalities. I'm glad that my kid got in, as I already have another child studying in 1st Std in SBOA. She enjoys going to school. At 50 kids a class, it is a crowd but their systematic way of doing things more than makes up for it. Good luck to all those applying for admissions @ SBOA this year.   For more info check at the below site http://www.sboajc.org/admission.html Photo courtesy Stuart Miles @ freedigitalimages.net 

This has been an eventful term, with loads of extracurricular activities and competitions. They had their annual exhibition "C onnoisseur 2010" and it was a real treat, the amount of work that had gone into it was tremendous, the themes were varied from airports to circus to music. The kids had a great time putting the whole thing together. though parents did most of the work for the junior sections the presentations were done by the kids. This term has seen a lot more writing and reading skills being encouraged, as well as basic calculations in Math. They have a very organized way of handing out homework so we always know what to expect when. The observation would start by the first week of December. And looking forward to the Holidays!

UKG in SBOA school and junior college, Chennai, is an extension to the LKG program. Some of the things they did during the first term of UKG are, -Lower case cursive writing completed -Numbers 1 to 50 writing. -Numbers in words up to ten. -Writing of 2 letter words like it, on, go, etc... -Reading of 2 and 3 letter words -Simple story recitation and enacting. -Rhymes and songs recitation -Basic spoken English. -Tamil / Hindi letters writing. On the whole the curriculum is not too heavy nor too light, they have homework on Tuesdays, Thursday's and Fridays. Usually the homework runs to a page with 7 lines. No exams, only observation for this year also. Extra curricular activities are plenty. On the whole a very interesting year for the kids, looking from how it's been so far into the first term. Fee structure has not changed from last year. With the September holidays approaching fast, it's just observation going on at school and no 'stressed out p

The 1st term concluded with almost a month long vacation and the second term started with splash pool sessions! The kids love it. With the class projects going on in full swing, every student and parent has something to do. The themes are varied, from 'homes' to 'helpers'. A lot of activity and energy at school these days. The hand book given to us has all the details of which lesson is done when and is followed meticulously down to the kind of strokes they do, to the art activities for the week. Apart from all this the regular computer classes and PE classes are total fun for the kids. The round of inter house competitions just got over for recitation, singing and story telling. This is the news for now. Bye till I find the time to write another post!

Most transitions are painful, but this one is acute. Especially if the kid is 3 years old! Half a day of school is fun as they come back home to have lunch and sleep, doing the very same things in school is a diffrent ball game. However there is hope.......... If you stick to the routine and tide over the first 2 weeks they actually start loving to go to school again. Here are some pointers to make this transition easier Set a routine for everything regarding the kid and the school days. Make the mornings before school fun. Keep the kids updated on what to expect for the day, including snacks and lunch that you have packed. Wake up early and try not to rush through the morning. Don't hurry the kid through his breakfast or toilet/bath time. Before he leaves, tell him about the fun things he can do when he gets back in the evening. Stick to the schedule and keep sending him to school, he's bound to fuss for the first few days. Keep encouraging them to interact with their "fr

The below is my reply to a comment, however thought that most of you would miss it on the comments page, so here is a part of it regarding the first week of school........... About engaging kids in a creative manner, I think they are doing a good job. Last week which was by the way the first week, they taught the alphabet 'A'. From what my daughter could tell me, they wrote several letters on the board and asked if anyone could identify the letter A and circle it, few of the kids did that. Then they showed them a couple of things that start with the letter A. Finally they handed out newspapers and asked the kids to identify and circle all the A's they could find on it. They did hand printing in art class. Also learnt the first 4 tamil alphabets and an alphabet song in the tamil class. Apart from this the regular rhymes, songs, a few exercise moves and the morning prayer. They have a TV in the classroom and play the rhymes, songs, alphabets and also occasionally Tom & Je

Finally the day had arrived and gone too without much fuss, my kid didn't cry but missed out on her snacks and was famished when I went to pick her up. The day for her seemed to have gone fairly well given the fact that she was without me for the first time. I guess I missed her more than the other way around! As for the activities, they sang a couple of well known rhymes, "Johnny, Johnny yes papa, Jack and Jill & Rolly Poly", they were allowed to play ball and played a sit & stand game. So the first hurdle has been crossed!

School re-opened on the 11th june , the introduction by the Principal was good, except for he fact that the audi was inadequately ventilated. There could have been more fans placed and the windows could have been opened. After a stuffy 45 min session, the kids and the parents were equally exhausted! The classroom visits were better, except again for the crowd. The initial interviews were organized beautifully, just wish the induction was planned as well too..... The whole affair was thankfully over in two hours time.... Hope to have a better experience once the classes start though!

I woke up this morning to the newspaper's headlines "SBOA student tops Chennai region" I was so curious, I dropped everything that needed to be done and read the articles back to back! I'm patting myself on the back for putting my kid into a school that does take the trouble to produce toppers........ There is a lot of bashing going on about how schools 'torture' students for a 100% pass and state ranks, but not many talk about how 1 mark difference can push you down by 1000 ranks in the competitive cut offs for colleges. Can we really blame the School for going that extra mile to produce good results? After all isn't this the only criteria most parents look for when put their ward in one? In my opinion if I'm given the choice to alter my destiny in a few years time, I would give it my best, night and day! So Is burn out a non issue? CBSE has done a good job by offering varied streams to opt for based on one's interest, so a little competitive

SBOA is distributing their school books for LKG on the 27th and 28th of April 2009, between 9 am and 1pm. All you need to do is produce the fees receipt. The uniform has been changed for this year, I enquired with the Tailor and he charges Rs.280 per set and takes a month which I feel is too much of time, but with no options but him, will have to go with it. All excited about the School Books and the new uniforms!

The School bus facility at SBOA School and Junior College is for students of class LKG to class 5. The fee for the bus ranges from Rs.1800 to Rs.2300 per term depending on the distance travelled. The school bus picks up students from a point on the route closest to the students residence and drops them back at the same point. If the parent is not around to receive the child, the child is taken back to the school and the parents have to arrange to collect their wards from the school. The other option available is to send them via private vans. This is definitely more convenient as the pick up and drop are usually at your doorstep or closer than the school bus drop point and they usually wait for a few extra Min's. The biggest drawback is that all the operators use Mahindra vans(The green boxy ones) and they are not very comfortable. Swaraj Mazda or even a tempo traveller would be nice, but I guess only if a big group of parents go out of their way to find one, the situat

Few days back we paid the fees and finished the admission formalities. We still have to decide on the mode of transport she will use to get to School. The school has recommended a specific suplier for the school uniform material and also has given us handouts on the details of the frock pattern (for girls) to be stiched. A total of 3 diffrent uniforms to be stiched. A white set for mondays, a blue set for tuesday, wednesday and thursday and a house colour waist coat to go with the white outfit on fridays. For the boys it is a white shirt and shorts on monday, blue checked shirt and blue shorts for tuesday to thursday. House colour t-shirt with white shorts on friday. The school shoes are Bata foot fun shoes, navy blue in colour and navy blue socks on all days. The school will supply the house coloured waist coat and t-shirts, badge, school belt and tie.

Today we received an intimation letter from SBOA School and Junior college, asking us to meet the Principal to collect the admit card this week. So I guess I would be putting my daughter in SBOA afterall. It has been a gruelling two weeks waiting for this. Now starts the house hunting, transport hunting, buying school supplies and getting her mentally ready for June( 4 months looks like a lot of time, but I know it's going to fly!). This looks like a huge task in front of us, but as they always say, one day at a time...........

The Interview for LKG at SBOA School and Junior College, (Anna Nagar Western Extension, Chennai; affiliated to CBSE) was over on the 31st of Jan 2009. The wait for the results feels pretty long and it's frankly hard to just sit around and do nothing. I would prefer the results to be announced on the same day, but I also understand the difficulty in screening more than a thousand applications for limited seats. So here I am counting the days before the result is known.............

It is a big relief for us that the LKG interview at SBOA went smoothly. And as I sit back and think what helped and what didn't, a few facts did surprise me. The kids did need to know a few basic things for the interview and I think all the kids who came for this one were prepared. The main distinguishing factor was the stress levels of the parents, the more the parents were stressed about the whole process, the kids clung to them, when the parents treated this as any normal outing, the kids were more adventurous. Once the parents were able to relax the kids were more like their usual self. Believe me when I say, this was not the place or the time to keep pushing the kids to say hello to the other waiting kids or parents as every kid in that place was already intimidated by the crowed. The other striking feature I noticed was that when the Parents pretended to let the kids lead them to either the interview room or to the application counters, the kids automatically took control. A

We had applied for a seat in LKG at SBOA School and Junior College, Anna Nagar Western Extension, Chennai; affiliated to CBSE on the 21st of Jan 2009. The interview was scheduled for the 31st Jan 2009. We just completed the interview yesterday. We were worried that we might have to wait for ever as there were over a thousand candidates to be interviewed (For, I guess around approximately 600 seats). However, the interview process was conducted so smoothly that it must have taken considerable amount of planning from the SBOA school authorities. We were through with the entire process within an hour, including a waiting time of around 40 Min's. The interviewer was friendly and asked my daughter a few simple questions like her name, colour of the dress she was wearing and to name a couple of common animals (by showing her toy animals). On the whole a very friendly and non-intimidating interview. After this, the applications get passed to another school staff, to whom t