5 School Formats that you should know about

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Contents

• General Thinking on School Formats

• Why am I interested in different School Formats?

• 5 different School Formats

General Thinking on School Formats

If you ask a typical Indian School Leader,

“what are different types of school formats?”

chances are that they may answer it as names of different boards

But If you see closely, all these popular school boards be it ICSE, CBSE, or State Boards, prima facie are the same at their core

• where teachers will lecture children for 3/4 + 12 years of schooling

• where children cannot study anything but the National Curriculum Framework

• where children are not allowed to ask why they are learning what they are learning

• where their school day will be divided in equal time periods and forget students or teachers, not even principal or school owner can challenge that

then school leaders may talk about different Brand Positioning, like

• STEM based School

• Military Education School

• Sports based Schools

• Competition Oriented School (that start preparing your child at grade 6 for a competition that one has to write after 12th, sometimes after graduation)

• The Most Expensive totally Air-conditioned EdTech enabled Futuristic School

But I was not worried about this sorts of school format, so what I was looking for and Why

?

Why am I interested in different School Formats?

Over time I have gradually lost faith in contemporary school education system.

You see,

conventional wisdom is that school prepares children for college and college prepares them for life.

But in recent decade, it has been proven that colleges have failed in their job and now all of a sudden the onus to prepare children for life is on the shoulders of the school

And school says, “Well i do not know anything about it, I only know how to prepare for college”

and our children are in chaos.

So, now especially after the pandemic, everybody knows we need newer ways of school education

I thought of 3 types of option

1. A sort of school within a school, where a class or a group of classes are being managed by a new kind of curriculum and pedagogy, while still using the infrastructure of an existing school. I am already in talks with a couple of schools for this option. If it goes good, nothing like it.

2. The second option is a school associated with a school. Think of an independent infrastructure where parents are sorts of home schoolers, where they may enroll their children in NIOS/Cambridge types of options and in parallel can explore a new types of education.

3. And third one was, EdMonks Powered Schools, an economic support program for schools where on a very economic price points, schools can leverage all the innovation research that EdMonks is doing.

Now for all these 3 options, I was not willing to go gungo, just like that.

Instead, I wanted to dedicate this entire 2025 to learn, experiment, and iterate.

What are a few conventional School Formats that are different?

So I decided to first look at the various available format that are being tested and experimented upon.

And I realised the first avenue to learn can be these international boards like IB, Cambridge, IGCSE, etc,

They were expensive, but at the same time a herd, a tribe was appreciating them especially IB. (i do not deny, there are certain challenges as well)

Then there were pedagogy based schools like Waldorf, Reggio, or Montessori.

Again appreciated by a set of people but not many success stories as per the social expectation of Indian Subcontinent.

NIOS is also a conventional and different format.

But you see all these were not being considered as solutions.

For example, even after so many years, there are not even a 1000 IB schools in India, so this is not at all a success story to solve education for masses.

And for other boards, I do not even see much differentiation.

So the question is

What School Formats am I looking at?

When I was looking for the option for a school within a school, the first option I saw was

1. Hybrid School

Alt School

I see it kind of a Workplace inspired School model.

In this school, children do not go to classes, they are instead given a cubicle and a computer, a station to work at, and then the entire curriculum is distributed through activities and everything has been put on a LMS.

Now whenever the student needs support, one can book a one to one or a group session with mentors.

This way children are learning at their own pace, take decision, what they want to learn and mentors can also have a watch at their performance even remotely.

Similar other school is

Acton Academy

They are all software based schools plus a teacher support mechanism.

I believe they certainly improve the possibility of learning for a child. But at the same time, the emotional side may need more consideration.

If you want to learn it better, how such schools are structured, you may have a look at this video by

Summit Public School

2. Online School

Khan World School

In association with Arizona State University, Khan Academy started Khan World School, a 100% internet based online accredited school

If you are a homeschooler, you may opt for it. If you are an educator or a school leader instead, you can still leverage it.

Astra Nova School

Available worldwide to students ages 10-14, Astra Nova took birth in SpaceX, right the initiative by Elon Musk.

Out of all the school and school types mentioned here, I think this one was truely different.

It is technically not an online school.

It is different.

And though, I am not a fan of Elon Musk at all, rather I do not like him for certain things, but this school model, I think, it is amazing.

This school is basically to teach first principals and Joshua Dahn was given the responsibility to build the school.

The school focus on critical thinking, decision making.

I would very strongly recommend school leaders to explore it, if you really want to do something new.

3. Nature based School

Cedarsong Forest Kindergarten - Forest School

It is Outdoor, nature-based learning focused on hands-on exploration for children with technically nothing that can be called indoors.

So children stay close to nature, they explore bugs, animals, flowers, trees, like all the flora and fauna.

And then the school claims that it helps children to get rid of the emotional and mental disorders.

Green School, Bali - Sustainable Development Focused School

Now this is a very amazing school that has been working for several years and is focused on nature and teaching the importance of environment, but it also has indoors. Children do a lot of projects, can go outside the school to learn new things. The students might also get involved into on campus projects outside the class.

Many many years ago, when I first got to know about this school, I was elated

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4. One-Room Schoolhouse

Wildflower Schools

The idea of One room school is all about more engagement and safe environment and obviously for improved education.

Micro School

The one school format, that inspired me most is Micro Schools.

It kind of help me see possibilities for 2 out of my 3 options, a school within a school or a school assosiated with a school

these schools could be even being opened in garage, and malls and in schools and where not.

The beauty is that just before they started schools they were already being admired (and financially very successful) as a software company

But even then they decided to close their entire software for home schooler and went full throttle on Micro Schools. It is already a success and needless to say, is an inspiration for me.

A typical Micro School is a single person run class with 15 to 150 students associated with a nearby school for other requirement.

5. The Fifth Format

So the fifth and sixth and seventh and eights formats must be identified and shared by you. Can you please share at least one format in the comments (with a school example)

I have already seen Community based schools, Startup/entrepreneurship based school, AI powered school.

So next week, under the The Fundamentals, I will talk about Why Technology At School need to be fixed and how?

If you want your name to be included in that edition, share a few ideas on this with us. Write a mail to us at contact@edmonks.com