Velammal Vidhyashram

Our place is at No 513 on the Salamangalam Koot Road in Padappai. It’s a bit of a drive out of the main part of Chennai, but that gives us some more room to breathe. The school is a fairly large building, and we have quite a few students coming in every day from the surrounding areas. The halls can get pretty loud during the breaks, and there’s always a lot of energy around. We have the usual setup of classrooms, a library, and some labs where the students do their practical work. The teachers are busy people, always carrying around stacks of papers or books. We try to keep a steady schedule so everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing. It’s a practical sort of place. We don't spend a lot of time on fancy decorations; we just focus on the teaching and the learning. The playground gets used heavily in the afternoons, and the dust usually settles just as the buses are leaving. Padappai is a developing area, and you can see new things popping up all the time around the 601301 pin code. We’ve been here through those changes, just doing our job of running a school. It’s hard work, especially when it’s hot, but we just keep the fans going and get through the lessons. It’s a normal school doing normal things for the local families.