Today’s schools are battling with a series of challenges in the classrooms, ranging from indiscipline, lack of student motivation, irregularity, missing parental support, and more. Not only this but also that the contemporary workplace increasingly requires flexibility, creativity, emotional intelligence, and other soft skills and as schools prepare students for life, these components cannot be overlooked. So, though the expectations from schools in terms of giving guidance on many fronts have increased, yet the average time spent by a child in school remains the same. There is an emerging need for schools to incorporate the pursuit of health, personal growth, and improved quality of life in the curriculum and teach students how to live a balanced life. With an aim to offer exactly the same to the upcoming generation, Jayashree Ashok (Founder & Director) ensures that Creative School remains unwavering in its principle of imparting quality education and providing all-round personal enrichment to children.

A Strong Aim
A Teacher, Founder & Director of Creative School and a strong leader at heart, Jayashree holds various roles & responsibilities and works with adults, children, and families in schools. She not only acts as a leader but delegates her leadership values among everyone surrounding her. As the administrative head, she aims to spark, transform and empower more leaders in the organization. Her endeavour is to facilitate the development of a strong shared vision for a new education system in the country. Also, Creative School has evolved into a strong spiritual sangha (association) under her leadership. Besides, Jayashree specializes in emotional healing, and her belief is in following the path of the heart and teaching by example. Her expertise and experience of Life Skills coaching have helped many to find inner confidence.

It was the most crucial yet inspiring decision that Jayashree took when she decided to resign from Microsoft in Seattle, US to pursue non-profit work on education and empowerment in 1999. Her inner calling was to explore the full meaning of the education domain. So in order to achieve her dreams, Jayashree came back to India and started her venture - Creative School. This is where her journey of leadership started.

The Holistic Approach
Originally inspired by the teachings of Sri

Aurobindo and The Mother through their series on Integral Education, Creative School is blessed to learn from several spiritual teachers who showed Jayashree the way awaken inner wisdom. With a vision to enable children to become conscious creators of their own lives empowered by their soul, Creative School aims to provide a strong educational foundation to the students developing all aspects – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. “Our models of Conscious Living, Conscious Parenting/Teaching and Holistic Education are the frameworks through which a conscious community has come together,” asserts Jayashree.

With a passion to make a change, Jayashree endowed Creative School with unique & strong programs for the self-development of adults and children along with co-creating a healthy work environment. The organization possesses a joyful environment of discovery, participation, and growth, where children receive the best education.

As an organization, Creative School is bringing back and reviving the foundation of Indian education through ‘Sacred Classroom’ principles with an emphasis on holistic child development with emphasis on emotional intelligence and self-awareness in addition to academic and technical excellence. Besides, at Creative School, students work with their peers in mixed-age groups. Such grouping mirrors the world we live in and provides a healthy interaction among children of varying ages. Older and younger children learn from one another as well as teach each other in their own ways. Vertical age grouping fosters learning from each other, inspirations, love for learning new ideas, and reduces the age-based comparison setup for both the student and the teacher.

The holistic nature of our education is helping empower our children with self-confidence and balance, which are essential for today’s world

Creative School caters to four age groups – Early Childhood (three-six years), Elementary (six-10 years), Middle School (10–14 years) and High School (14 years above). It follows the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) curriculum for the students. “We have implemented a good balance of Eastern and Western approaches to education. The holistic nature of our education is helping empower our children with self-confidence and balance, which are essential for today’s world,” states Jayashree.

Words for Others
Changing trends in society have unlocked many opportunities including leadership in the education industry. Jayashree advises such emerging leaders to surge in the industry by following three factors – Sharing vision, Honouring Co-creation and Effective Collaboration. “The most important foundation for any leader is self-awareness. Understanding yourself helps you to navigate challenges and opportunities gracefully,” explains Jayashree.

Affiliated with Cambridge International ( IGCSE) as well as the State Board of Education in Karnataka, Creative School’s model of education is now being shared with others through PrajnaVidya initiative, where many schools are being trained through these workshops. Recently, the Education departments in the Governments of Odisha and Karnataka have taken-up several modules into their program, including the Emotional, Spiritual, Social Learning and many other areas.

Jayashree Ashok, Founder & Director, Creative School
Prior to creative school, Jayashree has worked in the area of education with schools and non-profits/NGOs for several decades. She also has more than a decade of experience in the area of healing using breathwork, energy healing and regression therapy.

Location: Bangalore