And now… the Middle School Scholarship result!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen – it’s time for a drum roll again! It’s that time of the year when we harvest the fruits of our labour!

Yesterday evening, after a lot of anticipation, idle waiting and delays, finally the middle school scholarship results were declared – and we had a ball of a time looking them up! Everyone had done so well. Marks were good; passing was great and the sheer volume of scholarship holders – priceless!

 

Well – let us again pass around the congratulations and a HUGE pat on the back for the teachers and parents. A big hug for all the students – you did GREAT! And we don’t mean just the scholarship holders. There were so many who came so close. It’s really a good performance, and for us you are all scholars! As usual, let’s not forget to give an honourable mention to myEshala, our revolutionary product, which was used tremendously for practice, and saved a lot of precious time for our students, as well as our teachers.

This was also the first time that the students had to darken circles instead of just writing in the option number. No cancellations are allowed in the answer sheet and filling it in also takes additional time (compared to the conventional way). But these kiddos took it in their stride and what a performance we have. Really, all of you, take a bow. You deserve it!

This reminds us time and again about Dr. Phatak’s vision about how our family would grow and flourish! And we are sure that as our alumni grows bigger and stronger there will be a time when successes anywhere – sports, literature, science, technology, entrepreneurs – they will all be one of us. And that’s the best tribute we can pay to our dear founders.

Here is the list of ‘Scholar’ ship holders J. The papers were worth 300 marks.

Name

Score

Name

Score

KRUTTIKA SONI

284

SHARDUL MUNGIKAR

270

PRANAV YATNALKAR

284

EESHA JAMKHANDIKAR

270

PARTH KADAM

282

MADHURA GODBOLE

270

SHRAVANI MORE

280

SWANAND MODAK

270

OJASVI DESHPANDE

280

NANDINEE PHATAK

270

ADITYA KULKARNI

280

VEDANT SUPNEKAR

268

SHARDUL THANEKAR

278

PRATHAMESH SALUNKE

268

ADITI ALSHI

276

MIRISHA KENIYA

266

SUHRUD ATRE

276

AKSHAY DONGARE

266

NACHIKET DANDEGAONKAR

276

ISHAN NADGAUDA

266

SANIKA MALVI

276

TANMAY BANKAR

266

AADITYA NIMKAR

276

SUJAY JADHAV

266

RUHI VIDWANS

274

ANUSHKA JOSHI

264

AMOGH PHADKE

274

RUTISH HALBE

264

TANMAYEE MULAY

272

REWA RAWAT

264

ARNAV GUJARATHI

272

ABHINAV PUROHIT

262

ANSHUL RAJE

272

SARVESH KONDEJKAR

262

ANURAG PENDSE

272

MIHIR GOLE

262

We had 27 scholarship holders at the middle school level last year, which itself was a huge number. So we cross it by a whopping 9 seats this year. Adding the high school scholars to that, which are a merry group of 32, we have SIXTY EIGHT scholarship holders this year!

Three cheers again, HIP HIP HURRAY!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen – it’s time for a drum roll again! It’s that time of the year when we harvest the fruits of

our labour!

Yesterday evening, after a lot of anticipation, idle waiting and delays, finally the middle school scholarship results

were declared – and we had a ball of a time looking them up! Everyone had done so well. Marks were good; passing

was great and the sheer volume of scholarship holders – priceless!

Well – let us again pass around the congratulations and a HUGE pat on the back for the teachers and parents. A big

hug for all the students – you did GREAT! And we don’t mean just the scholarship holders. There were so many who

came so close. It’s really a good performance, and for us you are all scholars!

This was also the first time that the students had to darken circles instead of just writing in the option number.

No cancellations are allowed in the answer sheet and filling it in also takes additional time (compared to the

conventional way). But these kiddos took it in their stride and what a performance we have. Really, all of you, take a

bow. You deserve it!

This reminds us time and again about Dr. Phatak’s vision about how our family would grow and flourish! And we are

sure that as our alumni grows bigger and stronger there will be a time when successes anywhere – sports, literature,

science, technology, entrepreneurs – they will all be one of us. And that’s the best tribute we can pay to our dear

founders.

Here is the list of ‘Scholar’ ship holders

Name

KRUTTIKA SONI

PRANAV YATNALKAR

PARTH KADAM

SHRAVANI MORE

OJASVI DESHPANDE

ADITYA KULKARNI

SHARDUL THANEKAR

ADITI ALSHI

SUHRUD ATRE

NACHIKET DANDEGAONKAR

SANIKA MALVI

AADITYA NIMKAR

RUHI VIDWANS

AMOGH PHADKE

TANMAYEE MULAY

ARNAV GUJARATHI

ANSHUL RAJE

ANURAG PENDSE

We had 27 scholarship holders at the middle school level last year, which itself was a huge number. So we cross it by

a whopping 9 seats this year. Adding the high school scholars to that, which are a merry group of 32, we have SIXTY

. The papers were worth 300 marks.

Score

284

284

282

280

280

280

278

276

276

276

276

276

274

274

272

272

272

272

Name

SHARDUL MUNGIKAR

EESHA JAMKHANDIKAR

MADHURA GODBOLE

SWANAND MODAK

NANDINEE PHATAK

VEDANT SUPNEKAR

PRATHAMESH SALUNKE

MIRISHA KENIYA

AKSHAY DONGARE

ISHAN NADGAUDA

TANMAY BANKAR

SUJAY JADHAV

ANUSHKA JOSHI

RUTISH HALBE

REWA RAWAT

ABHINAV PUROHIT

SARVESH KONDEJKAR

MIHIR GOLE

Score

270

270

270

270

270

268

268

266

266

266

266

266

264

264

264

262

262

262

EIGHT scholarship holders this year!

Three cheers again, HIP

HIP HURRAY

!

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Grand success of Millennium National School (Again) in 2012 High School Scholarship results!

Here comes yet another year of stunning performances for Millennium students. As the academic year ended, the high school scholarship results were declared. And of course, we had bagged many many spots in the merit list – 32 to be precise (and that is NINE more than last year’s 23 merit holders) Phew! Again, methinks that is going to be a tough one to break (BTW – we had the same thought last year too.. and the results are here for you to see)

The results of high school scholarship examination were declared on May 1, 2012. And as you now know, we have 32 students from the 7th standard who secured merit positions out of 89 who appeared. A solid strike rate, don’t you think? And let us also acknowledge all the others who passed. They scored very well too. Many missed the merit by a hair’s breadth. We hope you will do it in the NTS next year!

Well, team Millennium – give yourselves a big pat on the back and take a bow! It’s really a job well done. Congratulations all around.. Let’s roll the credits

  • Students – your constant efforts and determination. Without you, there would be no story today.
  • Teachers – your constant efforts and determination too. You too are the stars here. You set tests, analyzed them and guided the students.
  • Parents – You supported our children and believed in us. What more can we ask for?
  • myEshala – Where would we be without you?

And a special mention for Mrs Smita Deshpande. She was the one who bullied and cajoled the students, parents and teachers – spared no one and carried the load admirably. Three cheers!

Here is the list of successful students –

NAME

RANK

MAHAJAN PRANAV PARAG

9

KULKARNI ANISH KIRAN

10

BHATTACHARYA NANDIKA DIPANKAR

11

KSHIRSAGAR VARAD AVINASH

12

DALVI SIDDHESH PURUSHOTTAM

14

NALAWADE RUSHIKESH JAYSING

14

ALATKAR HRISHIKESH ABHAY

16

DESHPANDE KAUSTUBH UMESH

17

JAYANTI ROHIT SREEKANTH

17

DARYAPURKAR AASTHA ASHISH

19

GOKHALE TANVI KEDAR

19

GUPTA ADITI VIKAS

19

MALWADKAR ANTARA JITENDRA

19

GANDHI PARAM MAHENDRA

21

JOSHI DEVSHRI SHRIKANT

22

THORAT SHALAKA GURUDATTA

22

GANDHI PRANJAL NILKANTH

23

LIPARE ATHARVA PRAVIN

23

POTNURWAR SRUSHTI SAMEER

23

PUJARI ADITYA RAJENDRA

24

SARODE TANVI SHRIKANT

24

VAGHELA AMRUTA SHASHIKANT

24

RAJESHIRKE PRANAV RAJENDRA

26

GANU TANVI PRASHANT

27

ANAND BAIBHAV BIBHAY

28

PUJARI SHREYA RAJENDRA

28

BHAT SHARVARI AJIT

29

PURANIK VEDANT KEDAR

30

SHAH JAY SACHIN

30

SONTAKKE HRITWIK YESHWANT

30

ANTURKAR RUTUJ SHASHANK

31

DEKHANE SOHAM SANJAY

31

Now, we wait with bated breath, for the middle school scholarship exam results, which are expected in a fortnight. Any guesses on the number of merit holders?

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Student Conference on “Democracy”

After organizing and participating in the fun-filled events like the Annual Gathering, Fun-fair and Sports Day in a row; guess what; it was the time for Millennium kids to be a part of a conference! On Friday, 16th March – our 8th grader student-delegates presented their take on democracy, governance and issues that humanity faces.

In this fascinating event there was a variety of presentation. Some student groups presented through dramatized dialogues, there was a street play and a video presentation. Some groups even conveyed their message through power point presentations.

This was the first time that such a student conference has been organized and you could easily see the activity, enthusiasm, anxiety and some tension building up amongst the students just before the start of the event. As they stood before their fellow students there was a little initial nervousness and faltering but they quickly got a grip and managed very well.

The conference opened with a talk about the meaning of democracy – right from the meaning of the word, the origin of the concept in Greece to the modern day definition by Abraham Lincoln. Then the next group spoke about the problems in world governance, with case studies of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. Then they also attacked and criticized the policies of countries like USA and China which are the present superpowers who misuse their wealth and position in the world. It was interesting to see the view point of the children on how the issues could be handled. As they spoke about how China is trying to dominate through cyber terrorism and greed for more control and even about how USA interferes in politics for financial gain and status, we all realized that these kids are quite sharp indeed! They could easily see through double standards, terrorist policies, selfish motives and abuse of power. All us adults were very impressed indeed! They concluded that it was up to them – the “generation next” to make the world a better place for human race. They ended the act with very promising words – “We all will change the world!”

The next group performed a street play called “Ye kahaan aa gaye hum?” It started with the fight of two political groups and how they were trying to impress voters with their glossy promises – one promised to bring prosperity to the farmers, the other promised to bring them progress. The group of farmers who evidenced that fight wondered what democracy is and how come they are so poor though they work so hard? Then they discussed on current situation of Indian democracy and various problems faced by us like inflation, one-sided development, water problem, unemployment, lack of planning and corruption at each level. The group arrived at the conclusion that we all i.e. the citizens of India have to do something about it and the audience enthusiastically agreed too! There were lot of clever puns and comments on current affairs used in the play.

Soon after there was a heated debate (dramatized) that compared the situation in ancient India and present India. One spoke about how India had started off as a very prosperous country and the other pointed out where have we landed now. They touched the points like in ancient India we had most prestigious universities like the Nalanda University, wealthy kingdoms, most advanced civilizations like Indus Valley, direct / presidential democracy in periods like Maurya. While discussing these they also spoke about how the current situation is plagued with problems of illiteracy, poverty, corruption, terrorism etc. They concluded that illiteracy is the root cause of all problems and showed a chart on how India should remove this cause and work on this problem.

The next group had a theme – “Hum to aaise hi hai”. Here students showed in a very clever manner how undisciplined India is. They showed one interesting video showing people littering, spitting, destroying historical monuments. Then they talked about various other issued faced by India such as discrimination, big gap between rich and poor,  gender inequality, corruption (for corruption they gave day-to-day examples of how corruptions begins from our doorsteps), casual approach and laziness of people, black money etc. Students had also conducted a survey on unity, discipline, reservations, one child policy etc. and displayed its results in the form of graphs. At the end they gave examples of countries like Japan who recovered from crisis but “Hum to aaise hi hai!”

However, the optimistic approach is what is needed for real development. So after the mistakes and shortcomings were pointed out – in India and the world, the next group had a case study of countries that were examples of good governance and development. They talked about countries like Japan, Germany, Israel, UAE and Singapore and how they came out of difficult situations such as natural calamities, nuclear attacks, defeat in world war, country getting split, internal riots, extreme environmental conditions, scarce resources etc. They not only talked about what are the advancements in these countries but what were the reasons behind them. The group concluded that it is because of their patriotic citizens and hard working governments that these countries rose from the ashes like a Phoenix.

And we ended on a happy note – with examples of “India shining”. India has largest government in the world so people have large participation in government. Secondly it’s a fastest progressing country. Here they gave the example of the state of Gujarat and how it’s developing under the leadership of Narendra Modi. Then they talked about growth in industrial and telecommunication sector in India. They gave information about companies like Infosys, TATA, Airtel and Micromax. Then they also talked about India’s social development where they gave examples of Anna Hazare’s fight against corruption and Baba Amte’s Lok Biradari Prakalp. Finally they also mentioned about India’s achievements in sports sector such as winning the ICC World Cup and accomplishments of various sports personalities like Saina Nehwal, Abhinav Bindra and Vishwanathan Anand. To conclude the group said that children are the future of India and they should be patriotic. They should follow 3 Ds i.e. Determination, Discipline and Dedication.

This entire activity gave students hang of how to do research, how to prepare PowerPoint presentations and how to deliver effective presentations. This gave the participating and also the attending students an insight of issues going on in India and around the world and how they can learn from it to be good citizens and build a strong India. It was remarkable that students did a great job at the conference despite the fact that they were given a very short period for preparation. Well done champs!

The event ended with appreciating efforts of our teacher Ms. Swati Sardesai and head of our school Ms. Smita Deshpande who guided students and put together the conference in a very short period of four days.

Ms. Arpita Karkare, the director of Millennium, summarized the conclusions of all the presentations at the end to inculcate students’ understanding. She also made a great announcement that from next academic year the school is planning to have more of such conferences for other standard students. The school would be introducing concept of “Fun Fridays” which will have lots of brilliant activities such as games, competitions, conferences and fun-events. So look forward to the coming year; some great ideas and events are coming up!

Here are some pictures that we took of the conference.

And here is the Times NIE view on the conference.

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Geniuses of Millennium succeeded in Cyber Genius 2011-12!

We are pleased to inform you that five of the “geniuses” of Millennium National School won prizes in the fourteenth annual inter school computer contest – Cyber Genius 2011-12; conducted in the months of December 11 and January 12. The competition is organized by Dr. Kalmadi Shamrao High School, Erandwane, Pune.

The proud achievers of Millennium are –

Shrihan Pande of 3rd standard who won 3rd prize in MS Paint competition in mini group. The topic of his drawing prepared in Paint was “Christmas”.
Sujoy Shivde and Eashaan Godbole of 8th standard who won 3rd prize in PowerPoint Presentations competition in junior group titled “Use of Google”, and
Aditya Majethia and Riya Mehta of 9th and 10th standard who won 1st prize in Adobe Photoshop competition in senior group. The topic on which they created a poster in Photoshop was “World Tour”.

The competition tests the computer skills of students from different age-groups in various applications such as MS Paint, MS PowerPoint, QBasic Programming, Wed designing and Adobe Photoshop. These were conducted for four groups – Mini (Std. 3-4), Sub Junior (Std. 5-6), Junior (Std. 7-8) and Senior (Std. 9-10); of which Millennium had winners in three groups!

As you know computers are an inseparable part of the learning process at Millennium and no wonder our students start getting the hang of the techniques of operating computers and using various applications from such a young age. Needless to say how helpful this would prove for their futures. The creations of students not only showed their skills in  respective applications but also their creativity and imagination power. This is the whole idea of learning at Millennium, to bring about wholesome development in its students; not only in academics but also in inventiveness!

On behalf of Millennium we congratulate all the winners and wish them all the best. Looking forward to many more such achievements for students of Millennium in various competitions as witnessed in the past!

You can find the results online at: http://lci.in/khscyber/.

The zipped projects can be found here.

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Scratch Training, Projects and Competitions – a boost to students inventiveness and reasoning capabilities

Children love playing computer games. In our school, we announced that we would let our students play games. That caught them surprised! What?! Our school, letting us play computer games?! Well, we told them, that the catch was that they had to create their own, and then could play those! That got them excited! And thus started, our gentle introduction to Scratch. We are the first school in Pune to start teaching Scratch as a full time subject into our curriculum, for classes from 5th to 9th.

Normally learning programming becomes difficult for school kids due to complicated structure of the programming languages. Scratch is a programming language that avoids these complicacies for young beginners. With the help of Scratch they can write the programs easily without having to learn syntactically correct writing. Scratch is developed to help students hone their creativity, logical thinking, problem solving and most importantly self learning skills.

As a next logical step to this; we organized an Intra-school Scratch Contest to culminate the training. Students of class 5 to 9 were required to develop a story or game in Scratch based on Indian Mythology, History, Geography and Civics. They were allowed to pick the topic of their own choice from these subjects and follow their respective text books for themes. All the projects were their own dreams! They chose the topics, made the scripts, searched for pictures and audios, incorporated the music and dialogues. They also developed logic of the game and wrote the programs themselves. And they even did their own troubleshooting and problem solving when they were stuck!

The outcome was – 36 incredible projects created by the students. There was good response from class 5 and 6 to the contest. About 25 projects were from this group itself. The themes for the games created by students ranged between Chota Bheem, Gokul Ashtami, KBC, Matsyavedha, Ramayana the Epic, Shivaji Protocol, World War, Khilafat Movement, Ganesha’s quest, The fight of Mahabharat, Malaysian War, Krishna Vs Kaunsa, Ramayan, Bal Hanuman, Krishna and his adventures to name a few. Hats off to the imagination power of these students! Millennium’s infrastructure is of a great help to students for learning Scratch and creating their projects. Students are able to use the computers in the computer lab extensively for such projects and for their studies too. Students completed these projects under the expert guidance of Mrs. Shilpa Narvekar of our school.

As the next step up the ladder, Millennium didn’t want to restrict this training only to its students but also wanted to spread the word amongst other schools about Scratch and importance of its training to the students. As a part of this endeavor, we had organized an Inter-School Scratch Competition on 3rd March 2012 at our school; in association with the Persistent Foundation. This was a first time that such competition was being organized. Students from classes 5 to 10 from different schools were invited to present their projects under different categories based on age group.

Millennium National School, Karnataka High School, SPM English medium school and P. B. Jog Secondary School participated enthusiastically in the competition. Teams of 2 to 4 students each participated in three categories – Sub junior group (class 5 and 6), Junior group (class 7 and 8) and Senior group (class 9 and 10). Again at the inter-school competition we got to see mesmerizing games designed indigenously on topics ranging from History, Geography to Mythology. There was so much complexity and there were so many intricacies involved in these games – we could see budding planners and strategists in those teams. It was hard to believe that the creators of these games were – only students!
This year, we just had a total of 4 schools who participated. We hope to spread the movement in the next year, with Persistent Foundation planning to conduct teacher training workshops. Let’s see how it goes…

Mr. Sanjeev Khadilkar and Mr. Anand Paropkari from Persistent Systems were the honorable judges for the competition and Mr. Shekhar Sahastrabuddhe from Persistent Foundation was the Chief Guest.  Millennium was the overall winner of this competition – bagging the maximum prizes in each category.
Here are the winners:
Sub Junior group  (class 5 and 6) 
Winner : Millennium National School
Class 5
Project : The Holy Fire
Omkar Apte, Rohan Patwardhan, Krinal Doma

Consolation Prize : Karnatak High School
Class 6
Project : The Quiz
Ananya Angadi, Mrudul Parasnis

Junior group  (class 7 and 8)   
Winner : Millennium National School
Class 7
Project : Bal Hanuman
Pranav Deo, Anshuman Vaidya, Bhaibhav Anand, Saiel Navghare

Consolation Prize : SPM English medium school
Class 8
Project : World Of Hanuman
Poorva Kajale, Sejal Mehta, Suyash Kulkarni, Sareen Shah

Senior group  (class 9 and 10)   
Winner : Millennium National School
Class 9
Project : Medieval Hero
Mahimna Kelkar, Eshaan Deshpande, Aniket Bhagwat, Parth Bhave

Consolation Prize : P. B. Jog Secondary School (English medium)
Class 9
Project : Shivaji’s Quest
Aditya Ujeniya, Amit Gundale

Our strong belief is that through this programming activity, the analytical and logical capabilities of students will be greatly enhanced. Not only that, but common problem solving skills of students are greatly enhanced too – which is a very essential real-world skill. And we want to spread the word! If you know anyone who would be interested, please, do let us know!

Hoping to create a smarter, more mathematically oriented and analytical future generation…

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