As you open the wide gate and walk on the cobbled pathway, the central lawn and the garden make you feel as though you have entered a small sized resort and not a school! The bottle brush trees that attract hordes of bees and the patch of lawn reinforce the feeling. Then you hear them, little children singing, chatting excitedly and see them sharing their food with friends in the class rooms and on the central stage. It is lunch time at Ankura Pre-School.

Tucked away in the quiet residential area of Someshwarapura in Tumkur, this school in the eight years of its existence has carved a niche for itself. Starting as a pre school the school has expanded till class V now. There are 200 students and about 23 staff members. It is a school with a difference. Cliched as it may sound, this small school has been doing innovative things since its inception.

For starters, Ankura makes it clear to the parents at the admission stage itself that the stress here is on the over all growth of the child and not just on academics and that there are no exams till class IV.

The Founder/Principal, Sharmila Ravindranath, a president's gold medal winner is a firm believer in Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory. This theory states that individuals manifest an array of different intelligences and that rather than a uniform approach to educating all children, teachers and parents need to be aware of and nurture each child's unique potential. Sharmila, therefore strives to create teaching methodologies and aids so that different facets of a child are nourished.

"I am really not keen on churning out academic performers although I do understand the parents' anxiety. We have several activities here that train body-kinesthetics, visuospatial, musical and such other aspects. Inter personal and intrapersonal skills about which so much gets written now in the corporate context are skills that need to be nourished from a young age" says the lady who started her teaching career as a Montessori teacher.

So the school has regular yoga, music and drama classes that the children just love. The school, with its NINASAM trained drama instructor has several theatre experiments to its credit. As part of its annual day celebration, the school staged a street play "Plastic cheela bedave beda" that was written, directed and enacted by the children themselves. Another popular drama "Punya koti'' which traditionally ends with the repentant tiger hurling itself off the cliff, had a different ending as the children didn't want the tiger to die!

That is another aspect that strikes as different in Ankura. Children are free to express their views to their "Akka". They have a regular "circle time" with the principal where they learn to express their feelings, take turn, use polite language etc. It was during one such interaction with the older children that Sharmila was told that they preferred a balance between discipline and freedom. The school seems to have achieved balance in other areas as well. Children are taught Kannada and English right from the beginning with Hindi being introduced in the 2nd standard. In fact some of their reading sheets, developed by the staff, have both Kannada and English words.

Children have the capacity to learn multiple languages and some concepts are best taught in the mother tongue feels Sharmila. The innovative teaching aids are a delight to use and behold. Sharmila makes sure that she and her staff get regularly trained in various aspects of education.

It is hands-on learning to a large extent at Ankura. Children cut vegetables, learn to tidy up, they visit places of interest and celebrate many festivals. Incidentally, children are encouraged to get fruits rather than chocolates for birthdays and sprouts and raw vegetables for snacks. The response has been very good, say the staff.

The children also get to interact with interesting personalities. With Snake Shyam they learnt how to identify poisonous snakes, with a foreign visitor they learnt about her country. The older children as part of their community activity visited an orphanage and cleaned up a park.

As for future plans, parents and the children themselves want Sharmila to expand. "I love interacting with these children and when I see how much they have progressed, I feel glad. But with pressure from the government to have Kannada as medium of instruction and with parents wanting English, I don't know what the future holds. I want to emphasise one thing, many of us were not toppers in school but discovered our strengths at a later stage. Given the right environment most children turn out to be productive members of the society."

A parting thought that ought to dissuade parents from pushing children to excel in studies at any cost.