Promoted by a trio of US-returned engineers in 2008, Rockwell International School, Hyderabad which celebrated its third anniversary last December, is earning plaudits from the city’s parent and academic communities Sited in Hyderabad’s tony suburb of Jubilee Hills, a stone’s throw from HITEC (Hyderabad Information Technology & Engineering Consultancy) City, Rockwell International School (RIS) celebrated its third anniversary last December with a spate of celebratory cultural programmes. A co-ed day school which admitted its first batch of six children in June 2009, RIS now hosts 300 students in kindergarten-class VII mentored by 50 teachers, and is affiliated with the Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), UK. A new entrant in the booming international schools scenario in Hyderabad, RIS is earning plaudits from the academic and parents’ communities for its progressive in-service teacher training programmes, experiential curriculum, ICT-enabled learning, and state-of-the-art infrastructure. “The objective of RIS is to provide our students world-class ICT-driven education delivered through experiential, exploratory and interactive pedagogies, with strong focus on personality development and multiple intelligences. Through our dedicated faculty — most of whom have international teaching experience — we are committed to producing caring, tolerant, and enterprising 21st century global leaders,” says Manija Subrahmanyam, principal of RIS. An alumna of Mumbai University and the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education (Rajasthan), Subrahmanyam acquired professional experience in the city’s reputed DRS International School, prior to signing up as founder-principal of RIS in 2009. Rockwell International School, Hyderabad is promoted by the Rockwell Educational Society, an education trust constituted in 2008 by social entrepreneurs Subash Boda, Srikanth Ramaraju and Murali Bukkapatnam — all professional engineers with Masters degrees from American universities who gave up their 15-year NRI status and returned to India in 2008. “On my return I began working with Jayaprakash Rao, former principal of Rishi Valley, Chittoor — India’s top-ranked boarding school according to EducationWorld — who helped me develop a curriculum which allows children the creative freedom to explore and think deeply,” says Boda, an alumnus of Manipal and West Virginia universities. “Modern facilities apart, our focus is on recruiting excellent teachers and providing them with continuous in-service training in contemporary pedagogies and best teaching-learning practices,” he adds. To provide well-grounded education to preschool and primary students, the Rockwell International School, Hyderabad management has invested generously in academic and sports facilities. The school’s wi-fi enabled three-storeyed academic building hosts the pre-primary, primary and secondary blocks spread over 30,000 sq. ft, and offers 20 ICT-enabled air-conditioned classrooms; computer, science, math and language laboratories; multimedia, music, art and yoga rooms. While class libraries are also encouraged, the main school library hosts 4,000 volumes with 20 journal subscriptions. A fleet of 14 air-conditioned buses equipped with safety and speed tracking systems transport children to and from school. According to Subrahmanyam, there’s a strategic focus on sports education for which the school has roped in the Bangalore-based EduSports Pvt. Ltd to design and deliver structured physical education and sports programmes. This is supplemented by specialised coaching in tennis, basketball, cricket, gymnastics,…
