Many new parents who visit our schools, ask us questions about exams, and how we conduct them at Walnut Schools. In this post, let us dive in deep about the concept of exams, and how we conduct them at Walnut School.
Walnut is a very innovative school with interesting features like no school bag, subject-wise classrooms, daily sports and a very planned learning system – and our take on exams is very different too! Read on to see how…
What are exams?
The idea behind exams is to check our knowledge and understanding. Exams help convincing the person or institution evaluating, of our proficiency to answer questions in a particular subject.
We believe that exams are a part of our life – not only as a student, but as adults too! In school they come at regular intervals with a time table, but the presentations and the targets we have at work are a kind of exam too.
Are exams important?
Our take? Yes, of course exams are important! Before you go all philosophical, hear us out 🙂
Imagine giving a presentation to an investor or a customer – is that important or not? Of course it is. We call it “sales”, but really, isn’t it our “power to convince”?
Look at the entry into any course at any level in any country. There are a number of different scores that they look at – from a whole variety of competitive exams. Even our government conducts competitive “sarkari exams” like UPSC and MPSC. Even the largest employer of India, conducts The Railways recruitment board exam.
Are exam marks important?
Marks are just numbers which represent a way to measure how much you know about the questions being asked. Marks exist in the workplace too, when it comes to our appraisals!
(That said, the competitive exam scenario post Std. 12 takes the importance of marks to a different level, which we think is driven due to the unreal demand for quality educational institutions by a large population!)
At Walnut School, we do not like to use the “excuse” that marks are not important because in reality, they are!
Is taking an exam different from understanding concepts?
Well, yes.
Taking exams is a different skill from understanding the concepts and learning the content. And like picking up any other skill, it needs practice.
Exams and marks don’t need to stress us out though. If adequately prepared, even for subjects we don’t like, it is possible to crack them. And that’s where Walnut School steps in.
How are exams conducted at Walnut School?
We have now established the importance of exams. Let us now look at how we do it at Walnut School, and ideally how it should be done in all schools!
To help our students do well in exams, we make them take lots of exams.
If you look at our annual calendar (Walnut School Shivane, for example) you can see that we have four formal exams over the year, right from Std 1.
But, you can also see that we also have a week before that for practice tests. That is to help the students go from learning mode to testing mode.
Std 1 to 5
Do two rounds of practice tests
Std 6 to 9:
In addition to practice tests, they do one full prelim round – because their papers are longer
Std 8 to 10:
In addition to practice tests and multiple prelims, they have a test after every chapter too
Digital Tests:
Moreover, there are also digital tests after every chapter right from Std. 1 onwards (using our own Walmiki app)
Due to this planning, students are then comfortable with the idea of exams. Exams do not trigger stress.
They get enough opportunity to improve and strengthen their knowledge and learn the exam writing techniques.
The amount of efforts we take for our students, yields rich results!
Read our earlier posts for more insights, or check our examinations page
