ANNUAL DAY -- 3::

‘PARENTS’ HANDBOOK’ TO MONITOR CHILDREN ROUND-THE-CLOCK

BY P S SUNDAR

 ‘School Diary’ where teachers write about children’s performance and behaviour for parents’ knowledge is well known, but ‘Parents’ Handbook’ where parents write about their children for the teachers’ knowledge is little known.

This prevails at Gurukulam Matriculation School, Agalar, near Ooty.

“Children are in school only from 9.30 am to 4 pm but we care for their round-the-clock welfare.  So, we are successfully adopting ‘Parents’ Handbook’ in which parents are required to mark their children’s behaviour against 17 listed items daily.  These pertain to the time the children are with parents and include aspects like the time children wake up, whether they salute the parents, wash their hands after going to toilet and before eating, meditate, play in the open, reduce time spent watching TV, read books and newspapers, do homework and study for specific hours, take care of their uniform including polishing shoes and keep their environment clean”, school Correspondent N Arjjunan told me. 

“These are periodically reviewed with parents”, he said.  

“I visit many schools but had not come across ‘Parents’ handbook’ anywhere.  It is praiseworthy as the school caters to children from 20 villages. This is worthy of emulation”, students’ motivator Marabin Maindar Muthiah said after distributing prizes to students at the 8th Annual Day on the theme "Urchaagam '15". 

“We have been posting centum pass in Tenth standard public exam regularly.  Last year, our student A Miruthula emerged first in Nilgiris district scoring 494 out of 500”, school’s Managing Trustee Vasugi said.

Children staged variety entertainment programme.