Smt Nita Ambani emphasises the need to balance overall well-being of students with their safety
Mumbai, 26 March 2020: Dhirubhai Ambani International School (DAIS), India’s leading international school announced that it has commenced live online classes for its students today. Using online meeting platforms, the live online classes will be run with the teachers and all students attending on video and attendance being marked online.
The school is using Microsoft Teams as the platform to run the classes with the bandwidth and connectivity being provided by Reliance Jio.
The platform is also being used by teachers for collaboration and planning amongst each other. In addition, the School will also use the Whiteboard Platform to conduct online classes.
The online live teaching started today with a full day schedule for students of Standard 10th and 12th. The school will extend live online classes to all students over the next 4-5 days. As scheduled, the school reopened today, although online, for the new academic session after the spring break from 13 – 25 March.
In preparation for starting the online classes, the school converted all the classroom material to make it suitable for online teaching and also trained its teachers on the medium over the last few days. All the training and preparatory work was done online with teachers participating from their own homes.
In an opening message to school children, their parents and grandparents, Smt Nita Ambani, founder chairperson, Reliance Foundation, (better to say, Founder and Chairperson of Dhirubhai Ambani International School) said that while it is the beginning of a new academic term for the school, it is being done keeping in mind the unprecedented situation brought upon by the Covid-19 pandemic, with health and safety of everyone being the prime priority.
She informed that with the cancellation of international board exams and lockdowns in 138 countries, more than a billion children or nearly 80 percent of learners were impacted and that DAIS was equally concerned for about the overall well-being of the students.
“As our nation goes into the 21-day complete lockdown it is important for everyone to be extra cautious and careful. Stay at home. Stay healthy. And most importantly, stay calm. At Dhirubhai Ambani International School we are committed to the holistic well-being of all our children. More than ever before, now is a time for us to instil hope, resilience and courage in our children. To help them deal with uncertainties and teach them how to keep moving forward even in tough times. While our campus remains closed, DAIS is commencing live teaching through our virtual school platform so that our children get the DAIS experience and education in the safety of their homes,” she said.
“My dearest children, all of us miss you at school, but nothing is more important for us than your safety, your health and your well-being. Remember that your teachers, your friends, and the entire DAIS family is always with you. We will win this fight, and good times will be upon us again,” she further assured the children in the impassioned, heartfelt message.
In addition to conducting classes, the school has also scheduled online parent-teachers meetings (PTM) of those classes which were pending or were postponed earlier as a precaution against the Covid related issues.