widening the list for class 1 next june. holy faith in bolarum came up when a colleague mentioned it. state board, goes up to 10. two things i can't work out. how long the drive from bachupally really is at school hours, and how much telugu the early classes have, since he's in an icse preschool now and speaks tamil and english at home.
can't help with the school. i used to drive from bachupally to the bolarum side for work for a while, and in the mornings it was never under 45 minutes. that was before the rains.
45 min to an hour each way at 5 is a lot of van time. our son's ride was 50 min in class 1 and he slept through most of the first period for months. not saying don't, just count the hours
From Sainikpuri, Bolarum is close, and even that route slows down near the railway crossings at school time. From Bachupally I would expect it to be longer than the map says.
On the Telugu question, I think it depends a lot on the school. Our daughter is in CBSE, and Telugu came in as a subject in the early classes with a gentle start. I would expect a State Board school to have more of it, but I'd ask at the visit how they handle children who don't speak it at home. Have you been able to arrange a visit yet?
Worth asking directly, yes. When we enquired at a few schools for later on, some had a clear plan for children who don't speak Telugu at home and some simply said 'they pick it up'. The first kind gave me more confidence.
We went from an ICSE preschool into ICSE class 1 with our daughter, so no board change for us. What surprised me was how much the length of the day mattered in class 1, more than the board. She was exhausted for the first two months. A long drive on top of that would have been hard.
the length of the day is the real thing. ours was asleep in the car every afternoon in class 1 and we were only 15 min away
If you are open to State Board, ask how many children in the class 1 sections come from English-medium preschools. It gives you a quick sense of the mix your son would be in.
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