For the mental maturity and intellectual cultivation of young minds, it is always considered healthy that teachers and students are encouraged to dialogue. The freedom to think and speak taught in schools, leaves a permanent impression. It develops the power to reason and creates a great deal of tolerance. One learns how to put forward an opinion in a civilized and polite manner and how to accept and honour others’ opinion with patience and modesty. To fulfil this aim various literary activities are organised in the school.

News Paper Reading Competition

To develop an interest and habit of reading newspapers and gain knowledge and awareness of their surroundings, an Interhouse Newspaper Reading Competition was held on 23 October 2009. This activity was also aimed at developing confidence, English vocabulary and pronunciation of children. Students of classes III, V and VI participated in the competition which was of one hour duration. Our teachers, Ms. Kavita Patak and Mrs. Neetu Mohan Bharti judged the competition on the basis of clarity and correctness of pronunciation, accent and intonation. The results are as follows:

CLASS IIIrd
Position		Student Name		House
Ist		Mukesh		Mother Teressa
IInd		Deepak'		Vivekanand
IIIrd		Kamini		Tagore

CLASS Vth
Position		Student Name		House
Ist		Rishi & Shikha		Mother Teressa
IInd		Vishal		Dr.Kalam
IIIrd		Shubham		Dr.Kalam
IIIrd		Aakash Yadav		Tagore

CLASS VIth
Position		Student Name		House
Ist		Sulekha		Dr.Kalam
IInd		Vaidehi		Dr.Kalam
IIIrd		Aarti		Tagore

Story Writing Competition

Story writing brings out the inherent creativity and imagination of a child. An inter-house story-writing competition was conducted on 21st August 2009 with students of class III, V and VI. The duration of activity was one hour and the criteria for judging were appropriateness of title, story-line, moral of the story, language, hand-writing and paragraphing and word limit. The activity was judged by Ms. Rashmi Sharma, Project Coordinator OM Foundation. Vaidehi (Class VI) from Kalam house in class VI and Mukesh (Class III) and Shikha (Class V) from Teresa house won the first positions respectively.

Poem Composition Competition

On 7 August 2009, OM Foundation High School held a Poem Composition Competition for classes III, V and VI with an aim to bring out the talent of creative writing in children. Before the competition children were introduced the concept of Poem Composition.

Variety of English and Hindi Topics were given to each class according to their cognitive level and experiences, some of which were – My School, My ambition, Animals our Friends, Education for all, Time Management, Vriksha Hamaare Mitra, Garmi aayi Chhuti laayi, Aatankwaad, Paryavaran Suraksha etc.

All students wrote beautiful poems which made the task of judging very difficult. After much deliberation winners were announced and they were:

		Hindi		English
Class III		Tina ' Falon ka Raja '		Tina ' My Parents '
Class V		Hemant ' Vriksha Hamaare Mitra '		Manisha ' Rainy Season '
Class VI		Vaidehi ' Paryavaran Suraksha '		Apoorav ' Education for All '

Inter-house debate competition

An Inter house debating competition was held in OM Foundation High School on 24 July 2009, in Hindi and English. The topics were ' Vigyan- Vardan ya Abhishaap ' (Science - a boon or a bane) and ' Should English be the medium of instruction in schools? '

Contestants spoke emphatically and confidently, highlighting the role of Science in development and at the same time the threat we face due to some of its perilous products like nuclear bombs and abuse of internet. Those speaking about English as a medium of instruction in schools pointed at the need for a global language and the importance of not losing national identity whilst doing that.

Dr. R.D. Shukla (Retd. Head of the Department, NCERT) and Dr. V.K. Sharma judged the event and appreciated the students’ language skills and OM Foundation for encouraging and polishing the skills of the students through debate competitions. The winners for the Hindi and English topics were Manisha (Class V) and Anu Rai (Class VI-A) and Aarti (Class VI-B) and Vaidehi (Class VI-A) respectively.

Others present were Mr. Sanjay Drabu (Trustee, OM Foundation), Mrs. Sunita Ganju (Project Manager), Mrs. Anju Garg (Head Mistress) and teachers.

Poem Recitation Competition

On 24th July 2008, students of OM Foundation High School recited a number of poems on “Patriotism”. They were judged on memory, diction, expression etc. Akash Yadav from Tagore House won the first prize for Hindi poem recitation and Suraj from Kalam House won it for the English poem recitation. Akash recited “Jhansi ki Rani” and Suraj recited “India my India” At the end of the readings, the teacher-judges gave very positive comments on some of the best works presented. Then the poetry evening came to an end. All the students said they had had a good time, and they hoped that in the future there would be more classical competitions like this one.