Promoted in 1991 by businessman and philanthropist, Niranjanlal Dalmia, NLDHS is ranked among top dozen co-ed day schools of Maharashtra in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2020-21, writes Dipta Joshi
Located in Mumbai’s satellite city of Thane, over the past three decades, N.L. Dalmia High School (NLDHS, estb.1991) has acquired a good reputation for providing holistic values-based English-medium education in a conducive teaching-learning environment. Affiliated with the Delhi-based Council of the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), this co-ed day school offers K-12 education to 3,000 students mentored by 152 teachers. In the latest EducationWorld India School Rankings 2020-21, NLDHS is ranked #12 in Maharashtra (pop.112 million) and #2 in Thane district. Moreover, the school was also awarded a special prize for social impact by an EW Grand Jury.
Promoted by the N.L. Dalmia Educational Society (NLDES, estb.1982), NLDHS is the outcome of founder-chairman Niranjanlal Dalmia’s vision to provide education to serve the public. An alumnus of Hindu College, Delhi freedom fighter, and businessman-philanthropist, Dalmia (1915-2005) articulated the school’s mission as providing quality English-medium education enabled by world-class infrastructure to nurture the innate potential of children and develop global citizens with Indian values. Since then, the society has added two more institutions — the N.L. Dalmia Institute of Management Studies and Research (estb.1995) and the N.L. Dalmia College of Arts, Commerce and Science (2018). Together they educate 4,500 children and youth.
“The motto of our school — ‘In Pursuit of Excellence’ — encapsulates our founder’s belief that high quality education awakens the innate potential of all children,” says Seema Saini, an alumna of Mumbai University and Xavier University, USA. Former head of the economics department, APS-Eicher Good Earth Foundation, Alwar and former HRD director of N.L. Dalmia Educational Society, Saini was appointed principal of NLDHS in 2009 and CEO of NLDES in 2016.
Spread over 1.21 acres, the school’s capital-intensive infrastructure has been consistently upgraded to international standards. All 55 classrooms in its six-storey main block are equipped with interactive smart boards integrating latest digital technologies to improve the learning experience of students. The classrooms are also STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and maths) ready. Moreover, teacher training and professional development is an important priority of the NLDHS management.
An outstanding feature of the compact NLDHS campus is the heavy investment the school’s promoters/management has made in enabling infrastructure. Its 55 fully-wired classrooms apart, the school offers students access to three science and two computer labs, a fully-equipped conference room, a human resource development centre to provide continuous training and development programmes for teachers and admin staff and a multi-activity hall for co-curricular music, yoga, dance and art education. The school also boasts four seminar halls with an aggregate seating capacity of 688 and an auditorium with equivalent capacity. Moreover, the library houses 14,600 print volumes and 72 computer terminals for online reading and connectivity.
This enabling learning environment for students and faculty and ready acceptance of teaching-learning innovations such as flipped classrooms, group discussions, Socratic questioning, role play, peer learning, dramatics, declamation, crossover learning and research-based projects, has paid off. In 2020, of the school’s 173 students who wrote the class X ICSE exam, 121 averaged more than 90 percent with the school topper ranked #2 nationally. And of 56 students who wrote the class XII school-leaving ISC exam in 2020, the average score awarded was 82.17 percent. The school topper ranked #3 nationally.
Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, in line with the lockdown of all education institutions nationwide since March 2020, NLDHS has also been shuttered for the past 16 months with children learning from home.
“With the school management committed to readily experimenting with new technologies enabled learning since the early years of the new millennium and our teachers using digital tools and programmes since 2017, we have smoothly switched to using latest technologies such as Google Classroom and Zoom. Moreover, with our students also familiar with digital learning, we haven’t experienced significant learning disruption during the pandemic. On the contrary, we believe that our students’ learning outcomes have improved during the lockdown,” says Saini.
Teacher training sessions focusing on new learning strategies as well as skills enhancement are instrumental to NLDHS’ educational excellence. Ongoing compulsory in-house teacher workshops cover a whole gamut of education best practices including innovative teaching, life skills development, brain-based pedagogy and classroom management.
Looking ahead, Saini expects the online and offline blended education model to become the new normal and believes that the management has developed blended learning systems and assessment tools to make the best of hybrid learning. “In consonance with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the school has drawn up plans to enhance digital infrastructure by setting up additional virtual labs and intensifying usage of technology-driven pedagogies such as AR/VR, conduct virtual field trips, lab experiments etc. We intend to bridge the gap between offline and online learning and continue to provide a nurturing environment to our students to develop their unique intellectual, social, emotional, physical and creative potential in preparation for lifelong learning and success,” says Saini.
Admission and Fees
Prospective parents should submit admission applications online: www.nldalmia.co.in
Admission is based on parent/child interaction.
Fees (annual): Rs.82,250
For further information call 022 42990000 (100 lines) or email: info.school@nldalmia.co.in
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