The work has to be real
Students interview the actual MLA. They intern in the actual accounts office. They pitch a business they would actually have to build. Simulation is the fallback, never the plan.
Udaan · Experiential Learning Lab
Shivneri School, Junnar
The lessons that aren’t on the timetable.
Udaan is Shivneri's working laboratory for real-life skills. Every project on this page is a live experiment — an idea about how children actually learn, tested on a 13-acre residential campus where school never really closes. No syllabus. No exam paper. Just work that counts.
Lab floor Five stations · working now
01 Interview desk · UD-01
02 Study bench · UD-02
03 Robotics bench · Electives
04 Pitch board · UD-07
05 Daily log · UD-04
8Experiments run
16Teacher electives open
7Departments open to interns
6Dimensions logged daily
12 HRSLongest single study run
01 / Method
How the lab works
Three rules hold across every Udaan project, from a twelve-hour study marathon to a five-minute business pitch.
Students carry the load
Cameras, transport, research, questions, budgets, roles — the arrangements are the lesson. Teachers mentor and step back. What breaks, students fix.
The campus is the equipment
Residential life means learning does not stop at 3 p.m. Dormitories, mess, library and grounds are all part of the apparatus — which is why the lab can run around the clock.
02 / Run log
Every run, in order
Udaan opened in April 2025. This is the complete log — what ran, when, and what is still running today.
UD-01
April 2025
Governance, first-hand
Students researched, requested and conducted a long-form interview with the local MLA. They arranged the camera, the transport and every question themselves.
Complete
UD-02
10 July 2025
The Study Marathon
Guru Purnima. The auditorium opened at 8 a.m. and stayed open until 8 p.m. — group by group, from three hours for Class V to twelve for Class XII.
Complete
UD-03
15 Jul – 15 Aug 2025
Internship Programme, Batch 1
Seven campus departments took on student interns for a month. Selection ran on a written résumé and a panel interview — the first real application most of them had ever filed.
Complete
UD-04
A.Y. 2025–26 →
Udaan Gaurav
A daily record of six things that usually go unrecorded. Rectors log from their phones; an AI-assisted app tallies the points and publishes a Hall of Fame the same evening.
Running daily
UD-05
Ongoing
Hostel Diaries check-in
Fifteen plain questions, asked one child at a time — about sleep, food, friends, safety and anything bothering them. Signed off by the class teacher, the Principal and management.
Running
UD-06
A.Y. 2026–27 →
Teacher Electives
Sixteen teachers put up sixteen benches — the skill each of them personally loves, taught outside the curriculum. Theatre to robotics, mehendi to AI.
Running
UD-07
27 July 2026
Shark Tank Shivneri — preliminary round
Teams of up to five, Grades 5 to 9, pitching an original business idea: the problem, the product, the customers, the numbers and the impact. Selected teams go to mentoring, then the Grand Finale.
Live today
UD-08
Queued
Money Matters
A six-week personal-finance module for Grades 7 to 10 — budgets, needs versus wants, banking, UPI safety and how not to get scammed. Built, and waiting for its slot.
Queued
03 / Plates
From the runs
Photographs filed against the run they came from. Click any plate to open it full size.
Scroll the rail · 11 plates on file
04 / Experiments
What we are testing
Each project starts with a question we could not answer from a textbook.
UD-01
Complete
Governance, first-hand
- Question
- Does a child understand government better by reading a chapter on it, or by putting questions to the person who holds the seat?
- Method
- Students wrote to the local MLA, researched his constituency and record, drafted and sequenced the questions, arranged the camera and the transport, and ran the interview themselves.
- Learned
- Research, interview craft, logistics, nerve. Also: how to ask a follow-up question when the first answer dodges.
Term 1, A.Y. 25–26Format Field studyOutput Filmed interview
UD-02
Complete
The Study Marathon
- Question
- Is concentration a trait some children have, or a muscle a whole school can train together on one day?
- Method
- Guru Purnima, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., the full auditorium. Durations scaled by age — three hours for Classes V–VI, four for VII–VIII, eight for IX–X, twelve for XI–XII. Staff on rotating two-hour supervision shifts; water, tea and a thirty-minute lunch built in.
- Learned
- Endurance, self-discipline, and the pull of a room where everyone is working.
Date 10 Jul 2025Hall 350 seatsWindow 12 hrs
UD-03
Batch 1 complete
Internship Programme
- Question
- What changes in a thirteen-year-old who has to clock in, report to a manager and hand in work that someone else depends on?
- Method
- Seven departments opened — Management, Principal's Office, Admin, Accounts, Mess, Store and Library — five interns each. A résumé workshop, a written submission and a panel interview decided who got in. Alternate days, one hour a session, one month, a departmental mentor throughout.
- Learned
- Punctuality, workplace conduct, how an organisation actually holds together — assessed on a closing report and essay, not a test.
Grades 7 – 9Seats 5 / deptRun 1 month
UD-07
Live today
Shark Tank Shivneri
Plate pending · run in progress
- Question
- Can a school teach business by talking about it — or does a child only learn it by having to defend a real idea to a panel that pushes back?
- Method
- Teams of up to five build an original idea that could genuinely be made on campus, then pitch it in five to seven minutes: problem, product, customers and competitors, materials and costs, growth and impact. Two to three minutes of questions follow. Copying from the internet disqualifies the idea; every member must speak.
- Learned
- Costing, pricing, teamwork, ownership and the nerve to be questioned. Selected teams get mentoring before the Grand Finale.
Grades 5 – 9Team ≤ 5Prelims 27 Jul 2026
UD-06
Running
Teacher Electives
Plate pending · benches opening
- Question
- Every teacher on this campus is good at something the timetable never asks for. What happens if we ask for it?
- Method
- Each teacher proposes the skill they personally love, writes the objectives and outcomes, and sets the number of periods it needs. Students choose their bench. Nothing here is examined, and nothing counts toward a grade.
- Learned
- A skill that is genuinely theirs — and the sight of a teacher as a person with a craft, not a subject.
Benches 16Periods 160Exams 0
UD-04
Running daily
Udaan Gaurav
- Question
- Schools measure marks because marks are easy to measure. What happens to a campus when kindness and gratitude are recorded with the same seriousness?
- Method
- Rectors log observations from their own phones across six dimensions. An AI-assisted app files each entry, keeps junior and senior students in separate award groups, and publishes a Hall of Fame the same day.
- Learned
- That good behaviour is noticed — the quiet child who helps gets counted alongside the child who tops the class.
Dimensions 6Cadence DailyBoard Live
05 / The bench
Sixteen teachers, sixteen skills
Udaan Electives. Each bench is one teacher teaching the thing they love most, for as many periods as it honestly takes.
B-01
Theatre & Drama
Ms. Dhanwanti Dhole15 periodsB-02
Speech Skill Development
Mr. Kuldeep Deshmukh20 periodsB-03
Robotics
Ms. Pratibha Mishra12 periodsB-04
AI Experience
Mr. Kalyan Garain10 periodsB-05
Speaking Skills
Ms. Smita Ghone10 periodsB-06
Home Design with Mathematics
Ms. Ashwini10 periodsB-07
Farm to Plate
Ms. Shweta Bochare10 periodsB-08
Soap & Candle Making
Ms. Megha Garain10 periodsB-09
Introduction to Music
Ms. Shafaq Khan10 periodsB-10
Bangle Making
Ms. Saima Sayed10 periodsB-11
Mehendi
Ms. Rupali Shelkande10 periodsB-12
Embroidery Work
Ms. Smita Patil10 periodsB-13
Rangoli Making
Ms. Kanchan Kuchekar8 periodsB-14
DIY Wall Décor
Ms. Yashi Kapoor5 periodsB-15
Flameless Cooking
Ms. Trupti Salunke5 periodsB-16
Jewellery Making
Ms. Deepali Sangamkar5 periods
06 / Instrumentation
How we read the results
One instrument runs continuously, every single day, and it never produces a mark sheet.
Quantitative · daily
Udaan Gaurav
Eight rectors log what they see, from their own phones, across two hostel buildings. The app tallies points, keeps junior and senior students in separate award groups so a Grade 2 boy never competes with a Grade 10, and publishes the Hall of Fame the same evening.
No child is ranked against a mark sheet here. The record counts the things a report card has no column for.
See today's boardSix dimensions · logged every day
- Academics Logged
- Sports Logged
- Discipline Logged
- Gratitude Logged
- Kindness Logged
- Cleanliness Logged
07 / Queued
Next on the bench
Designed, costed and waiting for a slot in the calendar.
Shark Tank Grand Finale
Teams that clear the preliminary round move into mentoring, then build and defend the idea in front of a full panel.
Money Matters
Six weeks on personal finance for Grades 7 to 10 — budgeting a real amount, banking basics, UPI safety and spotting a scam.
Internship Batch 2
A second cohort through the seven campus departments, with the résumé workshop and panel interview run again from scratch.
08 / Intake
Propose an experiment
Every run on this page started as somebody's idea. If you have one — student, parent, teacher or stranger — file it here.
Open for proposals
What gets built
Proposals are read by the Udaan team. The ones that get built usually share three things.
- 01The work is real. Something students actually do, make, visit or defend — not a lecture about it.
- 02It fits a boarding campus. It can run in the hostel, the mess, the grounds, the library or a nearby town.
- 03A child comes out of it able to do something they could not do before.
Half-formed is fine. A single sentence with a good idea in it beats a polished one without.
Proposal form Ref —
Minimum 40 characters0 / 900
Awaiting input
Filing opens your email app with the proposal written out, addressed to the Udaan team. Nothing is sent until you press send there.
Filed
Proposal filed
Reference —. Your email app should be open with the proposal in it — press send and it reaches the Udaan team.
If nothing opened, use Copy it instead and mail it to info@shivnerischool.com.