If you are already school-hunting for your little one for the coming academic year, checking out Vega School would be worth an effort. Vega Schools is a new chain of schools opening in Gurgaon.
The schools are founded by renowned educationist Steven Edwards and entrepreneur Sandy Hooda, and will be part of the Global Schools' Alliance which includes best schools across the world.
"The school pedagogy is inspired by top schools across the world and focuses on learning through projects that are real-world based and relevant to students," said Edwards who has been advisor to The Whitehouse, World Bank and United Nations on education.
"Project based learning also embeds teamwork, higher order thinking skills into the curriculum. Most importantly, students become lifelong learners that are comfortable with their own selves and the use of technology as it evolves - to hit the ground running," he added.
The two founders have made a preliminary investment of ₹100 crore for a period of two years to come-up with school campuses, out of which half of the amount has been already spent. By April, the duo will have spent ₹70 crore, and remaining ₹30 crore will be spent in the next two years. Another round of investment worth ₹100 crore will start in 2018.
Vega Schools have done away with traditional classrooms and have re-imagined the school architecture into various learning spaces, Hooda informed.
"We are getting a tremendous response from parents and have met more than 1,300 parents since our launch in July (end) 2015," he said. "We had planned for 200 admissions but seeing the response we have revised the intake to 250 in the first year - spread across nursery to class four."
The school has received permission from CBSE to start the school with the first to fifth standards. The curriculum will be aligning to CBSE but will also include important elements of the US' Common Core, British IGCSE and IB.
"In a way we cover CBSE guidelines, so that children learn what CBSE wants them to, at the same time, we align it with world's best curriculum but the magic is in delivery," said Hooda.
"We deliver in a way that children want to learn and remember, and if they will remember they'll do better in tests."
The monthly fee at Vega School is ₹10,000, and all costs inclusive, the overall fees for a year amounts to ₹2 lakh. The admission is based on first come first serve policy.
The school has two campuses in Gurgaon, one in sector 48 and the other is on Gurgaon Faridabad road.
The school building will be ready by mid- November and teacher training for the session starting April 1, 2016, would begin by January 10.
"Our teachers will be trained in a very different way and will need to be trained on the campus because the campus looks more like a cross between Google Headquarter and Lego. It's not just classrooms but variety of learning spaces," Hooda quipped.