Aditya Vidhyashram Montessori School

We've been here at No 5 in Saram for quite a while now. If you walk down our street in Pondicherry, you’ll probably hear the kids before you see the building. It gets pretty loud during the morning drop-off, with parents on scooters and the little ones dragging their bags through the gate. Being a Montessori school means our classrooms look a bit different from what most people remember from their own childhood. There are lots of wooden blocks and things to touch scattered around. We don't spend all day just sitting at desks with pencils. The teachers here mostly spend their time moving between groups, helping a kid tie their shoes or figure out a puzzle. It’s a busy place, and sometimes it feels a bit chaotic when everyone is working on different things at once. We try to keep things organized, but when you have a bunch of young children in one building, there’s always going to be some mess. The Saram neighborhood is where we’ve settled in, and we know the neighbors well enough now that they don't mind the noise too much. We focus on getting through the lessons and making sure the kids actually understand what they're doing. It’s not about being the fanciest place in town, just about having a space where the kids can actually move around and learn things by doing them. We’ve had a lot of families come through these doors over the years.