FAQ

Aurinko children love their visits because they’re going a lot into discovering new spaces, and trying things with their hands like farming. Sometimes they go to industry visits, meet people who run these industries and see machinery about how things work, and how things actually come to the table for them. These are all things that help children analyse the world around them and understand that better. They see how they fit into this world. That’s how the seeds for career awareness and career readiness are also sown. As they grow older, the children are able to relate back to all these experiences and pick and choose what would they want to continue with, in their life and decide upon which career path they would like to take.

Living a sustainable life, living a minimalist life, and living a life where you can build things on your own have been one of the core concepts of Aurinko. When we came into a new school, we did not have any furniture, on purpose. We made our own furniture. Children did a user study to figure out what kind of furniture they would like to have in school. They designed three or four prototypes to understand what exactly would work for them. Those small desks are what children designed the same way they designed tables for the conference room. You’d be surprised to know that those table tops came from a parent’s home when they were changing their wardrobe cupboards. Like jeans are converted into other wearable pieces of apparel, they convert them into bags, toys, and stationery boxes. So, children are constantly learning how they can reduce, reuse, recycle things, and most importantly, how to refuse things. Even for festivals, they design things out of whatever is available. A lot of the decorations come from reused or recycled materials.

We always say that we do not have any extracurricular activities because we believe in everything being a part of children’s lives. Just like how we skill in reading, writing, spelling, math, comprehension, and written expression, we are also skilling them in the area of art, music, craft, design thinking, carpentry, electronics, electrical, life skills, theatre, and our Indian folk aspects. 

The main reason for all of this is that we want children to have a lot of experiences. We want them to find out what they really love doing. When they do that, they’re able to figure out as they grow older, what they really love, and how can they carry that forward in life. 

For example, there was a child who was really interested in music, the parents were wondering if he wanted to become a musician. But as he grew, his interest in math and science also grew. At a radio station, he met somebody who was a sound engineer, and that’s where he decided that he can marry his love for music, and come up with a career that also satisfied his interest in math and science. 

When you say “extra,” the activities seem to be something that are not really necessary. But these are the things that define our life. The beauty in life comes from these so-called extracurricular activities. In Aurinko, they’re not extracurricular activities, they’re just part of the entire curriculum.

Personality development at Aurinko happens on the go, sometimes with us doing some specific things, like sessions on emotional intelligence. But the most important aspect is the children learning and growing together. Since Aurinko is a school without walls, the children from different classes meet each other on a daily basis. They meet each other during classes, during their lunch break, and on bus journeys. So constantly, they’re working together with everybody. This includes teachers and also a lot of parents who volunteer as mentors for the children. Plus, this includes many industry specialists who come to work with our children. The children are guided by certain spiritual principles we follow, and certain virtues we try to build in them, like generosity, forgiveness, and moderation. These are many things that we instil in them as part of growing up, and all of these come together to form the unique personality of the child. Because the core is not disturbed, whatever the child has come to the world with, his nature isn’t disturbed in Aurinko.

Assessments in Aurinko are diagnostic in nature. We are trying to find out what are the gaps, why are those gaps there, and what we could do to fill those gaps. We do those almost every day trying to find out how can we make learning better, efficient and relatable to the child. That’s why assessments in Aurinko are something that we all love doing. Even children are aware that at the end of it, they will know how they learned, and how they can learn better. 

PTMs, hence, are an important aspect of the co-parenting journey that we are with the parents. Teachers and parents discuss the child’s performance, and the child also would have given their views on their performance. So, with all the stakeholders there, they understand what happened, what could be done better, and what is the path henceforth. So, PTMs are very stress-free and happy. Teachers and parents touch base, exchange notes, and plan for the future.

The Passion2Career programme is a very unique programme that allows children to look back on their lives, and reminisce about the people, places and phenomena. Then they’re able to bring to the table, what they really loved. 

The second thing is that it helps the child to become self-aware, go deep within themselves and find out “Who am I? What makes me tick? What makes me happy? What do I want to do in life?” 

It also helps them to find out what behaviours they want to change, the habits they want to change, the kind of attitude they have, and what kind of attitude they want to build. 

It also helps them to find out the various careers that they can have, using a mix-match of all the passions they want to take further in life. They will do a lot of research on colleges that can help them. They find out if there are any entrance exams, who gives those entrance exams, how many hours of work are required, and if there is anything else required, in addition to marks, like a portfolio.

Since the children from eighth grade are doing several internships, they somewhat know the world of work. So, they’re able to interview professionals from their chosen career path. When all of this culminates, a very beautiful 10-year career path evolves. That is the end-product of the Passion2Career programme, which the children present to the people they think can help

Teachers in Aurinko are the backbone. Our staff is really there for each child. How we train teachers is dependent on the ecosystem. The experienced teachers, children, parents, and school management – all take ownership of enabling this teacher and empowering her. A lot of time and space is given to her to make her observations and to be able to reflect on those observations and make corrective actions so that she slowly fits into the Aurinko philosophy. Due to this, teachers quickly and efficiently come into the fold, and are able to take the Aurinko philosophy forward. 

Parent training is also very important to Aurinko. How do parents behave with children, how should they speak to the children, how should they do various activities with children, what can they teach children, and how they should do it? All of these are also part of the training process. So, when we say teacher training, it is the training of all the adults that the child comes into contact with. Hence, it becomes a conducive ecosystem for the child to survive and thrive.

Aurinko infrastructure is like a home. It is open, just like how children’s minds are. There’s a cycle that has a motor. If you pedal then the music system plays on it. So, this is a discovery space. For children, every area of Aurinko is like that. 

It is not just things, it is about people also. When you enter Aurinko, you meet with the admin staff and all children just chit-chat with anybody that they want to. There are parents there, there are many visitors from all over the world who come to Aurinko to learn from us and share their learning with us. 

Next is the way we are. In Aurinko, we are barefoot. We sit on the floor, and that is an experience in itself. The way children are raised to understand that there is someone going to use the toilets after them and hence they have to leave it clean. 

Our kindergarten building is like an igloo. The children feel that it’s a toy home where they can play with each other. Small children need spaces that are conducive to them. It is built naturally and there’s a lot of air and light.  People tell us that Aurinko children are so humble because they’re barefoot and they sit on the floor. When you do these two things, children become grounded naturally.