The Levelfield School in Suri, West Bengal is breaking the stereotypes and has marked its own place in this competitive education system. The school was founded in 2010 by Arghya Banerjee who is an IIT-IIM alumnus. In a quest of finding a perfect school for his daughter, he ended up establishing one where the students do much more than just mugging up historical dates and formulae.
Arghya, who is a strong proponent of high-quality school education, left his corporate career to create something which will have a long-lasting impact. The Levelfield School puts no burden on children and students learn from newspapers ad twitter feeds. There are no textbooks or home-works and the study time is limited to school itself.
The students are also taught through world-class movies and are given storybooks to read. Mr. Arghya Banerjee says, “ Education has moved away from reality. Skills needed to excel in lives and work are neglected and there is a relentless focus on textbooks which ultimately has no relevance. This is a reason that there are so many unemployable youths today. I have set up this school to counter these issues”.
Sayoni Ghosh, a teacher of the school says, “The school creates Maths and English work materials which are provided to students in the form of apps and softwares. Feedbacks are given by teachers and they try to enhance the understanding of what the students have done. Teachers focus more on interacting, asking questions in the classroom rather than ending up correcting pile of notebooks. This way the teacher can focus on interacting with the students”.
“There is mostly one teacher to teach all the subjects up to class eighth which is needed and desirable”, says the founder of the school.
Koyelia Raha, another teacher says, “We try to encourage parents to spend time with the students rather than forcefully teaching them at home. There are no homework and no textbooks. The parents are encouraged to engage their children in dealing with day to day activities and not just teach them mechanically”.
Up to class four there are no books given to the students. In class five, the students are provided with story books such as Tin Tin, Sherlock homes and the likes to imbibe reading habit in them. The students are also shown movies to analyze and learn new perceptions through it.
The school encourages unconventional career paths in this new age of technology, rather than pushing them to opt either engineering or medical.
The school also has Extra-curricular activities with a twist. It is not just about singing and dancing. The students have different options like exploring social media, creating twitter profiles, watching movies etc.. Kids often take up their own initiatives where the school supports them.
The school also conducts contest week which includes events like IQ quiz, speaking event, puzzle solving etc…
The school even promises that students need not have to join any tuition or coaching class as the school time is sufficient for their learning.
It is not just the students who benefit from the school but also teachers who have found themselves to be learning from the experience. Ms. Ghosh Says, “The school has enriched teachers. I have read hundreds of books and watched movies which I had not done yet. It is more of a learning experience than the teaching experience.”
Mr. Banerjee also believes that the board exams does not make too much of a sense. “The exam system needs to change. There should be uniform exam policy and the focus should be to enhance the correct skill of the students”, said Banerjee.