First the material is leather.

Okay.

And the black on is for night, and in the morning it’s very hot,

Understood.

and it’s very brown.

Okay. Okay.

So the –

When students are doing client projects, their engagement and their sense of
ownership is at its peak. And the learning that takes place during that time is very rich.

The material you said was leather, right?

Yeah.

Do you wear leather in the summer? Don’t you think it would get a bit heavy?

The whole idea behind the school is the child is the stakeholder. We want every
child to believe that I can do what I want to do. And I can be the person I want to be.

We have never learnt to give up in this school. It’s all about, “I can.”

Client projects is a wonderful process at Riverside, and it takes place across all the grades. It’s a very important way for children to understand the relevance of what they’re learning. The client is from the real world. Different people and different professions. The teachers first meet the client to understand the client’s need. Then with the client you co-create what is an end result that you want from the children.
The client gives you a project to do and then you have to work on it. You feel it so real. We like having challenges and all.

Before any client project, we look at the content we are going to cover in the particular classroom. Our unit was adaptation. They’re learning basically about different habitats and which animals survive there. When we looked at this
kind of program of inquiry we thought of, who can be a client for us?

Good morning Riverside.

[Children] Good morning.

[Teacher] Do you all remember him?

[Children] Yes.

[Teacher] Who is he?

[Children] Captain Ayush.

(laughs)

[Teacher] Okay.

Our client is Captain Ayush. And our client project is to make a uniform one for the desert and one for the mountains.

[Captain] I’m open to ideas that is what I have come to you all for.

[Teacher] Okay.

[Captain] Okay. Good luck.

Yesterday we were doing our first draft

[Teacher] This is a picture of?

[Children] Desert.

[Teacher] Desert. So, desert is? Sandy.

[Child] Sandy.

[Teacher] Desert is hot.

We really looked at when you were designing the uniform. The color has to camouflage with the back ground. But along with that, the feel of the material is equally important.

So then, there was a snow group and a desert group. And the snow group had to put some cotton for the background and the desert group put some sand to make a habitat.

[Teacher] Take it like this.

And then we are to choose a material. There was fur, There was synthetic.

[Teacher] Touch the particular fabric and decide is it good for desert or no. And if it is good for desert why? You need to give me the reasons for it. Okay?

So like, I chose leather for the shoes because leather cannot get torn easily. And I chose wool for the T-shirt and pants because wool works in hot and cold also.

[Teacher] Okay. Aleya is gonna make a uniform which can be used

[Aleya] Both this side.

[Teacher] This side they wear it at night, and this side they wear it at?

[Aleya] Morning.

[Teacher] We’ll definitely share this idea with our client.

So once we were done with our first draft, kids already knew we need to meet client, get the feedback.

[Teacher] We are gonna come one by one and share our idea with him.
Prathma.

He had selected few drafts, one of which was mine. He liked the material but not the shoes.

[Prathma] I used rubber boots because the snow can be a little like, watery so then you don’t feel cold.

[Captain] Mm. How will you water-proof the rubber? Because if water gets into rubber then that is a big problem.

What I really see is when the person from real life comes to meet them, they took it positively. We are working for you, you have to use it and you have to feel comfortable. So whatever you will say, we take it.

Doesn’t matter if we are wrong, we just keep trying. We’re gonna keep trying until the client tell its perfect.

[Captain] Bye. Good luck and, work. You’re doing really well. You all can do much better. I like it. Okay?

[Teacher] Thank you so much.

[Captain] Chalo.

[Teacher] Thank you.

[Captain] Bye bye.

[Teacher] Thank you.

Once he is agreeing to the design, we are going to stitch one adult size uniform,
saying that this is what it looks like and feels like and then giving it to the client.

So when you have a client project, there are a lot of skills that children build. One is the content skills, but it’s also collaboration that takes place. The problem-solving that gets done. Children learn to take and give constructive feedback. So all of these are things that prepare them for life.

And when they drive something there’s 100% engagement, 100% efforts by kids. We are using their strategies in a real life. They will never forget it.
(child talking)

Schools That Work

Riverside School