The Plymouth Meeting Tamil School is an outreach program of TAGDV that seeks to impart oral and written skills of the Tamil language to the children of the greater Delaware community. The school has been in existence for a number of years and is run by a group of teachers and volunteers. The school convenes at the North Penn High school every other Friday from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. The school is open from September till June of every year. Children from age 5 to 14 enroll for this program. The current enrollment strength is about 75.
The children of the Tamil School have consistently demonstrated their talent with great enthusiasm in every functions of TAGDV. This year is a milestone in the history of the Plymouth Meeting Tamil School as many of our students get ready to take a certificate exam administered by the Tamil Virtual University.
To make learning more fun, we utilize multimedia resources (movies, audio and video) as interactive tools in our classes. We have added a musical element into the curriculum to aid the learning of tamil literature. Each Tamil school session ends with a buddy time in which the children participate Tamil word games, coloring contests, and other fun activities. The school takes an annual field trip. The children of Tamil school contribute articles to the bi-annual editions of “Sangamam”, the magazine of the TAGDV. One of our ambitions is to reach every Tamil family in our community.
1996 - Tamil school was conducted in a church in Lansdale. We had literary forum for parents where they discussed about thirukkural and other literatures.
1998 - Tamil school was conducted in Plymouth Meeting Community Center lead by Dr. Sivakumar, Mrs. Jhansi Kandasamy and Mrs. Karpagam Mutharasan. We had balavihar after the Tamil class which included moral stories for children. We had done skits relating to the old epics and current issues.
2000 - We felt the need for a new curriculum to address the needs of the children learning Tamil in our School. Mrs. Alli Natesh and Mrs. Janaki started working on the curriculum during the summer months with the help of other teachers.
2001 to 2002 With the help of Mr. Krishnamani who was the president of TAGDV at that time we ran the school without collecting fees from parents. We got the funding from J & B and Mrs. Usha Bala.
2002 to 2004 - We had books for different levels of students which included reading, writing, stories and grammar. Mr. Eric wanted to do a villu pattu and we did a pongal play with him. Our school participated in first video conferencing between schools in India and here, lead by Dr. Vasu Ranganathan. Dr. Sivakumar introduced virtual university to our school and we started giving exams to make sure that our quality of education meets the standards of the university.
2004 to 2006 - Within this period under the guidance of Mrs. Alli Natesh we started a separate account for Tamil school with the help of Mrs. Indra Satish who was the first treasurer for our school. We had our first field trip to Elmwood park zoo. We did our first villupattu about Lion King which was a hit. We introduced student volunteers to help the little ones.
2006 to 2012 - Tamil school was lead by Mrs. Janaki, Mrs.Priya Krishnamani, Mr. Raj Mohan, Mrs. Uma Raju, Dr. Mahalakshmi, Dr. Brinda and Mrs. Hema during this period. We introduced ATA books during Dr. Brinda's leadership. New website was initiated under Mrs. Hema's leadership.
2012 to 2013 - We brought new changes in the school under the guidance of Mrs.Alli Natesh. We started a new scholarship program with the help of TAGDV President Dr. Muthumani and Dr. Mahalakshmi. We deposited $5000 in CD to stabilise our financial status.
2013 to 2015 - Mrs. Shobha and Mrs. Ranjini took the Tamil school to new heights in these two years.
2015 to 2016 - Mrs. Uma Sundar and Mrs. Ranjini Muhunthan took over the school management and completed many noteworthy accomplishments for the school, including the (a) creation of lesson plans for all levels and handbooks, (b) introduction of monthly volunteering system for the parents, LMS, tracking of students' grades, attendance, and homework completion status, and the Moodle system, (c) revamping of the school website which is now our online portal for standards, procedures, and the school history, (d) standardization of parents meetings and teachers meetings, and (e) practice of conducting cultural practices at the school.
2016 to 2017 - Mrs. Uma Sundar and Mrs. Ranjini Muhunthan had continued their excellent work for the school, including the (a) increase in number of classes to 24 to meet the ATA requirement, (b) extension of the class time so that teachers could spend more interactive time with their students, (c) starting and fund raising for the school library, (d) re-introduction of Tamil Virtual University Intermediate Syllabus for Nilai 6 students, and (e) successful election process for the new school committee.
2017 to 2019 - Mrs.Rajeswari Harinathan, Mrs.Sangeetha Nachimuthu Varadharaj and Mr.Baskar Periasamy took over and continued the mission, improved the school curriculum and overall student enrichment. Their service-oriented leadership set a new bar for future management teams at PMTS. The school team's achievements during this period include (a) the introduction of Mugai Nilai for adult students, (b) training Nilai 3 students for the certification exam from TN government - TVA Basic Level Exam, (c) implementation of ATA School Management System (ASMS) at PMTS, (d) updates to the School Policies and Procedures, (e) winning Regional and Zonal level Fetna Tamil Spelling Bee competitions, and (f) streamlining of the School Library Book distribution and Monthly Volunteering activities.
2020 to 2021 Mr. Ashok Ambashanker (Principal), Mrs. Deepa Suresh (Asst. Principal) and Mr. Krishnamoorthy Esakkimuthu (Treasurer) led in various transformation activities for the School, like starting Spoken Tamil School, introducing Mun-mazhalai classes for 4-year-olds and Students Volunteering. They also conducted competitions like Logo Contest and Tamil Speech Competition for Students. They also initiated institution of Scholarship for PMTS students. Spoken Tamil Classes which was instituted first time in PMTS was well appreciated by Parents.