Bhupinder Gogia
Principal, Sat Paul Mittal School, Ludhiana

Bhupinder Gogia is principal of the CISCE-affiliated Sat Paul Mittal School, Ludhiana (SPMS), ranked Punjab’s #1 co-ed day school in the EW India School Rankings 2020-21.

How satisfied are you with SPMS’ move to online learning over the past year?

Totally satisfied. SPMS was the first school in Ludhiana to transition to virtual classes after the national lockdown was announced on March 25, 2020. More than a year later, it’s very satisfying that the collabora­tive efforts of teachers, parents and students have paid off. We have formulated a multi-pronged strategy by adopting existing and new digital technologies to ensure not only academic learning delivery, but also continuity of co-curricular and sports education. The credit for all this goes to the collective efforts of our dedi­cated team of teachers, admin and support staff.

What major initiatives has SPMS intro­duced to make up for the learning loss suffered by children and support their mental well-being?

We have designed an effective teacher-student connect programme which has enhanced communication between teachers and students. This is complemented by robust online counselling and Quality Circle Time sessions. Our online SEL (socio-emo­tional learning) programme has also proved successful and our webinars, life skills development sessions have improved our children’s self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship building and problem-solving skills.

Community service and student welfare programmes…

A large number of students have vol­unteered for a range of social service programmes including webinars to train students and teachers to use ICT tools and organised fund-raising campaigns to distribute free mo­bile phones to underprivileged girl children. Moreover, the school has partnered with local NGO CityNeeds to donate books and educational material to less-privileged children and our teachers have contributed to creating a database named Covepe­dia of Covid-19 resources.

What are your plans to deal with future pandemic disruptions?

We have prepared a detailed Covid Contingency Plan with excellent safe­ty protocols for sustainable reopen­ing of our school campus. We have also prepared a detailed plan to en­able our teachers to bridge children’s learning gaps and provide them social emotional support. Moreover, we have developed an excellent technology-enabled hybrid learning model which will prove useful when schools reopen.

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