We impart education through interactive teaching modules designed for students belonging to government and government-aided schools.
Our method aids the development of logical thinking skills and kindles an increased interest in learning among the students.
They are empowered to grasp concepts more effectively, enhancing their understanding of the subjects taught.
Our Focus
We focus mainly on students from the 1st std to the 8th std, the classes where a strong foundation for learning needs to be established
Our Enquiry Based Learning approach ensures that children
- interact freely and fearlessly ask questions in class
- use materials and learn experientially
- gain increased confidence in their capacity to learn
Our main programs are
1. “STEPS TO SUCCESS” Primary School Program
The Primary school years are crucial for giving a strong learning foundation to children
We have observed from our evaluation data, that many children in our schooling system lack conceptual knowledge and basic understanding of the subjects taught. As they go to higher classes, they face difficulties in comprehending the contents of their textbooks.
Keeping this in mind, our work broadly focuses on addressing gaps in primary level English and Math learning.
We work with simple planned STEPS for students to easily learn both Math and English, based on experiential materials and allow every student to progress at her own pace.
We believe that this crucial stage of learning (age 5 to 10) lays a solid foundation for a child’s future learning curve.
English
Our focus
- Comprehension
- Spoken English
- Reading
Teaching in English classes is done with the help of flash cards, picture cards, games and storybooks, so that children
- are able to speak and read simple English
- have more confidence
Maths
Our focus
- Number concepts
- Place value
- Arithmetic operations
Children work with Montessori based materials and question cards in our Maths lab, so that children
- can understand concepts in a clear and concrete manner, instead of rote learning
- can learn at their own pace rather than a black board based “one size fits all” approach
The “Steps to Success” program is being implemented successfully for 567 students in four Greater Chennai Corporation schools and a government aided school in the academic year 2023-24. They show that personalised and effective learning is possible in a low cost scalable setup.
Impact of the Primary School program
- 2480 primary school students have been taught across different schools
- Students enjoy coming to our classrooms to learn
- They have begun to understand simple English
- Competence in Arithmetic has increased greatly
- Enrolment in the schools we work in has increased after our intervention
2. “LAB IN A BACKPACK” STEM program
Science in schools is generally taught as something separate from our daily life, something to be learnt only through equations and through serious work in the lab.
We bring fun and excitement to Science teaching at the grassroots level, with low cost materials and fun experiments.
Students understand not just the theory, but the practical reasoning on “How Science is about the world around us”.
Starting with just 10 schools and 850 students in 2016, we have so far taught 24355 students in 120 schools.
We teach 4170 students Physics, Introductory Chemistry, Technology and Robotics at schools in Chennai and Sriperumbudur in the academic year 2023-24.
Our teachers carry kits with simple equipment for scientific experiments in their backpack, and travel long distances to different schools every day.
Our focus
- The program focuses on teaching scientific concepts with practical demos and experiments to make learning more hands-on and practical as opposed to rote learning
- Primary and Middle school children are given an understanding of important concepts in Science that can help them when they go to the higher classes
- Materials used in the experiments are low cost and easily accessible
Some out of the box topics we teach are :-
- Physics and Introductory Chemistry from the school syllabus
- How helicopters work
- How our bodies generate electricity
- How Maglev trains work
- How atoms combine
- Basic engineering concepts
- Why do we use pillars in buildings
- Why our cities are flooded during monsoons
- Simple Robotics with arduino kits
- How to make gas alarms for home
- How to fix sensors for lights
Impact of the Lab in a Backpack program
- Student interaction with our teachers has increased tremendously
- There is an increased level of awareness about Science concepts
- Some students have started to innovate with small projects of their own
- Science has become fun and exciting to learn
Give your support to make Science education exciting and fun!
3. “READ-A-WAY” Libraries
Research shows that reading for pleasure is linked to intellectual progress in vocabulary, spelling and surprisingly mathematics. Reading introduces young people to new ideas. It stimulates keen comprehension and absorption of new information and concepts at school.
Books, books, books… how do we get children interested in reading?
By building a significant collection of colourful, culturally relevant, entertaining books, and ensuring they are accessible for school students.
Many children do not have access to age-appropriate books at their homes, and when they have a good collection of books in school libraries, learn to enjoy reading for fun.
When we started the program, it was phenomenally successful with middle school students running into classrooms, during lunch breaks, to get first access to the limited set of books kept as classroom libraries!
Since an inadequate number of good books were available in Tamil, we co-published with different publishers like Pratham Books and BPI Publishers, a number of Tamil translations of works ranging from Tagore’s short stories to tribal stories.
We have till now made library books available to 100 schools in and around Chennai. We have also donated books to around 167 village tuition centres and rural schools in Tamil Nadu.
To give children better access to books, we have refurbished the Children’s section in 4 Government Public libraries in Chennai and donated engaging storybooks and simple interesting encyclopedias to them.
Give your support to libraries in more schools and villages!
“Our Outreach Program”
Financial Literacy for girls
“STRIVE” – Upskilling for college girls
While the main focus of Samskriya Foundation continues to be foundational learning, we thought college students especially girls, need better financial skills as well as basic Generative AI skills, so that they can navigate career opportunities better.
In the last two years, we have started an outreach program in association with FICCI Flo Chennai, for girls completing school or college studies from Government and vocational institutes, and going out into the world to work or for further studies.
Financial Literacy
We teach basic financial planning and the program has been an outstanding success. We have received extremely positive response from the 4135 girls who have attended the sessions till now.
Generative AI
We also teach Generative AI prompts to young girls who are about to start their careers, so that they have better skills to manage the demands of the modern day workplace.