No Homework, Schoolbags, Exams or Tuitions - That's policy at Al Qamar!

We at Al Qamar strongly believe that homework, exams, schoolbags and tuition are completely detrimental to education.

So the next question - "How will kids learn?"

Al Qamar kids work really really hard at school. They are constantly challenged to apply their own minds (not copy off the blackboard), to articulate their own thoughts (not parrot), to discover knowledge (not rote memorize). On a typical day, a 5th grader may have written a highly creative science fiction story, researched volcanoes, solved math puzzles, understood animal classification, conducted experiments.

This independent work, guided by a teacher who doesn't give answers, but encourages the child to think for himself, helps the child gain confidence in his own learning ability. The child is given ample opportunities to consolidate learning - because things move at an individual's pace. And because the learning is independent, it is deeper than when its spoonfed to the child.

When such challenging work is done at school - the home needs to be a place for brain downtime, for relaxation and spending time with the family. Not to spend more time redoing what was already done at school. Result - stress free homes and healthy mom-child relationships.

As work is completed at school, children do not need to take books back home. Hence, no schoolbags! All books are kept in lockers at school. This also prevents well meaning parents from trying to "get the child to complete the schoolwork" by dictating answers or worse still actually doing the homework for the child.

Tuition - the bane of modern schooling - is banned at Al Qamar. Kids need to learn at school, not at tuition centres. . If they have difficulties or issues with a particular concept - teachers explain in one on one sessions.

Exams - the bete noire of education. Track our blog for the next post on why exams are detrimental and unnecessary.