CHIREC School, Hyderabad

Ranked among India’s top 20 day schools, this outward-looking K-12 school, which offers best global pedagogies rooted in Indian values, has much cause to celebrate its silver jubilee next year

Sited on a compact six-acre campus in Kondapur, a stone’s throw from Hyderabad’s Hi-tech City — the city’s IT and financial hub — and next door to the scenic Botanical Gardens, the low-profile CHIREC (Children’s Recreation Centre, estb. 1989) School has earned itself a well-deserved reputation within the city’s cognoscenti for providing contemporary ICT-enabled K-12 education supplemented with a plethora of co-curricular and sports activities. This class I-XII CBSE, CIE (UK), and IBO (Geneva)-affiliated co-educational day school is consistently top-ranked among India’s day schools. In 2011, CHIREC was ranked among the top 25 day schools in India in the EducationWorld India School Rankings and last year (2012) it was ranked #17 all-India and #5 in Andhra Pradesh. Currently CHIREC has 3,112 students and 303 teachers on its muster rolls.

While CHIREC’s main campus is at Kondapur, its pre-primary feeder school is sited in Jubilee Hills and another pre-primary-primary branch in Gachibowli. “The objective behind the promotion of the integrated CHIREC was to establish a world-class K-12 school offering best global teaching practices but rooted in Indian values and traditions,” says Ratna D. Reddy, founder-director of CHIREC, who completed her Masters in early childhood education from Iowa University, USA. In 1989 she invested Rs.8 lakh to promote the first pre-primary school — a new age preschool offering academics, sports, and performing and creative arts under the same roof. Reddy registered CHIREC Educational Society in 1996 to promote CHIREC, Kondapur in the same year.

Since then, the management of this highly rated K-12 school has invested heavily in contemporary academic and sports facilities. The wi-fi enabled campus hosts four self contained blocks with 90 spacious and digitally equipped classrooms, well-stocked libraries, state-of-the-art computer and language labs, art and craft, painting, and music rooms, and dining facilities. Moreover the international section (aka CHIREC Cambridge) houses 27 classrooms, a multipurpose hall, biology, physics, chemistry, computer science, and home science laboratories, art, music, pottery, resource, and language rooms apart from a well-stocked library. A fleet of 70 buses equipped with safety and speed tracking systems transport children and staff to and from school.

“Over the past 24 years chirec has evolved into a world-class institution offering excellent academic and co-curricular education with strong emphasis on values and life skills development. That’s why our students not only do well in board examinations but also win prestigious scholarships and laurels in sports and extra-curricular activities. We are committed to producing critical thinkers, high achievers, team players, and compassionate and responsible individuals who can assume leadership positions anywhere in the world. Our alumni are accepted into premier universities such as MIT, Stanford, London School of Economics as well as top institutions in India,” says Iffat Ibrahim, principal of CHIREC’s CBSE section. A science alumna of Delhi University with over two decades of experience  in schools in India and abr-oad, Ibrahim signed up with CHIREC as a biology teacher in 2004 and was appointed principal in 2011.

Responding to demand from expat-riates and the NRI communities in Hyderabad, CHIREC introduced the IGCSE curriculum of the Cambridge International Examination (CIE), UK board in 2009, and the International Baccalaureate diploma programme of the Geneva-based International Baccal-aureate Organisation (IBO) in 2012. Of the 3,112 students currently on the school’s muster rolls, 2,267 are in the CBSE section and 845 follow the curriculums of the two offshore examination boards.

“Our students and teachers have benefited immensely from cross-learning and sharing between CBSE, IBDP and Cambridge sections. In the process, we have demolished the myth that inter-national education is exclusive and have made it accessible to a wide cross section of the public. CHIREC will soon host the largest student number nation-wide following the CIE curriculum,” says Abhay Mathur, principal of the inter-national school who has had stints with the Pathways World School, Delhi, G.D. Goenka World School, Gurgaon and Indus International School, Hyderabad, before taking charge as principal of CHIREC Cambridge in 2012.

True to its philosophy and long standing ideology, sports education is an integral part of the school’s curriculum and is delivered by 30 expert coaches — many of them certified by the National Institute of Sports, Patiala. Sports infrastructure includes a well-maintained athletics track, cricket pitch, two all-weather basketball and lawn tennis courts apart from a volleyball court and outdoor skating rink.

With the school’s management committed to providing well-rounded education to the school’s 1,490 boys and 1,622 girls in all its three campuses, co-curricular education is a major focus area. Hindustani and Carnatic music, painting, clay modeling, community service and visual and performing arts options are available. “We accord equal if not greater importance to co-curricular education which is integrated into the curriculum. A holistic education experience which blends academic rigour with sports, co-curricular and community service activities is the key to developing socially responsible individuals,” says Reddy.

The CHIREC management is planning to build a new campus for its international section which needs a larger space to grow to its full potential.  “We are in the process of building an independent campus for CIE and IBO streams students by 2015. We will also complete construction of our administrative block by end of this year,” she adds.

This outward-looking K-12 school has much cause to celebrate its silver jubilee next year with a bang.

Summiya Yasmeen