Swapna Yadav graduated from the University of Warwick, UK, with a Masters in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA TESOL) and is the Principal of the first Brihunmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) school offering an international curriculum in Mumbai. She successfully completed an Exploratory Action Research project for 25 teachers of the BMC education department. She also worked closely with International House London and led an English language Enrichment project for 70 teachers of India in association with AINET (All India Network of English language teachers). She even contributed to the FLN Foundational Literacy and Numeracy initiative by the state government and worked as a resource person for creating content for the English Workbook of Grade 1.
Climate change is a serious issue and sensitising students from a tender age becomes crucial. As part of the ‘Climate Action Project’ MPS L K Waghji Cambridge School planted 100 trees in the school campus. Special sessions with 150 parents were conducted on the importance of maintaining ecological balance and the consequences of climate change. The pioneer in Botany, Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose had spoken that plants have emotions. The importance of taking care of plants by whispering and how tender touch could transform plants was demonstrated.
The school connected with parents through Telegram Messenger application and distributed pictures of causes of climate change in Mumbai. This gave first-hand information to children in the form of experiential learning. Children were introduced to Google lens to find out about the plants in the school garden in order to enhance digital literacy among children and make them nature friendly.
This project had international collaborations with Turkey, Mexico, Ukraine, Belgium and Brazil wherein children shared the activities they conducted as a climate warrior and learnt about recycling from other countries. A skit on climate protection was performed at interschool drama competition organized by BMC. A climate action wall was created and posters prepared by parents and children were displayed on the wall. In the last week the school conducted an activity on composting for parents and children during Diwali vacation. Children also made Birdfeeders for curbing bird migration. An environmentalist was invited to teach about recycling. The climate project was connected to the cleanliness drive of Mumbai. Children were asked to collect dry foliage from garden and recycle it.
Currently, the staff is undergoing training on climate change to become climate educators. They also attend sessions organized by Take Action global. A green initiative has been launched for the school.
Another initiative is to teach students recycling of waste. Awareness to segregate dry and wet waste has been conducted. A vegetable market was set up to make children aware of the importance of vegetables and understand food wastage. The school often keeps parents engaged in this activity and spreads a word about environmental protection in the community.
One of the skills which National Educational Policy (NEP) 2020 focuses on is building resilience among students. A new concept called Circle Time was started. As a part of this, every morning stories from the book “The Art of Resilience” by Guru Gauranga Das are narrated.The stories revolve around the topic of enhancing mental well-being of students. The book contains 40 stories on resilience which are graded and connected to students’ lives with ample illustrations. Children are asked to share these stories with parents in the evening. During parents meet the book was provided to parents and they were asked to read it for their mental well-being.
MPS L K Wagh Ji School has taken part in the Climate Action School project with an aim to plant 500 trees in the school campus. A roof garden is also planned with help from an NGO and local community leaders and parents to teach students natural farming