THE BLUE MOUNTAINS SCHOOLTHE NILGIRIS. INDIA

Intensive individual care and attention to the primary needs of each child. The school, administered and managed by a Governing Body has a team of qualified and experienced personnel that have an international exposure. Classes are small with the teacher student ratio of 1:10 and each dormitory has about 16 children. Resident teachers/teacher couples live next to each dormitory to look after the children. The children and their mentors are from different parts of the country and abroad. Located in its own spacious building on a 5 acre campus on the south-eastern slopes facing the beautiful Ooty valley, an old English style residential building and estate (formerly the private residence of a British Raj Governor of Burma), have been adapted for the requirements of a small educational community without destroying the informal and homely environment. The main building, surrounded by a magnificent cypress-hedge was eventually acquired by the Trust from the former ruling family of Vijayanagaram. English is the medium of instruction. Hindi and Tamil are also taught. Where inclined, children were encouraged to keep in touch with their mother tongue. The school has been affiliated to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination, New Delhi (http://www.cisce.org) since 1966 and its affiliation are current. The co-educational and fully residential school provides vegetarian meals. Is The Blue Mountains School a Krishnamurti School? Not really. We do not follow any given ‘philosophy, method or religion’ – be it Krishnamurti, Steiner or Montessori. Whether or not the school meets any particular criteria largely depends on whether all those associated with the school – parents, students,teachers and administration alike – all share a common understanding of its original intention. We do try and maintain the vision of our Founder, F.G. Pearce who was no doubt inspired by J. Krishnamurti’s Teachings on Education. The Blue Mountains School is concerned with awakening qualities of compassionate intelligence and integrity while allowing the natural and wholesome development of the physical, mental and other aspects of the child. The School is concerned with the child’s discovery of what it is to grow with clarity, with harmony, with beauty and in freedom. So, ultimately, it depends on interpretations, and over the years, The Blue Mountains School has interpreted philosophies; taken the essence of all that has been said by its Founder, other great thinkers, philosophers, educationists; to fit in with contemporary realities…and we come closest to being identified with the philosophies of two great Theosophists, namely, J. Krishnamurti and Steiner.