Many private schools will reopen next week for in-person classes after a week of online sessions, which were necessitated by a state government order to all educational institutions to keep their campuses shut for a week because of the heat spell.
Calcutta Girls’ High School, Birla High School, Sushila Birla Girls’ School, Birla High School Mukundapur, South City International School and Techno India schools will resume classroom teaching on Monday.
St James’ School, Julien Day School Kalyani, Julien Day School Ganganagar and St Augustine’s Day School Shyamnagar will resume in-person classes on Tuesday.
St James’ School, Calcutta Girls’ High School and Techno India schools said the classes would end early every day for a while. Others said they would follow their usual schedule.
“We will prepare a detailed timetable on summer timings on Monday and call back students from Tuesday. We plan to start at 7.15am and by 11.30am or noon, all classes will be over. There will be staggered dispersal of students. Till the summer vacation starts, each class will be of 30 minutes, instead of the usual 40 minutes,” said Terence Ireland, principal, St James’ School.
John Bagul, principal, South City International School, said: “We have air-conditioned classrooms, so the usual routine will be followed. There will be some internal changes, which we were following even before the online classes started. There will be no outdoor sports after 10.30am.”
Over the weekend many schools decided to call students back to the campus.
Julien Day School Kalyani, which will resume in-person classes on Tuesday, issued a notice on Sunday.
“Not all our children are local and parents need at least a day to arrange for transport. Some of our children come from far-off places like Naihati or even farther,” said Terence John, principal, Julien Day School Kalyani, explaining why in-person classes will start on Tuesday, and not on Monday.
Teachers across schools badly want the children to return to the campus since two years of pandemic-induced online classes have led to learning gaps that only can be bridged through sustained on-campus activities.
“The weather has cooled down, so the management has decided to call the students back. If the weather deteriorates again, we have the option to switch to online classes. But now we want the children to be back on campus since the weather is favourable,” said Koeli Dey, principal, Sushila Birla Girls’ School.