RIVERSIDE NATURAL SCHOOL
Education forms the core of our work. Established in 2016, Riverside Natural School started on rented premises to provide education to 90 children from impoverished families in Mohgaon block of Mandla, Madhya Pradesh.
Our journey of going from 30 to 300+ Tribal Children
2016-17
In the first year, we had only 30 students in the hostel. In academic year 2023-24, we have a total of 150 girls and boys from 5 years to 17 years who stay in the hostel full-time.
2018-19
In 2018-19, we started the hostel. Attendance in school especially in the monsoon months would drop to 30-40% as many children could not attend school due to lack of transport facilities, overflowing of nallahs and mud roads connecting villages to the nearest road. Attendance would also drop as many children would fall sick through the year due to poor nutrition and hygiene practices followed in the village.
2023-24
In academic year 2023-24, we have expanded to 300 children – 9 % of our students are from single parent families while 2% are orphans. 68% of our students are STs, 18% are OBCs while the rest are drawn from general category. 43% of our students are girls while the rest are boys
The hostel has helped us really develop excellence programs in sports and technology as children are with us full-time. We also see more impact among children as they learn and speak better, are mostly healthy and develop good habits that include maintaining hygiene, self-care, speaking respectfully and communicating their problems to others. Most importantly, they steer clear of tobacco and gutkha, a common problem in the village where children as young as 10-11 years old, take to their products.
Riverside Natural School's
ACADEMIC CURRICULLUM:
Our School is recognized by the MP Board from Pre-primary to Class 8. For Classes 9 and 10, we have tied up with another School where classes happen in our premises but students write exams in the other School. Once students finish Class 10, they continue to stay in our hostel but attend identified Government/private schools in Mandla district HQ. This decision is taken based on their Class 10 marks.
Activity Based Learning
From the very beginning, our approach to learning has been activity-based. This assumes greater significance as the tribal first-generation learners we work with, often do not have books at home or people who read at home. Since they have not seen books till they enter school, they often do not know how to care for them.
Focus on Hindi
We have also consciously adopted Hindi as a medium rather than go with English medium. The emphasis is on strengthening English as a subject rather than teaching all subjects in English. This policy is in response to the lack of good quality teachers who can teach different subjects in English and has helped our students gain conceptual clarity.
Remedial Classes
When children first enter our school, 80% of them are behind grade level. Therefore, we have a strong remedial teaching program where our teachers work with these students to ensure they come up to grade level. This is often done through separate classes or even during the summer holidays.
Inclusive Environment
Celebrations are an important part of School and Hostel life.
We celebrate all festivals, taking care to ensure that children know why they are celebrating a festival. These are also occasions when we entrust responsibilities to students to organize celebrations, also ensuring that they inclusive in nature.
There are 3 categories of students that we work with:
How do we select students?
Hostel students
on full scholarship
- These are talented students from extremely poor families with a preference for children from single-parent families or orphans. We do not charge anything from them – the families are encouraged to provide any food (fruits, corn, etc.) in kind as and when they have it. There is a four-level selection process to select these children:
- We organize a Baby League tournament where we invite 400+ children from different villages to participate. This takes place over a month.
- Our team visits the homes of the talented children identified in the Baby League to check their socio-economic situation. In this round, the family’s assets, job status of family, income, status of agriculture, number of siblings, etc. are all checked for and documented (photographs, questionnaire, etc.)
- The children who are needy are invited to school where they write a test to assess their baseline level and are put through other physical tests.
- Once selected, they are invited with parents and we talk to them about Mrida, what it means to be selected, and other policies. Once they are onboard, we extend admission to them.
School students
on tuition scholarships:
- These are students from poor families from neighboring villages. We do not charge any tuition fee from them but they have to take care of books, stationery, and their travel cost (from home to school and back).
School students
on subsidized fees:
- These are students who are able to pay some fees – they pay 40% of our actual per-child cost.