18 months – 18 years
Enrol with ease
Discover us & the campus
Where confidence grows
Discover what's happening
As we reach the halfway point of the academic year 2026–27, the Half-Yearly Examinations provide an opportunity to pause and reflect on our learning journey so far. While Assessment for Learning takes place continuously in every lesson, these examinations are Assessment of Learning. They are not merely about marks or comparison with others. Every child is on a unique academic journey, and what matters most is the progress each student has made over time. The examinations help us understand how far students have developed in knowledge, understanding and skills, and help students see their strengths and where to grow next. I encourage every student to approach them with confidence, preparation and a positive mindset. May your efforts lead to meaningful learning and continued progress. Mr. Sony Thomas Head of School – Cambridge
What happens when learning moves beyond the classroom? Our recent ISP Model United Nations offered a wonderful answer. Bringing together students from multiple schools, the MUN created a dynamic space to engage with real-world issues, exchange perspectives and challenge thinking. Through research, debate, collaboration and negotiation, our students built not only knowledge but the confidence, communication and critical thinking needed to thrive in a changing world. Experiences like these bring our mission of world-class, practical and holistic education in a challenging yet nurturing environment to life. It was truly inspiring to see our students step up, find their voices and learn from one another. Ms. Prasanna Venkat Deputy Head of School
Some months announce themselves. This one changed colour quietly, at the edges. September did not arrive with a flourish. It simply began to turn, the way a leaf does before anyone has noticed the tree. We did not set out to collect events. We set out to listen for the particular sound a school makes when it is learning with its whole body: delegates arguing at a table that had been dressed as a country; children touching their throats as they hummed a favourite song, to feel it; a small clay desk sinking in a tub of blue water so that a class could finally say what a book had meant to them. This edition is made of those sounds, and of a great many photographs, which is how we know that all of it really happened: that the pickle was real, that the jars were full, and that the moon was, in the end, eaten. It also sits at a halfway point. The Half-Yearly Examinations are close, and on the pages that follow Mr. Sony Thomas reminds us that every child is travelling a road of their own, and that marks are only one of the ways to read the map. We would add a small note of our own. If you want to know how your child is really doing, ask what they were curious about this week. Then listen to the whole answer. We have gathered the month, as ever, under the five pillars that hold this school up: Academic Achievement, Life Competencies, International Learning Opportunities, Multilingualism and Future Pathways. Think of them less as sections than as rooms in a single house. Walk through slowly. Some rooms are loud. Some are very quiet. All of them are lived in. Some of the competencies covered within this month’s communication include sharing ideas clearly, listening well, and adjusting how we speak to the person in front of us. This month we saw it everywhere: delegates negotiating at MUN, students explaining their work to visitors at gallery walks, and children talking through an idea before they wrote it down.
The Sound of a Whistle, and Everything After It
Sport rarely makes a quiet entrance. It arrives with a whistle, a splash, a mat unrolled in a hall, and then it leaves behind something quieter that lasts longer
RAIS YOGA - UNDER-12 GIRLS
On the mats at The Home School, sport became stillness. Iniya (5A) took Gold and Sanjana (6A) took Bronze.
ISSO TAEKWONDO
In Mumbai, at Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Aaqil carried home a Bronze Medal, and with it a lesson in dedication.
Sport rarely makes a quiet entrance. It arrives with a whistle, a splash, a mat unrolled in a hall, and then it leaves behind something quieter that lasts longer: a child who has discovered what their own body can do when they ask it for more. At the RAIS Athletics Meet, CS Academy finished as Overall Champions with 199 points and 48 medals: 25 gold, 14 silver and 9 bronzes. Varun (Under 16 Boys) and Akshara (Under 16 Girls) were recognised for exceptional individual performances. A scoreboard says a great deal, and almost 199 POINTS 25 GOLD 48 MEDALS 14 SILVER 61 MEDALS 9 BRONZE RAIS YOGA · UNDER-12 GIRLS 🧘 Sanjana, 6A · Bronze On the mats at The Home School, sport became stillness. Iniya (5A) took Gold and Sanjana (6A) took Bronze. nothing about the teamwork behind a relay, or the sportsmanship this school asks its athletes as firmly as it asks for speed. The pool told a similar story. Our swimmers came home with 61 medals, 26 of them gold, 12 silver and 23 bronzes, and one was crowned Individual Champion. We were Overall Champions here too, a result that belongs as much to our coaches and PE team, who build the lanes in which talent can happen, as to the swimmers themselves.
Quiet Pride, Open Doors, and a School That Reads
CS AWARDS CEREMONY
The CS Awards Ceremony was an evening of the quiet kind of pride: the kind that has very little to do with being first and a great deal to do with having kept going.
What is really hiding inside a black marker?
Grade 7 scientists set out to find the answer with filter paper, water and a selection of felt-tip pens.
Snakes, ladders, and the words of a landscape
Revision has a reputation problem. Grade 8D decided to fix it with dice. During Retrieval Week, the chapter “Rock to Soil” became a Snakes and Ladders board.
The Urbanisation Gallery Walk
A city is always more than its buildings. It is also the people who can explain it. In 7A’s gallery walk, students stood beside charts, visuals and model cities
Stand in front of a thing, beside it, above it: three different things
In 6D Maths, students-built structures from blocks in different patterns and heights. Then came the harder part
Little Scientists, and the Class That Stayed in the Heart
Some classes are more than lessons. They become moments that stay with us.
The case of the disappearing New Moon
Grade 5C met the phases of the moon through Oreo biscuits. The plan was a precise scientific mission
The CS Awards Ceremony was an evening of the quiet kind of pride: the kind that has very little to do with being first and a great deal to do with having kept going. Families of our current Grades 10, 11 and 12 sat alongside families from last year’s graduating batch. Students from IGCSE to A Level were honoured through the Merit, Proficiency, Achievement and Excellence Awards, for academics, sport, competitions, co-curriculars, character and contribution to school life. It was also a chance to celebrate what happens next, as our students’ success continues in leading universities and institutions. In response to requests from families, the CS Awards for senior students were held, with awards for Primary and Middle School scheduled to follow after the Pooja holidays.
Grade 7 scientists set out to find the answer with filter paper, water and a selection of felt-tip pens. A single ink dot, a little water, and slowly, as if it had been waiting to be asked, the dot separated into a rainbow of hidden colours. The questions arrived at once. Why do some colours travel faster than others? Will every black pen give the same result? In teams, students shared roles, compared observations and pooled their ideas. Then came a “whodunit”: using their chromatograms as evidence, they worked out which pen had made a mystery mark. With every streak of colour, our young investigators showed that science is something we do, not just something we learn.
Revision has a reputation problem. Grade 8D decided to fix it with dice. During Retrieval Week, the chapter “Rock to Soil” became a Snakes and Ladders board. Rolling their way along it, students met shapes with jobs to do: squares asked for key terms used in meaningful sentences, circles for definitions recalled and explained, and hexagons for creative tasks that tested how well they could apply an idea. They strengthened their subject vocabulary, sharpened their grasp of geological concepts and, perhaps best of all, learned from one another. Both activities were driven by questions that encouraged students to think, explore and learn together. Whether using chromatograms to solve a mystery or a game board to revisit key concepts, they discovered that learning is an active process, and that even a wrong answer can offer a valuable clue.
A city is always more than its buildings. It is also the people who can explain it. In 7A’s gallery walk, students stood beside charts, visuals and model cities of their own making and presented what they had learned about urbanisation, while classmates moved from stand to stand, listening and asking. One poster pointed out that more than half of the world’s population now lives in urban areas. The conversation that followed was about what draws people to cities, and what cities then have to carry. The discussions were about opportunities and challenges, and the best answers were never one-sided.
In 6D Maths, students-built structures from blocks in different patterns and heights. Then came the harder part: looking carefully, and drawing the front view, the side view and the top view.
They worked systematically and compared their drawings with the actual models. The lesson is geometric and quietly philosophical: the same structure can look completely different depending on where you stand. By the end, they could identify and represent those views and had a better grasp of spatial relationships. A gallery walk and a handful of blocks, and the same quiet lesson: perspective is a skill, built by looking again from somewhere else. Whether exploring the complexities of urbanisation or interpreting a structure from different angles, students discovered that understanding often begins when they look beyond the obvious and consider another point of view.
Some classes are more than lessons. They become moments that stay with us. This learning journey on Sound and Vibrations began in the simplest and most joyful way. The children hummed a song they loved and gently touched their throats as they sang. The moment they felt the vibrations, curiosity came alive. The sound they were making was connected to something they could actually feel. Then the lesson moved from curiosity to exploration. In teams, the children investigated with different materials: they observed, questioned, discussed and recorded. Rather than simply listening to an explanation, they were discovering the concept for themselves. It reminded us why science is best experienced, not merely taught. When children can feel, see, hear, explore and explain, learning becomes powerful. Some classes stay in the heart, not because everything went perfectly, but because the room was full of curiosity and the joy of discovering something new
Grade 5C met the phases of the moon through Oreo biscuits. The plan was a precise scientific mission: sculpt the moon’s cream into each phase. The reality was a hilarious snacking session. The New Moon mysteriously kept vanishing into hungry tummies, strict lab rules dissolved into mass Oreo sharing across aisles, and by the end the moon phases were totally mastered and the cookies completely extinct. Next week’s planets, we are told, might have to be broccoli.Both classes reached the same conclusion by different roads: children understand best what they have felt, built or, in one case, eaten. Beneath the fun was the power of curiosity and collaboration, showing how hands-on experiences can turn concepts into lasting learning.
On Hindi Diwas, eight students stood on a stage beneath a screen that read Hindi, microphones in hand, and sang. Their song celebrated the richness and importance of the Hindi language, and their enthusiasm added joy to the whole celebration. A language, after all, is never really learned from a list of words. It is learned from songs.
Readathon 360 is more than a reading initiative; it is an invitation to wander. Every 500 minutes earns a charm, but the real reward is finding how many lives, places and possibilities can exist between two covers. Children are beginning to wear their reading with pride. Those who have always found refuge in books are being celebrated anew, and others are discovering that reading can be an act of rebellion: against limits, against the ordinary, against the world as it is. As shared with parents at the Coffee Morning, our priority this term is a healthy child: one who has slept well and is not overstressed. Marks matter, but rest matters more. We want reading to remain a source of joy and discovery, not another pressure on a child’s day.
In a French-themed painting competition, students expressed their creativity through artworks inspired by the culture, landmarks, traditions and heritage of France. Look closely at the photographs and you will find a pencil drawn Eiffel Tower, a flower shop whose sign reads FLEURS, and a tricolour of waves.
Elsewhere in the school, another screen glowed: Bienvenue au cinéma français. As part of our Bastille Day celebrations, our French students watched Le Petit Nicolas, a delightful glimpse into French childhood, school life and culture, told through Nicolas’s humorous adventures and friendships. They connected with the French language and culture in a fun and meaningful way, and they thoroughly enjoyed the film.
Adults spend a great deal of time deciding how children should learn. It is rarer to ask the children how it feels. As part of our Good Struggle research, led by our Learning Head, Dr. Shankar, five Middle School students were chosen to take part in a learning visit. Afterwards we sat with them and asked what good struggle looks like to them, and to spill a few secrets about learning. We left wondering how smart and intuitive they are. Hearing a child think out loud about their own thinking is a small marvel. It is called metacognition, which is a large word for a very human thing: noticing how you learn. What they told us is only a first step. The next ones will shape how we design our classes, for high-impact learning that keeps every student in the zone.
The bus left in the early hours, before the campus had properly woken up, and came back late at night, five days later. Whatever happened in between, the students who stepped off were not quite the ones who stepped on. Part of the International Award for Young People (IAYP) programme, the Yercaud expedition asked a lot about them. They trekked to the night out. They pitched their own tents, cooked their own meals and carried their own supplies, and then, as if that were not enough, tackled harnessed activities. Each day pushed the group a little further past its comfort zone. They showed, as the programme hopes, resilience, independence and teamwork. They also showed communication, collaboration, critical thinking and learning to learn. Nobody came home with a trophy. They came home with perseverance, which is lighter to pack and lasts far longer.
Grades 8D and 8E carried a book out of its pages and into the room.
After reading Linda Sue Park’s novel, students were asked not to summarise it, but to walk it, in whatever way made sense to them. The projects were interdisciplinary, and it was as if the book had been absorbed and then given something back. Somewhere in the room, a small clay desk sat drowning in a tub of water. Its label explained why: for Nya, water is not only thirst. It is the wall between a child and a school. A timetable beside it listed the hours of her day, and every one of them read “walk for water”.
On Fridays, our Reelkraft students learn that a film begins long before the camera does: as a drawing, on paper, in boxes. In session four, the whiteboard carried the whole lesson in two lines: storytelling is the heart, storyboarding is the map. Students learned wide, medium, close-up and extreme close-up shots, camera angles and movement, and then built a storyboard of four to six frames for a short scene, planning together on laptops and tablets.
There is a particular pride in a jar you have filled yourself. Students made a simple pickle from start to finish: selecting and measuring ingredients, following a recipe, keeping hygiene, using kitchen equipment safely, and applying preservation techniques to produce a finished food product. The photographs show hairnets, floral aprons, a ladle, and a table of evidence. A storyboard and a pickle have more in common than they seem. Both begin with a plan, ask for care, and reward patience. Creativity, Collaboration, and the small, everyday courage of making something real.
In Home Room, Grade 1 talked about how a teacher acts as a guide, and then crafted handmade cards with heartfelt messages for all their teachers. Middle School surprised us with a melody, and High School took the initiative with a bonanza of fun games. Thank you, students: you made everyone feel truly special.
A Small United Nations, Built by Students
For three days in September, Kovaipudur became a small, earnest and remarkably polite United Nations. Two hundred and twenty delegates from five schools arrived with folders, flags and opinions. They sat down in ECOSOC and SOCHUM, in UNICEF and UNHRC, in DISEC and the World Health Organization, and in a Crisis Committee where, by design, events kept arriving faster than anyone could comfortably plan for. Each room had its own temperament. Some asked for patience and careful policy. Others asked for nerve and speed. All of them asked for the same slow, difficult skill: to hold your own country’s position firmly in one hand, and an opposing argument gently in the other. The most remarkable thing about ISP MUN 2026, though, happened behind the delegates. Twenty Student Officers and thirty members of the Organising Committee planned the academics, the registration, the hospitality, the media, the technology and the movement of two hundred and twenty people from room to room. The school team supported them, Mr. Sony Thomas welcomed everyone, and Ms. Rakhi Karnik of ISP India joined as our guest. But the conference belonged, quietly and entirely, to its students. Beneath every speech was Communication; beneath every bloc, Collaboration; and beneath every plan that had to change by lunchtime, Learning to Learn. Leadership, it turns out, is rarely on the stage. It is mostly planning, delegating, and answering calmly what nobody planned for.
It is one thing to teach children about the problems of the world. It is quite another to hand them a football and ask what they would do about it. On a Saturday, our student Changemakers did exactly that. Match for Change turned the field and the court into a classroom for social action: footballs flew, basketballs rose, and their peers were invited to play and, along the way, to donate books. Simple, and a little brave. Their sign said it better than we can: small actions create big impacts. It was competition with conscience, and proof, if any were needed, that change can begin with a game. By recognising a need, making a plan and bringing their peers together, the students put Citizenship and Action into practice. It also took Collaboration and the quiet courage to communicate their cause, showing how meaningful change often begins with one simple idea and the willingness to invite others to be part of it.
It began, as many good things in this part of the world do, with culture. A classical dance set the tone, a lamp was lit, and then the chairs, vice chairs, secretary generals and director generals placed a hand on their hearts and took the solemn oath that declared ISP MUN 2026 open. Mr. Sony Thomas told the delegates that the campus and its facilities were theirs, and reminded them that MUN is not only a line for a college application but a way of growing the Life Competencies, global citizenship among them. Our MUN Coordinator, Mr. Abhijith, put the purpose plainly: not to inherit a future, but to create a new one for ourselves. And the Secretary Generals of Academics, Angelea and Shwetha, added the kindest sentence of the weekend: perfection is never a necessity. On the second morning the other schools arrived, RAKS Pallikoodam, TIPS Erode and Yellow Train among them, entering the campus one by one with lifted spirits. By the afternoon there were blocs, whispered alliances, folders marked up in pen, and a great deal of listening, which is the part of diplomacy that rarely gets photographed. All day the delegates had been their countries: formal, precise, in sharp black and white. At the Socials they became themselves again, in the colours of their own homes. A conference that asks young people to find common ground should probably let them find it on a dance floor, too. Through debate, negotiation and shared moments beyond the committee rooms, delegates experienced what diplomacy asks of them: to listen to perspectives different from their own, work through disagreements and discover how much can be achieved together.
At the Annual University Fair, more than 110 universities met more than 750 of our students. Parallel sessions on Design and Portfolio Development and on Liberal Arts, and presentations from Imperial College London and the University of Nottingham, let students put admission questions straight to the people who answer them. A future, it turns out, is easier to imagine once you have shaken its hand.
Parents as Partners in Good Struggle
On 26 September, we opened the doors to parents of Grades 6 to 8, and what followed was less a presentation than a conversation.
DR. SHANKAR’S WORKSHOP · PRIMARY PARENTS
For Primary parents, a different invitation: sit where your children sit, and see how learning happens.
On 26 September, we opened the doors to parents of Grades 6 to 8, and what followed was less a presentation than a conversation. We shared our ILOS programmes, our vision for Readathon and our Docathon invitation, and talked about exams and how families can support learning at home. In the Q&A, every query was answered, and for some a course of action was planned. For Grade 8, subject options were revealed and discussed. Sharing our ILOS programmes One idea ran through it all: a healthy child, one who has slept well and is not over-stressed, is our priority.
For Primary parents, a different invitation: sit where your children sit, and see how learning happens. Dr. Shankar walked parents through the Cambridge learning journey: the different types and phases of learning, how students develop future job-ready skills, talk about their own learning, seek help confidently and take ownership of it. These are the ingredients of a High Impact Classroom. Parents shared reflections and asked questions, and the session strengthened the home-school partnership through open dialogue and shared understanding Parents shared reflections and asked questions, strengthening the home-school partnership through open dialogue and shared understanding. The Coffee Morning also provided an opportunity to discuss questions about exams and school activities, including supporting learning at home, Grade 8 subject options, Readathon and Docathon.
Sunday 4 October
CS Howlers at the National Grand Finale, Bangalore.
After the Pooja holidays
CS Awards for Primary and Middle School.
Half-Yearly Examinations
Approaching, with calm, confidence and good sleep.
Docathon
Our application, and more news soon.
October Chronicle
The RAIS Basketball Tournament, and more.
