Ruman Akbar believes in paradigmatic practices in teaching and learning. The school introduced a spoken English program by an organization, KaradiPath. The program is designed to keep the native language into consideration, where the learning happens through music, actions, and dialogues. Ruman has ensured that her students continue to receive these lessons with joy.
Ruman Akbar believes that value system defines a personality and they remain forever. To imbibe these values, throughout the year, middle and high school students are helped to strengthen their inner selves through the ‘Awakened Citizen’ program which aims at empowering students in a real and tangible way.
Students at Sofia enjoy taking on roles and responsibilities. Several opportunities are given to build leadership qualities by being a class monitor, in charge of the blackboard where one writes the date, quote, subject, number of students in the class, and so on. In every class one can find powerful words to remind students that conflict happens when rules are broken. The school refers to them as “Golden Rules” and there are five of them.
The golden rules are:
- We are honest.
- We are kind and helpful.
- We take care of our school.
- We treat others the way we want to be treated.
- We work hard.
Martial arts help build confidence and self-esteem; karate has become an integral part of the student’s life in Sofia from the age of six onwards.
Sofia’s vision has always been to create a secular school and during morning prayers students do not join hands, but hold one’s fingers inverted into another palm, sort of making an infinity symbol. The hand is held close to one’s hearts, depicting the infinite possibilities within ourselves to reflect upon. Then, a secular prayer is said; followed by meditation for a few minutes.
When words fail, music speaks. Every morning, children are greeted with music, any pleasant song that allows them to settle and be ready for the day.
Ruman introduced a uniform in 2017, t-shirt and trouser for both boys and girls. Skirts during teenage years for girls can be quite overwhelming, unlike pants would be for boys. Leaving one gender overly conscious and the other overly confident is surely what the school didn’t want. Formal shirts are also high on maintenance. Hence, we stuck to t-shirt and trouser as the school’s uniform.
Sofia’s campus has many trees, and students enjoy learning in an open environment. Sofia’s class has a dustpan and brush. To understand the value of domestic helpers, students are encouraged to participate in a “clean school day”.
At Sofia, there is a notice board in the hallway called the “FAIL wall”, or the “First Attempt in Learning”. The wall encourages anyone to write an incident where they failed at something, anonymously or with their name on it. The practice imbibes resilience in students and pushes them to work even harder!
It was a bold decision for a standalone school to introduce the same simple uniform, which is a t-shirt and trouser for both boys and girls from Grades 1 to 10. This resulted in unity, confidence, and better engagement in sports and physical education for girls
