‘When we decided to enroll Vihaan in school, Apeejay Noida was the first school that came to my mind’

Dr Shweta Varshney is a physical therapist at Apollo Home Care. Her husband, Mr. Ashish Varshney, is a cloud engineer with Autodesk Software Company in Singapore. They are proud parents of Vihaan Varshney, class 2 student at Apeejay School Noida. In an interview, Mrs. Varshney lists her reasons for choosing the school for Vihaan, highlights the bond that her son shares with the teachers and mentions the tremendous contribution of the teachers during online classes. Edited excerpts:

Why did you choose Apeejay School, Noida, for Vihaan over other schools?

I have been in Noida for the past many years. I did my schooling from one of the schools here. Even back then, I had heard a lot about Apeejay Noida, as two of my cousins Neha Sinha and Smriti Sinha used to study there. I heard numerous good reviews about the school from them. When we decided to enroll Vihaan in school, Apeejay School, Noida, was the first school that came to my mind. It was so, since I always knew this school from the perspective of the great feedback I had received from my cousins. The school is not very far from my residence, one can reach the school easily, so that reason is there as well.

Please tell us a bit about Vihaan and take us through his progress at school?

Vihaan is a very creative child. He has a very high emotional quotient. He gets connected very easily with his teachers and communicates his ideas fluently. In case he isn’t able to understand something, he is very vocal about it. The teachers are also very welcoming and immediately explain the concept again in a different way. He takes a lot of interest in art and music. He has a unique connection with the music teacher in school.

Maths is a special subject for him. He is totally engaged in concepts like money and tries to practically apply the knowledge learned at home.

Vihaan loves to dance. A few days back, we got the information that he has to prepare a dance performance on the school appreciation day. He put in a lot of hard work and hours and was able to get the performance ready on time. All the teachers loved his performance.

Are the teachers engaging well with the students?

The teachers are teaching very well. They immediately help a student and in case they aren’t able to solve a query immediately, they get back to it after the class. They always solve a student’s doubts.

Last year his class teacher was Ms. Mona Bakshi. He enjoyed her classes a lot. This year Ms Ruchi is his class teacher. He shares a great bond with her and takes a lot of interest in her class. He is also excited to attend Rajni Ma’am’s class (physical education) and Pawan Sir’s class (music).

What is the best thing about the school?

The teachers are very responsive. They take a lot of interest in anything that the child doesn’t understand and even put in a lot of effort after school hours to help a student. They even give extra classes at times, especially Ruchi Ma’am. She asks Vihaan about the challenges he faces in learning a concept to learn in a one-to-one conversation. That is a wonderful thing considering there are so many students in a class. I really appreciate that.

How has the experience of the online classes been for Vihaan?

Vihaan has manged the online classes really well.  We were initically sceptical about online classes because we did not want him to have too much of screen-time. However, the teachers engaged the students very well in the classes and in all the activities. All the classes happened regularly and timely.