“Children don’t just attend school, they grow up there,” says a Noida school principal. Having watched generations of students walk through the same gates every morning, she shares how school slowly becomes more than an institution. “When they first enter the school they are hesitant, then they find their footing and finally find the confidence to take on the world,” she says. The corridors they walk everyday, the classrooms they spend their time in to school assemblies, they all become their anchors. And school becomes a space where children spend nearly seven hours a day, growing in ways that go far beyond textbooks.
Which is why one pattern unsettles her deeply. “Every year, especially around board results, I see parents pulling their children out in Classes 11 and 12 and moving them from Noida to Delhi schools,” she says. She adds that the reasons are almost always the same: better exposure, better opportunities and a certain perception attached to Delhi schools.
But what she sees in reality tells a different story.“For a child, this isn’t just aschool change. It’s an uprooting,”she says simply. At a stage where academic pressure is already high, stability matters more than ever.“Friendships are established, teachers understand them and there’s a rhythm they have built over years. When you take that away, you are asking them to start over at the worst possible time.”In her experience, many children who were otherwise doing well begin to struggle after such a move.
She recalls one student in particular. “He was bright, driven and very clear about his dream of pursuing engineering from a top college,” she says. His parents shifted him to a Delhi school, hoping it would open more doors, especially for the engineering college in the city. “But he found himself lost in the new environment. Over time, he became more of a ‘poster boy’ for the school than someone focused on his goals.”
Today, the student is studying engineering, she says, “but not where he had once hoped to be.” It’s a story that has stayed with her. “I often wonder if things would have been different had he stayed back and held onto that spark.” Around result season, she says, transfer certificate requests spike. “I do try to counsel parents, to tell them this may not be in the child’s best interest. But once a decision is made, it’s rarely reconsidered. I respect that, of course, but it does leave me uneasy because I see the pattern repeat itself.”
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Over the years, she has also noticed a shift in students themselves. “Children today are far more aware. They know what they want much earlier than we did. Many even come with a Plan B, which is remarkable,” she says. But alongside this clarity, she feels something is missing. “Resilience,” she says.
She mentions doubling the number of counsellors in her school and she observes that many students struggle to cope when things don’t go as planned. “There’s a tendency to stay motivated as long as things are going well. But the moment something falters, many are quick to give up.” She believes the roots of this go beyond the classroom.
“You can tell a lot about a family through a child. Their patience, their gratitude, the way they handle setbacks.” Gratitude, in particular, she feels, is fading. “And for me, it’s one of the most important life skills.” When children learn to value what they have from their environment, their support systems, their own abilities, they are less shaken by setbacks. "In fact they adapt better.”
For her, the larger concern is not change itself, but the intent behind it. She agrees that change is inevitable, and sometimes necessary but not all change is growth.” It’s a thought she keeps returning to. “In trying to give children more, are we sometimes taking away what they need the most?” she asks. “Because stability, belonging matter for young children just as much, if not more.”
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