Shobha Padarha
Academic Director
In an exclusive interview with CEO Insights, Shobha shares about her early education and overall professional career, the challenges she faced during the pandemic and the steps she took to mitigate them, and much more:
Brief us about your educational and professional background. Explain your current role at Brahmavid TheGlobal School.
During my high school days, I was a gold medalist in Economics. Later, I did my master's in Economics & Psychology and completed my Diploma in Montessori education. I am a Visharad in Hindustani vocal music and have done my Diploma in Light Music. I have a bachelor's in Education and am currently pursuing my Master's. I started my career in the educational sector by opening a Montessori play school in Hyderabad and taught there before teaching at K-12 Schools. Later, I shouldered the responsibility of a coordinator in various Hyderabad-based schools. Being native residents of Raipur, we decided to move back to our city to give back to society, and we started setting up a K-12 school, with our family's support. As I have been into education, I took up the responsibility to head the school as
the Academic Director.
Starting from contributing to the academic planning and grooming the students to mentoring the teachers using my extensive experience in the field, I have been shouldering the overall responsibilities to build up the whole academic system of the school. I have been working towards the holistic development of our students. Apart from that, I am also looking into teacher training, developing the core lesson plans for the teachers, and then taking that ahead to groom the students.
What are the key aspects of the Brahmavid The Global School? How are you leveraging the best emerging education opportunities for the growth of the school?
The four pillars of Brahmavid The Global School are Experiential Learning, Multiple intelligence, ICT, and Design Thinking. We integrate these elements into our curriculum while focusing on the holistic development of our students. We stay true to our tagline which says “discover yourself” and try to give them real-life experiences through various day-to-day activities, where they involve themselves and learn on their own. We encourage the children to build up, understand, experience, and then find out their inner strengths. Our school is abreast with all the core ingredients of National Education Policy 2020. Be it the integration of Art or sports, reading campaigns or innovative teaching pedagogies, we at Brahmavid are practicing all of the current teaching strategies and changes that our education system is looking at.
How, according to you, has the Indian educational sector evolved since the pandemic? What methods did you develop as the Academic Director to cope with the challenges the pandemic presented?
BTGS has set goals to be achieved at different points in time. This pandemic has positively influenced the timeline. One of the goals was to create greater literacy and awareness among BTGS parents and students for online classes and assignments was in plan for May 2020. Unexpectedly India was hit by this pandemic in February 2020 and at the same time, the BTGS team started working on How to continue with the process of education during this time. It was on the 27th
Starting from contributing to the academic planning and grooming the students to mentoring the teachers using my extensive experience in the field, I have been shouldering the overall responsibilities to build up the whole academic system of the school. I have been working towards the holistic development of our students. Apart from that, I am also looking into teacher training, developing the core lesson plans for the teachers, and then taking that ahead to groom the students.
The children should be groomed in an environment from which they can carry their childhood memories and teachings to be cherished throughout their lifetime
What are the key aspects of the Brahmavid The Global School? How are you leveraging the best emerging education opportunities for the growth of the school?
The four pillars of Brahmavid The Global School are Experiential Learning, Multiple intelligence, ICT, and Design Thinking. We integrate these elements into our curriculum while focusing on the holistic development of our students. We stay true to our tagline which says “discover yourself” and try to give them real-life experiences through various day-to-day activities, where they involve themselves and learn on their own. We encourage the children to build up, understand, experience, and then find out their inner strengths. Our school is abreast with all the core ingredients of National Education Policy 2020. Be it the integration of Art or sports, reading campaigns or innovative teaching pedagogies, we at Brahmavid are practicing all of the current teaching strategies and changes that our education system is looking at.
How, according to you, has the Indian educational sector evolved since the pandemic? What methods did you develop as the Academic Director to cope with the challenges the pandemic presented?
BTGS has set goals to be achieved at different points in time. This pandemic has positively influenced the timeline. One of the goals was to create greater literacy and awareness among BTGS parents and students for online classes and assignments was in plan for May 2020. Unexpectedly India was hit by this pandemic in February 2020 and at the same time, the BTGS team started working on How to continue with the process of education during this time. It was on the 27th
of March 2020 that teachers' training started for online classes and from all perspectives, from the application usage to class delivery, the teachers were trained. On the 4th of April BTGS started full swing classes for all grades. Hence, the timeline was preponed from May 2020 to March 2020 and got benefitted.
Coming to the process, the first challenge was to train the teachers to be well versed in the new way of online delivery. While our teachers were taking the classes, the backend team was taking care of other tasks, such as background setting, screen sharing, system logging, and supporting parents. As it was the beginning of a new session, we did door-to-door delivery of textbooks and stationeries with the help of our transport department, which was also appreciated by the parents. Even the cocurricular competitions were held online during that time. However, there were still many queries from the parent’s side as the whole system was completely new to everyone. Slowly, we started involving our parent community in our activities like online yoga, fitness sessions, and workshops for them, which made them understand the overall system. There were also inter department online meetings, where I was able to train the teachers and give them feedback while working towards improving our overall online system.
Shobha Padarha, Academic Director, Brahmavid The Global School
Shobha Padarha is the Academic Director of Brahmavid The Global School, Raipur. She has done her master's in Educational Psychology and also holds a certificate as a career counseling coach. She has spent more than 18 years in the field of education working with kids and mentoring teachers. She believes in experiential learning and aims to provide holistic development for children. Influenced by the multiple intelligence theory of Dr. Howard Gardner, she trains her teachers to foster the love of learning in the kids.
•Hobbies: Reading, Music, Nature Enthusiast, Doing fitness activities
•Favourite Book: Ikigai by Héctor García, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, Books by Dr. Howard Gardner
•Favourite Cuisine: South Indian, Italian, Mexican
•Achievements: Presented a 40 minutes class to Dr. Howard Gardener when he was on his India Tour. He had high praise for using experiential learning integrated with Multiple intelligence, Availed an honour of “going good to great” as a teacher, Certification in Career Coach Program by Mindler and CDA(USA), Certified “Innovation Ambassador” by AICTE and CBSE.
Coming to the process, the first challenge was to train the teachers to be well versed in the new way of online delivery. While our teachers were taking the classes, the backend team was taking care of other tasks, such as background setting, screen sharing, system logging, and supporting parents. As it was the beginning of a new session, we did door-to-door delivery of textbooks and stationeries with the help of our transport department, which was also appreciated by the parents. Even the cocurricular competitions were held online during that time. However, there were still many queries from the parent’s side as the whole system was completely new to everyone. Slowly, we started involving our parent community in our activities like online yoga, fitness sessions, and workshops for them, which made them understand the overall system. There were also inter department online meetings, where I was able to train the teachers and give them feedback while working towards improving our overall online system.
Shobha Padarha, Academic Director, Brahmavid The Global School
Shobha Padarha is the Academic Director of Brahmavid The Global School, Raipur. She has done her master's in Educational Psychology and also holds a certificate as a career counseling coach. She has spent more than 18 years in the field of education working with kids and mentoring teachers. She believes in experiential learning and aims to provide holistic development for children. Influenced by the multiple intelligence theory of Dr. Howard Gardner, she trains her teachers to foster the love of learning in the kids.
•Hobbies: Reading, Music, Nature Enthusiast, Doing fitness activities
•Favourite Book: Ikigai by Héctor García, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, Books by Dr. Howard Gardner
•Favourite Cuisine: South Indian, Italian, Mexican
•Achievements: Presented a 40 minutes class to Dr. Howard Gardener when he was on his India Tour. He had high praise for using experiential learning integrated with Multiple intelligence, Availed an honour of “going good to great” as a teacher, Certification in Career Coach Program by Mindler and CDA(USA), Certified “Innovation Ambassador” by AICTE and CBSE.