Jamshedpur: Introducing life skills in school curriculum has helped Sidhgora-based SDSM School for Excellence win an award at the national level.

The CBSE cradle has won the All India Competition on Innovation Practices and Experiments in Education of Schools and Teacher Education Institutions by NCERT ((National Council for Educational Research and Training) held in New Delhi on June 26 and 27.

The school, which was the only one from Jharkhand to receive this award this year, has received Rs 10,000 and a certificate.

Total 29 projects were shortlisted from the 200 proposals.

Principal of SDSM School for Excellence Moushumi Das delivered a presentation on their project "teenagers of tomorrow through life skill experience" in Delhi to receive the award.

"Education is important but life skills are an integral part of upbringing. So we thought to innovatively implementing it between classes IX and XII where each teacher was given a responsibility to teach one life skill through various activities," Das said.

The school identified 10 skills - decision making, problem solving, critical thinking, empathy, coping with stress, effective communication, creative thinking, inter-personal relationships, managing emotion and self awareness. Teachers took up various activities in the form of games to inculcate these habits among students. After the activity, teachers submitted a report to the co-ordinator of the project Abha Vishwakarma, who then reported it to the principal.

Das said in the last six months, there had been a seven per cent improvement among children in academics and expected this to work wonders for high school students.

"We believe that developing life skills help adolescents in translating knowledge, attitude and values into healthy behaviour that makes their life fruitful. Life skills are effective tools for empowering youth to act responsibly, take initiative and take control," Das added.