Competition is everywhere – not only for students but for all adults too. But somehow, it is looked at in a bad sense. At Walnut School, we encourage healthy competition via carefully crafted events, as without competition, there is no growth and challenge.
STEM-a-FAIR (Std. 6 to Std. 10)
In Core Academics, the Science and Math classes prepare the students with a strong theoretical base. In the Co-curricular activities, students have classes like Mental Math, Science Lab, Strategic Thinking, Information Transfer and Computational Thinking to support their understanding of these concepts. What the students need is a stage to apply all this and present a technical project in a professional manner. This is the STEM a-Fair.
We don’t call it a SCIENCE fair – it’s a STEM Fair, which is a blend across Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The world is largely interdisciplinary now. So students do not have to do just a science concept demonstration. They can try to solve a problem, be an engineer or even develop an app or software to ease a certain task.
Combining different learnings and building something bigger is a whole new learning experience altogether – and a very intellectually stimulating and enriching one at that. There is so much going on in the world today. We want students to find something that excites and interests them. We want them to explore, take risks and figure out solutions on their own. After all, isn’t that what a scientist does? Group sizes are therefore limited to allow for more involvement from each group member and also to give them a great chance at explaining their project on the presentation day.
Board Games (Std. 3 to Std. 8)
Right from Std. 1 and all the way up to Std. 10, Walnut students have Strategic Thinking as a part of their weekly timetable. Do click on the link to understand the how, what, why of this class.
Walnut School promotes board games due to their numerous advantages. Board games enhance critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and teamwork skills. They offer an immersive and interactive way for families to bond and create shared experiences, fostering laughter, learning, and strong relationships.
Sports (KG to Std. 10)
Daily Sports is an exclusive feature at Walnut School, something that we take extreme pride in. At our school, sports is given equal importance as any other core academic subject. Parents get to see how this positively impacts our students’ physical and mental health, discipline, and overall well-being.
SKILLS DEMO : KG to Std. 5
This is an opportunity for the students to show their parents the different skills that they have learnt for the sports and the level of fitness that they have achieved. They demonstrate different kinds of throws, positions, asanas, balancing acts etc. for an audience of parents and well wishers.
ATHLETIC RACES : KG to Std. 10
All students take part in individual races. From Std. 3 onwards, these wins add up to house points as well. Parents get to cheer and witness the eliminations as well as the finals for all these races.
THE WALNUT SPORTS LEAGUES : Std. 6 to 10
Students additionally participate in team games and play for their houses. The knockouts and finals happen in a total stadium environment with cheering from housemates and parents as well. These are high energy Electric Saturdays!
We love these because they are a great chance to
- Learn important life skills : Working toward a common goal as a team, dealing with wins and losses, developing leadership skills are all life skills that are inculcated through sports. These not only help our students have a balanced attitude toward life, but also go a long way toward making them sensible and ‘grounded’ individuals in the later walks of life.
- Handle pressure in a safe environment : Every student gets a sports report card, but this is a chance to actually show others and for students to see for themselves how they fare in a real sports match, with spectators, timers, referees and rules! It’s also a chance for each parent to come and see their child take part in a real, live sports event. Parents, grandparents etc. are most welcome to come to cheer the teams – with your whistles, banners, slogans – that’s what this is all about 🙂
Debate (Std. 3 to Std. 10)
The students have a Speaking/Debate class once a week in their timetable right from Nursery, all the way up to Std. 10. It’s an amazing opportunity to test their thinking, understanding, communication and convincing skills.
We strongly encourage each and every student to take part in this because there are amazing benefits in participation in class debates.
- They learn friendly competition
- They understand how to come up with innovative solutions as a group.
- They sharpen their convincing techniques, have to think quickly and become really good at oral presentation.
- They have to quickly understand what their opposing team is saying, where the argument is heading and analyze it for its strengths and weaknesses.
- It’s an opportunity to test their views against their peers, to research, to learn how to put their thoughts into words quickly and how to handle a dynamic environment.
Imagine getting a safe space to do all this in a structured way. Why would anyone want to pass up such an opportunity? We already give them a lot of information related to this through their social studies class, information transfer class, general knowledge and speaking class. You have access to all this material through the worksheets that come home + the presentations that are shared with you.
Handwriting Competition :
Why a Handwriting competition when the world is slowly but surely turning digital?
Studies have shown that writing improves memory. When we write something by hand, as opposed to typing it on a keyboard, we retain the learning in a better manner.
Additionally, handwriting is unique to every individual. Typed text looks all the same, no matter who wrote it! But a person’s handwriting is reflective of his / her mood as well as personality.
In today’s world of keyboards, legible handwriting is a skill fast losing out on its existence. We would like our students to be as comfortable with pen and paper as they already are, with the keyboard. And above all, we want them to have beautiful handwriting because it definitely helps create a great first impression!