HIM Academy Public School’s SEVA Programme

SEVA is HIM Academy Public School’s award-winning school-wide programme for students helping embed positive values and encourage good behaviour. Aspects of the programme include a ‘values’ monitoring system; daily and monthly discussion groups; plus school, community and home-based activities to put the school’s values into action.

Author and position: Dr Himanshu Sharma, Principal

School: HIM Academy Public School

Introduction

In discussions over the years, both teachers and parents felt that there was a generation of young people growing up without the values that older generations had held so dear. The school management team felt that the standard detentions and penalties used as a default in some schools were limiting in their effect: they penalized the action rather than changing the attitude that led to such an action. It was felt that a program was needed to not only promote traditional values but provide practical opportunities to put these values into action.

The School devised a program called SEVA: ‘Student Empowerment through Values in Action’. SEVA promotes six core values:

• The value of respect: believing in their own self worth and the intrinsic worth of all other people.
• The value of responsibility: recognizing that they have a duty towards their own self, family, community, nation, entire world and the environment.
• The value of integrity: upholding ethical principles and having the moral courage to stand up for what is right.
• The value of care: acting with kindness and compassion and contributing to the betterment of community and the world.
• The value of resilience: developing emotional strength and perseverance, courage, optimism, adaptability and resourcefulness.
• The value of cyber wellness: understanding and practicing responsible behaviour when using technology and protecting oneself and other internet users in the cyber world.

The name not only gave a sense of magnitude and importance to the program, but also reminded staff and students of the core purpose of the program, as SEVA also means ‘service’ in Hindi.

Planning

Once the values had been established, I led a series of brainstorming sessions with teachers across the school to devise the program’s key components. At the heart of our discussions was an understanding that simply preaching the school’s chosen values would have limited impact: the school had to find a way to show children why such values are important. It was also important for us to make the program widely visible so students see information about the SEVA program in the student and teacher log books and across the school campus through SEVA bulletin boards, posters, caps, presentations and badges, reinforcing the importance of the program and providing visual reminders of the values children should exhibit.

Activity

A fun, daily monitoring system

We began by creating a simple tool that would enable children to think about their behaviour on a daily basis.The students have a School Values Card in their daily logbooks where teachers can add a ‘smiley’ or a ‘frown’to indicate positive or undesirable behaviour. The anecdote connected with the smiley or frown is also written on the School Value Education Notes pages.

Students get ‘smileys’ for actions such as helping their classmates, resolving conflicts or volunteering for school programs. Parents can also give ‘smileys’ to students in their logbooks whenever they observe them doing virtuous actions at home.

As the monitoring system took effect, I invited feedback from the teachers and students on the system. As a result of this, I revised the program in 2016 by adding a points system to each ‘smile’ or ‘frown’. This provided a level of measurement of each student’s behaviour and gave the school a useful top-line view on the progress of the values programme. Now, the children are encouraged to gain 60 points (10 points for each value) as evidence that they have demonstrated a positive attitude or action in all six value areas. Points are added or deducted for further examples of positive or undesirable behaviour.

A further adaptation was the introduction of a rewards system for those students achieving high marks on their value scorecard. This ensured that the students did not lose interest in the program, were always motivated to do their best, and that the best behaviour was seen to be rewarded. After each quarter, merit lists of SEVA scores are generated for each class. The students acquiring top positions are appreciated through certificates and SEVA badges and receive rewards in the form of lunch with the Principal or a movie night for their class.

For those students reporting negative marks on their values score sheet, a system was put in place to help them self-reflect on their actions. They are provided with a self-reflection worksheet to understand why their behaviour is undesirable and how they can act differently in the future. This sheet forms the basis of discussion between a student and teacher, allowing the student to talk about their behaviour critically whilst the teacher provides counselling, support and advice on how the student can act differently in the future.

The monitoring system was further honed by the recognition that students are more likely to demonstrate good behaviour when they are in an obviously monitored environment, such as a classroom. To address this, we identified a core group of support staff to monitor the students’ behavior outside of the classroom and input into their scorecards. They became known as ‘SEVA Evaluators’. These included bus conductors, arts and music teachers and boarding house masters.

Morning assembly, ‘Value for the Day’

A value is assigned to each day of the school week. The school uses the opportunity of the morning assembly for teachers and students to talk on issues related to the value for that day, for example, the staff might invite the students to consider if they had observed any litter on the way to school that day, and whether they had thought to dispose of it? That might lead to a wider discussion around environmental issues and common responsibility for looking after their environment.

‘SEVA Meet’, Themed monthly meetings based on the values

Each month a ‘SEVA meet’ is organized on the theme of a particular value. These are student-led meetings in which students conduct group discussions based on some guiding questions that the school sets. For example, a SEVA meeting might explore the theme of “Respect” giving the children the opportunity to discuss how they show respect towards family members, teachers, peers, school property, their country or the environment.

Exploring and debating these issues through a set of guiding questions also develops the students’ ability to express their opinions, to reflect, critically evaluate ideas and appreciate one’s own values and those of others.

The school has found that a memorable way of absorbing these sessions is for the children to write the behaviour which they would like to get rid of and burn it in a fire while chanting the Om mantra.

Khari Kamai, Extending the values system into the home

Over the summer holidays, the students are tasked with undertaking a series of jobs such as collecting the washing, dusting, taking care of siblings; anything that would serve and support the family unit. The children are given a small sum by their parents for completing these activities, which are then compiled and donated to the Red Cross Society Fund. Such an initiative enables the parents to be part of the program and feed back their own thoughts on their child’s progress.

Digital Detox, allocating a day a week where tech gadgets are banned

To practice the SEVA value of Cyber Wellness, the HAPSians (students of the HIM Academy) observe one day in the week as “No Electronic Gadget – Day”. On this day, children stay away from the television, their mobile phones and computers/laptops. This demonstrates to our students how much time they can save by avoiding over exposure to the technology we use in our daily lives and encourages them to use their time more wisely for healthy pursuits or to spend quality time with their family. They are encouraged to report in their logbook how they have used this time each week and often bring into school the results of their ‘downtime’, such as beautiful paintings they have made at home.

Special projects

In addition to our regular program, we organise events throughout the academic year allowing our students to put the SEVA values into action. Activities include community service in our adopted village, which might entail donating books or reading to children in nearby slums and orphanages; and discussion, workshops and events around awareness days, such as World Earth Day or International Literacy Day.

Challenges

• Engaging staff – It was vital to ensure the program was understood and supported by the teaching staff and was structured in a way that would not significantly add to their workload. For example, in using the monitoring system, teachers are only required to add a smile or frown mark via a computerized system, ensuring the process is quick and easy for them to implement. We then identified an individual within our administration team to look after the scores, building on the information received from the teachers.
• Another advantage of the SEVA evaluators programme is that it alleviates the burden of monitoring from the teachers. They have more capacity to observe the children in their downtime, providing a realistic assessment of how effectively they are supporting the values.
• Fair evaluation and reporting – We wanted to ensure that in monitoring the children’s behaviour, we were providing a fair assessment of their character. Negative behaviour tends to catch our attention more than the small acts of kindness that might possibly go overlooked unless an observer was attached to them. To address this, we ensured that our SEVA Evaluators were trained to actively seek examples of good behaviour and positive values.

Impact

The program is based on the principle of adoption rather than instruction, with many opportunities for the students to self-reflect and analyse their own behavior, helping them engage with the program at a very personal level.

The SEVA program has reached over 3000 people including students, teachers and parents of our school, encouraging everyone in our community to consider living the values we hold dear. Our students are motivated to act in positive ways as citizens of our school, our country and the world. They are able to relate their individual actions with the six values and understand what constitutes positive or undesirable behaviour. Participation in SEVA meetings helps students to work out their own limitations and strengths. It also gives them a chance to reflect on their own behaviour, which they also share during our daily value talks in morning assembly. We can see their progress in a very clear way through the metrics of the ‘smiley’ monitoring system and I often see evidence of the impact the program has made to our pupils, for example, the SEVA Programme has recently been mentioned as a highlight of our students’ time at the school in their leaving records. It has also been very encouraging to hear the feedback from parents with many reporting an improvement in their child’s behaviour and work ethic.

The Program has received special recognition from a number of authorities. First by the “Asia Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding” (APCEIU), South Korea in 2016 and then by NCERT, New Delhi, India in the category of “All India Competition on Innovative Practices and Experiments”, for schools and teacher education institutes 2016-17.

The Future

I am formulating a curriculum which we hope will provide some further activities for parents and children to enjoy at home, although clearly such a program will need to be developed in close consultation with parents.

Advice

• Make your expectations clear – It is important that the students understand your expectations, which is why we use as many opportunities as possible to promote and explain our values and encourage the children to self-reflect on how they support those values. In doing so, we are mindful of not being biased on the expression of those values: if the individual student has done their best to support a value, even if it is in a way that might be different from how we might do it, such behaviour should be recognized.
• Deliver the project with the ‘team’ in mind – The whole school community needs to be as invested in the program and understand how it will benefit them. Ensure that you have done all that you can to tackle any worries or concerns that might prevent their full support, whether that’s bringing in appropriate resources or educating them to ensure they feel confident in fulfilling their role.
• Bring them into your confidence and make them an active participant in shaping the program. This will help them feel engaged and demonstrate that the program responds to the real needs of the school.
• Every year, selected members of the school student council take a pledge on our six core values. They act as SEVA ambassadors and promise to demonstrate and promote SEVA values among their peers. They keep a record of their values which are signed by me every month. Having the students take responsibility in this way gives them an enormous sense of pride and keeps a healthy child-led momentum behind the program.
• Don’t just adopt, adapt – A successful program cannot be static: it needs to respond to feedback from all involved. I regularly seek the views of teachers, parents and students to measure the impact the program is having and gain new ideas on how the program can be extended or improved.I have regular meetings with the school year heads to review progress with the SEVA programme. Myself and my colleagues also seek feedback from other teaching colleagues and members of the student council every month to assess the weak and strong points of this program. Any school seeking to adopt a similar program will equally need to ensure that it is shaped specifically to their needs and interwoven into the fabric of their school.