Harkishan Nursery School

If you walk down Tiwari Gali in the Khetrajpur area of Sambalpur, you will find Harkishan Nursery School. It is tucked away in a bit of a narrow lane, so it stays relatively quiet from the main road traffic, though the mornings are always loud with children arriving. We have been here for a while, and most of the families in this part of Sambalpur know us by now. The school is small, which is good because we can keep an eye on all the little kids without much trouble. We have painted some things on the walls to make it look bright for the children. Every morning starts with the same routine of parents dropping off their toddlers at the gate, sometimes with a bit of crying, but they usually settle down once they see their friends inside. We spend the hours teaching them their ABCs and numbers, and there is a lot of singing involved too. The rooms are basic, just desks and chairs and some cupboards for the books and toys. In the afternoons, when it gets hot, the kids get a bit sleepy before their parents come back to pick them up around lunchtime. It is a simple place where the focus is just on getting children used to being in a school environment before they move on to the bigger institutions in the city. There is nothing fancy about it, just a local nursery.