Sardar Patel Vidyalaya

Sardar Patel Vidyalaya
SPV Chakra
Motto	विद्यैव धनमक्षयम (Education is Wealth)
Established	April 1, 1960
Principal	Kusam L. Warikoo
Location	New Delhi, India
Students	approximately 1500

Sardar Patel Vidyalaya (SPV) is a premier school in New Delhi, India, located in the heart of the city at Lodi Estate. It has about 1500 students from the nursery level to the 12th grade and has about 200 teachers and supporting staff members.

The school is named after the Indian freedom fighter, and independent India's first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Academics

Language Policy

The Vidyalaya has developed several innovative measures to school its students in Indian culture. It is the only private school in India, which employs Hindi as the medium of instruction in the primary school. Math, Science and Social Studies are taught in Hindi. Not only do children learn faster in their mother tongue, they are also taught to gain the mastery over an Indian language at a young age.

Unique among schools in India, students are provided instruction in four languages. English is the medium of education from the 6th grade onwards. Hindi and Sanskrit are mandatory till the 8th grade. In the 9th grade, students are asked to chose between Hindi and Sanskrit. The objective of this policy is to produce young citizens who are not only bilingual but also equi-lingual in Hindi [national link language] and English [international link language]. The students can choose a fourth language from Tamil, Gujarati, Urdu or Bengali (GTBU). This helps the student acknowledge the richness of the Indian culture. It shares an equal status with music where songs in these languages are often taught.

Streams

After completing 10th grade, students can choose to major in one of the following streams:

• Humanities
  • English (Core) or English (Elective)
  • Sociology
  • History
  • Psychology
  • Economics
  • Maths
  • Home Science
  • Political Science

• Science
  • English (Core) or English (Elective)
  • Math
  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Computer Science
  • Biology
  • Economics
  • Psychology
  • Home Science

• Business and Commerce
  • English (Core) or English (Elective)
  • Math
  • Accountancy
  • Economics
  • Business Studies

Sports

The school has an active football, basketball, volleyball and cricket team, and has produced many top class cricketers who have played for the national or the Ranji squads, including Ajay Jadeja, Rahul Sanghvi, Gagan Khoda, Deepdas Gupta, Murali Kartik etc.

Every year Sports Week is held in the school in which the school's four houses i.e. Shakti, Neeti, Jyoti and Pragati compete. During the sports week events like 100 m race, 400 m race 1500 m race, shot put, javelin throw and many others are held. Inter house basketball, football, volleyball and chess matches are held. An inter house sports quiz is also held which has been dominated by different houses at different times. The first ever multimedia sports quiz titled 'Arena 2004' was organized by the Students' Executive 2004-2005.

The Activity week

A view of the main corridor from the garden

Every year, all the children put away their books & bags for about 8 working days and gear up for activities.

• MORNING 3 hrs.

The children participate in public speaking activities - elocution and recitation; even story telling - in Hindi, English, GTBU & Sanskrit.

• AFTERNOON -

SPORTS: The whole school gathers in the field to witness various sporting events except for the boards classes who study even harder these 8 days.

The School's Student Executive

The Student Executive is a democratically elected body of the students. It plans and initiates activities involving the whole school.

The student executive comprises of:

• General Secretary
• Deputy General Secretary

• A Secretary and a Deputy Secretary for each of the following portfolios:
  • Sports
  • Cultural affairs
  • Bulletin boards
  • Programme implementation
  • Information and records
  • Literary affairs
  • Scientific affairs
  • Current affairs
  • Homeroom co-ordination
  • School facilities
  • External affairs

Elections

Elections at the Class Representative level as well as at the General Secretary of the Student's Executive level are held with full campaigning and secret ballot, for the following positions:

• Class Monitors (Representatives): Students vote for the Class Representatives of their respective classes.
• The General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary of the Student's Executive Council: The GS and Dep. GS are elected by the Class Representatives of every class.
• Elections also been take place for the post of Captain and Vice-Captain of the four houses.

What is unique about this election process is that students are required to exercise their right to vote through the system of Secret Ballot. Around three days before the elections students start campaign zealously throughout school for their future class and school leaders to gain support of more students. Campaigning can only be done in the break time and the candidates can be disqualified if they campaign at any other time.

Award System

SPV has developed an award system that is not based on competition with others, but with one's own self. Hardly any Patelian leaves the school without earning a merit card. The underlying philosophy is of the 'top' being as broad based as possible, be it public speaking, academic work, music, sports, even 100% attendance. In academics, a child's performance is appreciated even it if it is seen only in one area/subject; e.g. if a child gets 80% in English but fails in some other subject, he/she gets the merit card for English. Qualifying standards are fixed in sports and public speaking too and anyone who qualifies, receives a merit card irrespective of who is the best.

Moreover, the school also provides a host of scholarships for meritorious students from class VI to XII each year, in many fields such as 'Highest in Chemistry' (and in all the other subjects), 'Best Orator','Best All-Rounder', 'Best Cricketer', 'Excellence in Community Service', 'Dedication to /Excellence in Music', 'Best Gujarati Student' etc.

Neighbourhood Project

The Neighbourhood Project was launched in September 1987 for the development of the less-privileged children of the neighbourhood of the School. This project aims at the integrated development of those children, help enrich them, widen their horizons, and hopefully lead to their empowerment through the facilities available at the Vidyalaya. In turn student-volunteers of class IX to X of the Vidyalaya also get sensitized to the world of such children - their needs, priorities, problems and strengths.

A variety of meaningful activities are conducted with the help of the project in charge, the multiple objectives include making the children confident and articulate, aware of their rights and other issues, develop their cognitive skills and strengthen their loco-motor skills.

Self Teaching Day

During the self teaching day, the students take charge of all the responsibilities in the school. While some students play "teacher" by volunteering to teach subjects of their choice in different classes, others discharge the duties of the cleaning and gardening staff of the school. The General Secretary of the students' executive becomes the acting-principal, and the Dep. General Secretary, the head of Junior School. The purpose is to expose students to adult responsibilities and the value of dignity of labour in an enjoyable manner.

Principals

• Dr Raghu Nayak
• Dr Vibha Parthasarathy
• Mr Y K Mago (officiating)
• Mr Mukesh Shelath
• Ms Kusum Lata Warikoo

College Placement

Given the small size of the graduating class students are disproportionately represented in the best colleges and universities in India, such as the IIT, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, BITS Pilani, The Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore), Delhi College of Engineering, National Law School of India, Delhi School of Economics, St. Stephen's College, Lady Shri Ram College, St. Xaviers College (Mumbai), National Law University, School of Planning and Architecture, Harvard University and many others.

Rhodes Scholars

SPV has the distinction of producing a disproportionate number of Rhodes Scholars. In the year 2006, for example, three of the five Indian Rhodes Scholars were alumna of SPV. In 2005, two of the six were alumnus.

Famous Alumni

• Kirti Azad, Member of Parliament, Member, Indian Cricket Team
• Ajay Jadeja, Member, Indian Cricket Team and TV commentator
• Vivek Razdan, Member, Indian Cricket Team
• Rahul Singhvi, Member, Indian Cricket Team
• Deep Dasgupta, Member, Indian Cricket Team
• Gagan Khoda, Member, Indian Cricket Team
• Ketan Mehta, Film Director
• Siddharth Narayan, Actor and Director
• Nandita Das, Bollywood actress
• Grusha Kapoor, Television actress
• Varun Badola, Television actor
• Tarun Raghavan, Model
• Vatsala Kaul, Editor, Target and Teens Today
• Sanjay Subramaniam, Historian
• Mukul Kesavan, Author and Historian
• S. Ramadorai, CEO, Tata Consultancy Services and winner of the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honor
• Sandeep Marwah, Director, Asian Academy of Film and Television

Trivia

• Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's granddaughter Niharika Vajpayee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's grandchildren, Madhav Tankha and Raghav Tankha, have studied at the school.
• History Department head Chitra Srinivas has been appointed to successive NCERT commissions including one on the sensitive history textbook controversy. She has also been the subject of an editorial in the Financial Express.

See also

Students' Executive Website (2004-2005)

• Website Of the Schools Batch of 2005
• http://www.spv.net
• http://www.rajiv.com/spv/
• SPV Resources
• A forum created in 2005 but dosen't exist today. see the homepage though.
• Article by Chitra Srinivas, history teacher
• Good Teachers are a Class Apart (An article about Chitra Srinivas)