Millennium Community

Undoubtedly, the HSC-SSC results were surprising to the least. The amount of hard work each and every student and their teacher put in was all rewarded with a remarkable triumph. Both the classes 10th & 12th scored a 100% result in the school. More so the celebration as this is our very first batch of HSC.

SSC: 34 of 92 students scored above 90%, 10 above 95% and 17 scored 100/100 in Sanskrit. Congratulations to all students and teachers!!

Top five rankers in SSC: Harshal Phatak, Chandana Nikam, Mrudula Dixit, Sanket Deshpande and Pradyumna Jagdhane.

HSC: A feather in our cap was secured by five outstanding HSC students who received the INSPIRE scholarship award for higher education. INSPIRE stands for Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE).

The five students who are also our toppers for HSC, namely, Siddharth Damle, Aditya Barve, Vikrant Doma, Siddhant Chaudhari and Prateek Patankar are among the top 1 % of the students who appeared in HSC board exam from Pune Division.

Enrollment into education in Basic and Natural Science courses at BSc/Integrated MSc or MS levels will qualify eligibility automatically for scholarship. The students will avail a scholarship prize worth Rs. 80,000/- per year for five years. Kudos to Team Millennium!

Please follow the links below to register for the various events in the Diwali Carnival 2013-14

Rangoli Competition

Killa making Competition

Diya Decoration Competition

Lantern Making Competition

Anyone would have been pleasantly shocked to see the many Ganesh idols that adorned our badminton hall on last Sunday. We had the eco-friendly Ganesh idol making workshop on 1^st September for some of our students from 5^th to 10^th. It was conducted in two batches of 4 hours each. We are sorry that all interested students could not get admissions in the workshop as it wouldn’t have been just to accommodate more students with given number of resource personnel. The workshop was a huge success. The response was overwhelming and we are happy to tell you that we will have more workshops in the next year so that every individual wishing to participate will get a chance.

Our children were present on time for both the batches – 8.30 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30. The workshop started with an interactive lecture that taught our children about recycling and reusing. They derived how the cost of any thing is the cost of many efforts put into its making by nature and man. They understood how they save money as well as so many efforts when they use a thing again and again. Children also realized how and why the things that we borrow from nature should be returned to nature.

The discussion was followed by an elaborate demonstration of idol making. Khare madam of Shastra Vahini showed the process of idol making by actually making the idol in front of children in 35-40 minutes. Children were told to observe carefully and they did observe intently. They learnt the correct way of cutting, holding and rolling the clay. Careful attention was given to minute details by teachers as well as students. As soon as the children got their clay, they got totally engrossed. The correct basic structure was ensured and then freedom was given for the idol’s ornaments and accessories. Our children came out with great creativity. Someone made a beautiful mouse for his Ganesh, the idols exhibited various ornaments and turbans like the Puneri pagadi and even pheta!

There was an expert teacher for every 4 children. The students got individual guidance and it showed in their beautiful idols at the end of the magical 4 hours. Parents who came to pick their children up were amazed to directly see the fully made idols. The feedback forms told us that there was not a single child who thought the workshop was not fun, or was a bad way of spending a Sunday. Everybody was happy with their idol and most of them had decided to worship the idol in the coming Ganesh festival. They liked every part of the workshop. Some kids wrote that they were going to preserve the idol for the whole year, some were also going to worship it daily. Some students had worked with clay before, while it was a new experience for many. There were many takeaways for students – enjoying the clay, learning a new art form, enjoyment of working with friends, love for nature, importance of recycling etc. Someone wrote that he understood how difficult it was to make a Ganpati idol, while some other said she will never waste things and will return them to nature. We are extremely happy with the learnings that our children derived through a fun activity.

The teachers of Shastra Vahini too, had good observations to share after the workshop. They found our children very much interested and enthusiastic. They were pleased to see that even the 5^th standard students sat for the entire 4 hours and finished with beautiful idols!

All in all, we had a great workshop, greater learnings and greatest fun on a superb Sunday. Students, click pictures of your clay bappas before and after colouring them. We would like to see the coloured idols too 🙂

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, a well-earned holiday after a week’s hard work for most of our parents. But it was not a day of getting up late and passing time without a purpose. We had a workshop on health awareness for our new parents (of nursery and Junior KG students). Our parents had gathered in the badminton hall on the morning of 24^th August 2013. We all attended a lecture and presentation by Dr Atul Rakshe.

Dr Atul Rakshe is a renowned Ayurvedic doctor who is very much concerned with health, emotional well-being and environment issues in today’s world. He is associated with many reputed medical and social institutes in different capacities like founder, president, convener, director, research guide, editor, advisor etc. He is also a health journalist and teaches Ayurveda to students from Spain, Venezuela, Italy, Holland, Australia, Mexico and India annually. Dr Atul Rakshe is also a parent of Millennium national school.

Dr Rakshe talked about various topics on Saturday. He told us about some alarming facts based on his medical practice and presence in different parts of the world. He touched many topics from lifestyle to parenting. He had strong views and his words infused patriotism and introspection in the audience. Here are some excerpts from Dr Rakshe’’s presentation.

“”Where are the people we have heard about and read about? Where have they gone?

The 21^st century has given us many good things. But are we happy and healthy due to them?  Money has become our priority over health, culture, family and society. Stress, loneliness have made their way into our lives, many new diseases have crept in. There are huge amounts of chemicals in our daily lives, and there is lack of exercise.” “

Dr Atul Rakshe gave his own example of how a health problem acted as an eye-opener for him and caused a lifestyle change. He emphasised the importance of healthy eating and the habit of walking. He showed us some statistics about noodles, chips, meat, fast food items, and unhealthy eating in general. It was a shocking revelation of how big brands hide the harmful effects of their food products. Dr Rakshe enlightened us about how India is being looked at as a ‘market’ in the global scene. He pleaded all not to eat processed foods. He also talked about how we are harming our environment and what might be our future if we continue like this. He advised how we can avoid it through small acts of kindness towards the nature. He also talked a little about education and parenting.

Dr Rakshe praised Millennium National School for its facilities, infrastructure, efforts in nation-building; and told the audience that he was a proud parent of Millennium. He thanked the school for organising the workshop so well. The overall effect of the workshop was wonderful. We received many compliments through the feedback forms that our parents filled. A parent wrote, ‘Excellent workshop! We would love more such programs which will keep us rooted.’ Many other feedback forms read ‘Wonderful experience! All things were planned and executed nicely. Snacks were too good. I would like to attend all future workshops.’

We are happy that the workshop proved useful. We thank Dr Rakshe again for the great workshop. Thank you parents for being so enthusiastic and thank you for the feedback.

“How did it happen?”, “Do it again”, “Where did you learn all this?” These were some of the reactions from parents, kids, teachers, judges when the magicians from 7^th to 10^th and scientists from 5^th, 6^th showed their projects. We had our annual science fair on Saturday, 17^th August 2013.

Our dining halls and badminton hall were bubbling with enthusiasm on Saturday. Children were ready to show off since morning. Curious parents, kids, teachers visited students’ projects and encouraged them. We had 2 teachers judging every project to reduce subjectivity in assessment. Children had come up with really nice projects. Their efforts and team-work were evident from their display and explanation. Children did learn many new concepts through their project research. Innovative and creative use of simple material was done. We could also see that most projects were done from start to end exclusively by students. Parents’ help, using readymade kits was avoided, and we appreciate this a lot. The purpose of the exhibition was served well. One of the parents remarked that the children were learning a science syllabus worth a year by visiting their friends’ projects in 3 hours!

The ‘Science behind magic’ theme saw our children turning into great performers. Some groups exhibited really nice showmanship in performing the magic. A young spectator was delighted to know the scientific trick behind a particular magic. Our students gained a scientific eye to look at magic.

Four external judges had come to judge the 18 projects in the second round. The judges were from varied backgrounds like IIT alumni, entrepreneurs, science project co-ordinators from renowned schools etc. Each project was evaluated by 2 judges separately. Thus students got good exposure to external judges too.

It is sad that we can have only a limited number of groups in the result table. But we consider every participating group a winner. Many groups were very close in marks and we appreciate the efforts of all the groups.

Congratulations to all the participants! Comments, compliments and suggestions are most welcome.