Principal Profile of Dr. Sandeepa Sood – Saffron Public School – 2000 – Till Date

Role as a Principal:

To serve as an Educator and Representing as a role Model for creating Passion in achieving set goals has always been my objective in life.

Giving a brief background history about myself, I started my career in the year 1991 as a teacher; in that one year I was promoted as the HOD of my subject. For the next 10 years I upgraded my skills and worked in various areas like kindergarten, technical skills, activity in charge, and hostel in charge along with my core responsibility of being a teacher. From the year 2000 till date I took over as a Principal in Saffron Public School, and since then it’s been a journey of education, success, and learning, contributing, teaching and managing throughout the year.  Every day is a new challenge for me. I feel like a CEO managing a huge MNC but education is something that needs updation and upgradation, international collaborations, and social, economic and political learning is involved. I have tried my level best to put all of this together in bringing my school to the topmost position in my city.  I feel successful already when my students make it big in their lives and are pioneers in every sphere of their career. I feel successful when my teachers are here with me for the past 18 years and in spite of being offered good, are not ready to leave me or my school, my management has complete trust in my and we are more like family now. Most importantly the change that we have made towards society, academics, sports and overall development and upbringing of the students and the whole school describes my success as the principal of Saffron Public School.

Thoughts on Teaching:

They say ‘Teaching is a noble profession’, I personally feel it’s the only profession that either makes or breaks a person. Teaching makes a student’s career, affects his overall behaviour, his family, his mannerism and his attitude. I wanted to make a change and bring out the best in people, and I thought teaching is the only way in which I would be able to contribute to the wellbeing of the society, serve humanity and in the process learn new things every day. So the entire process not only helped me to participate in bringing out the best in my students but it also brought out the best in me.

After so many successful years of teaching, I took up the administrative job, a management role more like becoming the CEO of the company. Now my role was not about students and their academic challenges but it put me into strong leadership goals, where I was supposed to handle   students, parents, staff, and management. It required deep understanding of the school structure and demanded alot of innovation and creativity to meet all social, economic and internal school challenges head on. But the best part was that I understood my teachers better now since that’s where I started myself.

What Education means to me:

I have seen that era of Education in India where there was no value to it, girls were not allowed to study and brain drain – all smart students wanted to settle abroad. Now it’s the other way round. Not all but many institutes in India have immensely converted themselves into international universities and now foreign students are seeking admission in our country, this is already a massive change in our educations sector., my vision for education in India is providing high quality academics, exposure of students to sports, arts and other extracurricular activities, affiliating to strong boards across the world and betterment of our syllabus structure. Education in India should produce better skills, more talents and upgraded brains within the country.

Collaborations within the school:

As a school Principal, I have collaborated the best of universities and boards with our school to integrate both Indian and Foreign education like, British Council, U.K, The International Award for Young People, National College of Ireland,  Stow College, Glasgow, U.K., Medicine Hat College, Canada. For International exposure of students and teachers, we tie- up for further education of students in abroad and also plan teacher orientation programmes in foreign universities for our teachers. Education in India has been drastically changes and I have contributed first of all to the society and environment through education promoting eco-friendly school structure and brain feed for which our school has been awarded too. We are effectively partnering with universities for counselling, career priorities and effectively promote Indian International Model of United Nations sessions. Also awards like Outstanding Voluntary contribution award by Smile Foundation and Indian Association for Blind, National and International Sports accolades, Producing effective academic results with District Toppers (Grade– XII) C.B.S.E. for last Ten years, Collaboration with NGOs for social productivity and working head to head with Nanhi Chhaan Foundation, Smile Foundation, Naaz Foundation, Global Cancer Concern India are other contributions towards society and education.

Awards and Laurels:

A number of Laurels are awarded to the school, we have been honored with a number of awards like – ‘best principal award by ISA 2018, ‘IITA Nation Builder Award’, ‘Convener Award’, ‘Esteemed Core Committee member’ and ‘Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Award’ 2018 were given to the Principal and Management of the school by IITA 2018.British Council International School Award in 2018 was given too. 7th School leadership Summit 2018 gave the Top School of India Ranking 2017”

 The Principal also earned the highly Effective Principal award. The school has got Best Eco Friendly School Award by Times of India through ISA 2017 , Inspiring Educators of Punjab Award by Outdoor_Education_Research_Team_of_Great_Rocksport_Pvt_Ltd 2017, Best Academic Excellence, Green Building School Award, and Highly_Effective_Edupreneur’ and ‘100_Highly_Effective_Principal’ award byAlert Knowledge Serive Education Award, AKS 2017

Best_Academic_Excellence and Green_Building_School Award by Change Makers Society.2017 and many more

I totally believe in inculcating Literacy, curiosity, self-efficacy, ambition and other important areas of learning in every student. Culture of all sorts and culture of learning should be imbibed in them, Authority and Responsibility to be given and shared not only by all students, but the entire staff, be it management, teachers, helpers, from top to bottom hierarchy of management. In simple words to promote a healthy environment we need to show them , help them, let them , sustain them, mentor them, counsel them and finally let them fly,. We are just giving them wings.