The Future Foundation School, is founded on the principles and guided by the light of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. The aim therefore is to organise an environment and an atmosphere affording inspiration and facilities for the exercise and development of the essential aspects of personality: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual.
"...Education to be complete must have five principal aspects corresponding to the five principal activities of the human being; the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual...."
- The Mother
Students working in the Chemistry Lab
Students are prepared for the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE - Year 10) and the Indian School Certificate (ISC - Year 12) examinations conducted by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE).
The Curriculum at lower levels is flexible and based on development of skills and is aimed at arousing an interest in the child, 'a liking for work and a will to progress'.
Students working in the Computer Lab
At higher levels ICSE and ISC curriculum is followed. Humanities, Commerce and Science Streams are offered at ISC level.
Senior students are provided with Structured Career Counselling that helps children understand their talents and channelise them better. Various sessions on career counselling are held by nationally and internationally reputed career counselling organisations.
'Learning by doing'
The Future Foundation School strives to 'awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know...'
The methodology is bound by no convention and is based on themes, projects and seminars; role-plays and debates, field trips and workshops.
Attention, concentration, observation and recording forms the basis of learning by which the mind is enriched and stress is more on understanding the 'how and why', than on memory.
Students discussing Science Project
The aim is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
Display of children's work done in school is done through 'Learning Pageant' - a display of learning. Skills and concepts being developed
are displayed through models and charts. role plays, music and action songs.
Children interact with visitors, work on puzzles, perform experiments, work on various educational tools to display the learning they have acquired.
Learning Pageant
Display of work done in school at Learning Pageant
"If the child, from the very beginning of his existence, learns good habits, it will save him a good deal of trouble and inconvenience for the rest of the life...
Another thing should be taught to a child from his early years: to enjoy cleanliness and observe hygienic habits.... children should be taught to respect health..."
- The Mother
Education is not only to make a child ready for higher studies but also to make him independent and able to take care of his personal needs. This is achieved by teaching them 'Life Skills'.
The School's role in the life of a student is to help him to know himself and the world.
Life Skills training - Student learning to iron clothes
Life Skills training - Student learning to prepare food
An International Perspective
"In our school I have put French as the medium of instruction. One of the reasons is that French is the cultural language of the world"
- The Mother
Announcement of partnership with Lycée français de Pondichéry
TFFS students at Lycée - interacting with students of LFP at a Science Class
TFFS has tied up with Lycée Français de Pondichéry, the oldest French school in Asia, offering a comprehensive education till the final year of Secondary school with general, technical and professional options.
TFFS is the first school in the city where students have the opportunity to learn French and other courses like Mathematics, Art and Physical Education with French as a medium of instruction.
While staying grounded in a homegrown Indian Ethos, the child gets an international perspective.
Students appear for an Entrance exam to the Section of Excellence in Science, a unique opportunity for English-speaking students to acquire an intensive education in Maths and Science from Class 9 to Class 12 and secure the French Baccalaureate in Science.
"...Vital education has two principal aspects, very different in their aims and methods, but both equally important. The first concerns the development and use of the sense organs. The second progressing awareness and control of the character, culminating in its transformation...."
- The Mother
"The sense organs, if properly cultivated, can attain a precision and power of functioning far exceeding what is normally expected of them...To this general education of the senses...there will be added, as early as possible, the cultivation of discrimination and of the aesthetic sense, the capacity to choose and adopt what is beautiful and harmonious, simple, healthy and pure..."
- The Mother
Vital education at The Future Foundation School, enriches the child's creativity, builds awareness, develops inherent skills and talents and provides quality training with the help of experienced teachers, who are, by themselves renowned performers in their own field of culture and art forms.
Students are expected to be committed to their chosen stream of studies and emerge with not only an all round understanding of principles but also a passion for their chosen subject.
A student playing Violin at a programme
"...it is of prime importance that the vital education of the child should begin as early as possible, indeed, as soon as he is able to use his senses. In this way many bad habits will be avoided and many harmful influences eliminated..."
- The Mother
The senses are trained and cultured through various classes. Students can choose from plenty of activities in Photography, Chess, Creative Dance, Western Vocals, Violin, Synthesizer, Visual Art to name a few.
Co-Curricular Activity - Chess
A creative dance class
"...A young child should aspire for beauty, not for the sake of pleasing others or winning their admiration, but for the love of beauty itself; for beauty is the ideal which all physical life must realise..."
- The Mother
Students performance on stage
Students staging a drama on the birth of Jesus Christ
"The education of the body has three principal aspects... control and discipline of functions of the body... an integral, methodical and harmonious development of all the parts and movements of the body; and correction of any defects and deformities..."
- The Mother
Physical Education is an important part of the child's Education and given due importance for all Classes.
Students participate in various activities including Eurythmics, Yogic Asanas, Scouting & Guiding, Athletic Camps, Martial Arts and others.
'Method, order and discipline' forms the core of the Physical Education programme and helps in the regular growth of the child.
Students in a Physical Education Class
"In the general programme of the child's education, sports and outdoor games should be given a prominent place..."
- The Mother
Various sporting activites are undertaken including Swimming, Badminton, Cricket, Football, Volleyball, Basketball, Kho Kho, Lawn Tennis, Table Tennis and others.
Sports and Outdoor games finds a prominent place in the Physical Education programme and students are encouraged to join as many of these activities as possible.
The nature of Sri Aurobindo's and The Mother's influence is subtle and atmospheric. The student's daily prayer is:
Make of us the hero warriors we aspire to become. May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that is to be born against the past that seeks to endure; so that the new things may manifest and we be ready to receive them.
The children celebrate Sri Aurobindo's and The Mother's birthdays with drills, parades, cultural programmes and quiz contests, lovingly draw up charts depicting milestones from Their earthly lives and Their teachings and make offerings of flowers at Their feet on Darshan days. Sometimes the priests, sometimes the audience; these children are always a part of the worship of beauty in this temple of culture.
The school itself is located within the premises of Lakshmi's House, that houses Sri Aurobindo's Relics - a material assurance of Their living Presence and Guidance. When the teachers and students walk through the portals of 'The home of Grace', they breathe this very presence and share with their souls the vibration of every atom in The Home of Grace - a vibration of truth, consciousness and love - a vibration that awakens and intensifies aspiration into a one-pointed flame seeking the Divine.
The aim of education is not to prepare a man to succeed in life
and society, but to increase his perfectibility to the utmost. - The Mother
The objectives therefore are:
1. To evolve and realise a system of Integral Education
and to make it a dynamic ideal for society.
2. To organise an environment and an atmosphere affording
inspiration and facilities for the exercise and development of
the essential aspects of personality: the physical, the vital,
the mental, the psychic and the spiritual;
and
3. To induce and inculcate a sense of beauty and cleanliness
in children and society as a whole.
Value Education, Co-curricular activities and Physical Education
But the acquiring of various kinds of information is only one and
not the chief of the means and necessities of education: its
central aim is the building of the powers of the human mind
and spirit, it is the formation or, as I would prefer to view
it, the evoking of knowledge and will and of the power to use
knowledge, character, culture, - that at least if no
more.
Sri Aurobindo
The School believes that Value Education, Co-curricular
activities and Physical Education are no less important than
academic pursuits. Participation in co-curricular activity
classes and clubs, where applicable, and Value Education and
Physical Education is mandatory.
..., we must keep abreast with the march of truth and knowledge,
fit ourselves for existence under actual circumstances, and
our education must be therefore up to date in form and
substance and modern in life and spirit.
Sri Aurobindo
The School believes that Technology is not an
end in itself but a means and hence computer-aided rather than
computer education is extensively used to arouse interest
and build initiative.
