ILM Trivia: Stuff You Didn’t Know

If you thought you knew everything about ILM Montessori, you’re in for a surprise. Although we take pride and like to revel in our unconventional and transparent ways, we felt that some secrets ought to be guarded. Until now.

Here’s all the uncensored, unseen and unheard and unexpected stuff that took place “behind the scenes” at ILM Montessori.

While most schools were wrapping up their admission procedures, we started our advertising campaign (brochures, flyers and hoardings) in May even before the school premises was ready!

The entire vinyl flooring operation that normally takes a couple of days, cost us two weeks! Even our Founder/Trustee Arif Vakil (in pic) couldn’t believe it. The credit goes to our Principal and Founders who couldn’t decide what looked worse. The cream colored walls or all the vinyl samples? In the end, the grey vinyl flooring was chosen but only after the walls were whitewashed.

The beatiful and evergreen outdoor play area is our trump card and a favorite among both kids and parents. Samina Mehmood, Principal of Head Start Montessori called it an “english garden.”

The credit goes to our Principal Seema Jagirdar’s husband who gave the best piece of advice by suggesting that we cover the front yard with artificial grass.

Seema Jagirdar, our Principal in addition to being a distinction holder trained Montessori is also a professional interior designer .
FYI, she founded and headed a school a few years back and the certificates on the wall are just some of her credentials in the field of education.

Arif Vakil enjoys visiting ILM to draw sketches of the kids working in the environment. We love taking pictures of our kids and use “guerrilla photography” as a technique to prevent kids from getting distracted and pouncing at the sight of a touch screen phone.

The ILM blog derives inspiration from various sources like TedTalks and Bill Watterson’s Calvin &Hobbes. We also enjoy sharing anything that you may or may not find useful frequently with you.

The school board outside, underwent an evolution of sorts.

Our first, smallest and lasted for a month.

Later, we went for something bigger.

It was finally time to get something bigger, brighter and better.

The idea to launch ILM with special session on The Montessori Method, was actually suggested by a parent.

We postponed our launch from the 1st of June to 8th June to accommodate Munira Akhtar, our advisor’s travel plan.
We take the parents and advisors, very seriously.

Our current gardening area was designed initially as a sandpit. We rectified this “small” mistake by constructing a big sandpit right next to it.

Since the school was completed only by the second week of June, you may ask “how did you manage to get admissions?”
It’s simple, we bribed both parents’ and children with food:P