Primary Years

At B.D. Somani, we believe that learning is a joyful experience and young children learn best in a safe, nurturing environment that fosters positive self-esteem.

In Primary School, we offer an international progressive curriculum. Teachers may use the Cambridge Primary Programme as a basic guide for some of the key skills in Literacy and Mathematics but they develop age-appropriate and challenging curricular units to fit children’s curiosity and our environment.

In Grades 1 to 5, students practice, hone and expand the skills with which they have been equipped in the Early Years. The focus is not on amassing lists of facts but more on how to find information when it is needed, how to evaluate multiple sources of information and how to use information to support conclusions and opinions.

Subjects

In the context of engaging units of inquiry, students learn the core, necessary skills but the main focus is on developing higher-order thinking and reasoning skills.

Curriculum

Units of inquiry in social studies and science are integrated and guided by overarching ideas or essential questions. All three classes in one grade level will be looking at the same main idea, but each class may be examining different areas of interest within that idea.

The skills of effective communication are necessary to all learning endeavours, so students engage in authentic writing through the Writing Process and 6 + 1 Traits of Writing. Classrooms are filled with discussion and debate, providing practice for speaking and listening skills. Sophisticated and complex mathematical thinking is encouraged through searching for an understanding of number use and patterns in maths and collaborative problem-solving. The regular use of higher order thinking and reasoning skills are far more emphasised than the simplistic skills of methods and memorisation.

Specialist subjects are not seen as extras but are essential to every child’s experience at B.D. Somani, helping students to find strengths and passions in many areas. The Arts (Visual Art, Music, Theatre) and IT instruction, guided by specialists, are integrated into classroom units of study. Physical Education focuses on the skills necessary for many sports as well as for cooperative games, fitness and fun. Unique to B.D. Somani, all students have weekly Capoeira classes – a Brazilian martial arts program that involves fitness, flexibility, and creativity.

Students learn Hindi and Marathi from Grade 1.

Trips are essential ways of gathering information, and so B.D. Somani students are found all around the school’s neighbourhood, further afield in Mumbai, at museums and even in Kutch in Grade 5.

When students move up to Middle School from Primary, they are confident, articulate, ready to take risks and face challenges and equipped with the necessary skills to be life-long learners and thinkers.