Founding Members

Shalini Sunderlal | Principal/Director

The principal of the Academy of Progressive Montessori (I) Shalini Sunderlal is an experienced Montessori Teacher Trainer. She has graduated from Loreto College (Kolkata), completed her Montessori training from the London Montessori Center in Kolkata and her Elementary Montessori training from The North American Montessori Center in Canada. She is the co-author of the Eureka workbooks on Geography, Botany, and Zoology and is currently in the process of creating the ideal writing workbooks for preschoolers.

Since she has a passion for the development of academic content, she is the Director of Academics at Busy Ants and Advantage APM. She oversees the execution of the curriculum in the schools. She has received the APARAJITA FICCI ‘Best Educator’ award in the Field of Education. Her interests include a passion for photography and is an avid spin cyclist.

Anita Alimchandani | Principal/Director

A dedicated and resourceful professional with detailed educational knowledge and core skills in Early Childhood Education. She enjoys conducting art classes, dramatics, and musical theater which are thoroughly enjoyable and informative. She is responsible for program development, budgeting, and forecasting, team building, teaching thematic units linked with the arts. She plans, controls, and develops the overall activities at the Academy. Blessed with a keen eye for aesthetics, Anita is responsible for creating beautiful learning environments for us and the students to teach and learn in and have designed a number of Preschools in India. She has graduated from the Elphinstone College Mumbai in Economics, Mathematics, and Statistics. Her Montessori training was completed from IMC (Kolkata) and her Elementary Montessori from The North American Montessori Center in Canada. 

Anita is a qualified and certified infant massage and Yoga instructor, with certification of training from the UK. She is equipped to teach parents and caregivers individually or in small groups to massage their babies with the correct strokes and enjoy yoga sessions with their toddlers. The classes are also conducted online. 

She is the co-author of the Eureka workbooks on Geography, Botany, and Zoology. Her passion includes interiors, traveling, food and a love for cycling.

Vikram Sunderlal | Finance Director

Vikram Sunderlal, a Founder Member, systematically took care of all matters pertaining to Finance and in house administration in the school. This left the academic members of the Core Team free to concentrate on developing and executing work lessons for the children. He operates his own successful Tea Machinery business ‘Green Leaves & Machinery’ and has been and continues to be an invaluable support to the school.

Advisory Board Members

Bindu Srinivasan | Managing Director – Orangerie Advertising JLT

Bindu has a Masters Degree in Political Science from Kolkata University and a Masters degree in Social Communications Media from Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai.

She started her career in the production of audiovisuals with Imitiaz Dharkar and was involved with commercial as well as social and non-commercial projects. Moving from there she worked as a lecturer in Sophia Polytechnic and produced along with students a body of films for Special Needs Children and the Blind School. In addition to this Bindu worked for BBC TV as research assistance and production manager for a number of BBC’s landmark documentary films shot in India.

She then moved on to become Assistant Director at Haimark Films working on mainly commercial films for multinational clients. From there on she moved to the UAE in 1990 and worked in mainstream advertising agencies.

In 1999 Bindu brought a team of advertising professionals to form Orangerie advertising on the back of her experience in the UAE and a thriving career in business development and growth. She managed a varied clientele and spearheaded strategic and creative to effective results. With immense industry experience in the GCC region, she witnessed the market evolve from its nascent phase to its present form competing with the world’s best. She is currently the Managing Director at Orangerie and continues to spearhead its growth and development.

Her heart though remains in India and she is involved with special needs education and champions the cause of education for the girl child and hopes to return back to India to work in the field of education.

Roger Bragg (UK) has been made an honorary member of the board of the Academy of Progressive Montessori, Kolkata, India. Mr.Bragg’s educational experience includes managing the Ascom Academy in the UK from 2000-2008.

He is employed by Lloyd’s register- a global organization dedicated to “working together for a safer world”- ensuring that multinational clients are compliant with international quality, environmental and health and safety standards.

Mr. Bragg’s educational qualifications include an MBA with distinction from the university of Wolver Hampton business school and a postgraduate diploma from the Open University. He is a chartered quality professional, a chartered safety and health practitioner and a chartered marketer. In December 2004 Mr. Bragg ran two workshops for the academy in Kolkata on Montessori mind mapping.”

Roger Bragg | Technical Trainer

Sandra Caddick | Director of Careers, Guidance and Industrial Links

Sandra graduated from University with a Social Science Degree in 1989 and then undertook a Postgraduate qualification in Careers Guidance. She has over 25 years’ experience in the field of education. As Careers guidance specialists she helps people make decisions about their education, training, and future careers. She is currently working in a school. Careers guidance specialists (normally known as career advisers or, in some settings, personal advisers or careers consultants) help people to achieve their full potential. They do not tell their clients what to do, or what job or learning program they are best suited to, but they help students identify and consider the choices available to them and outline possible courses of action

Sandra works with individual students through face-to-face interviews which involves using guidance skills to have a purposeful conversation to help establish the client’s abilities, preferences, and priorities. She works with groups, helping young people make decisions about their future learning options, with their job search. She keeps up to date with local and national labor market trends and developments in education, employment, and training. She visits university colleges, employers to find opportunities and understand what is required for jobs and different courses. She helps organize career events, where students can meet representatives from education, training, and industry. In order to ensure that students move on to appropriate work/learning, she liaises with learning providers, human resource managers in employing organizations.

Team of Educators

Our teachers are handpicked from the Academy of Progressive Montessori only. Compassionate individuals who are naturally aware of the immense responsibility they have in encouraging in each child a love for learning. They recognize that the educational experiences and guidance that the children receive under them is of utmost importance. We believe in providing our teachers with the most recent research in child education. To make sure each child’s needs are addressed, we follow a teacher-student ratio of 1:10. Exposure to updated training skills and workshops on problems they face with behavioral issues in the classroom, ensure that there are growth and clarity in their approach to classroom practices.

Anita Patodia

Teacher

Mrs. Patodia is a seasoned Montessori teacher and lecturer in Child Development and Psychology. Her love for the Montessori philosophy coupled with her passion for religious discourses is often reflected in the content of her lectures. She is also known for her “green fingers” and is often asked to “calm” us with her mesmerizing ¬flower arrangements. She has been in this field from the past 10 years.

Dr. Vatsala Roy

Teacher

She is known for her extremely precise and orderly demonstrations in Sensorial and Math, executed with the utmost perfection. It does certainly come easier to Dr. Roy than the others given her qualifications! Blessed with the kindest temperament, Dr. Roy is a valuable member of our Core Team and a Consultant to many parents of our three schools in Busy Ants as well as on Advantage APM 1 & 2.

Lachmi Bose

Teacher

Lachmi Bose, a seasoned Trainer specializes in Exercises of Practical Life. She does conduct her classes with the right mix of firmness and gentleness.

Shrestha Maheswari

Coordinator

The diligent and conscientious Coordinator at the Academy, who exhibits unconditional love and discipline for her work as seen in every task she does, ever ready to assist students or colleagues, she is indeed an asset to the Academy.

Team at Busy Ants

Nitasha Jindal

Franchisee Owner

She is a Mass Communication student from Loreto College. Currently, she is the Franchise Owner of Busy Ants 3, Salt Lake. She lends her positivity and manipulative hands-on teaching to the team of teachers at Busy Ants 3 and ensures that there is a cooperative learning process between teacher and child in the school. She assists in the implementation and execution of the curriculum in the classes.

Ruchika Agarwal

Franchisee Owner

She is a Chartered financial analyst from ICFAI (Hyderabad ) College. Currently, she is the Co Franchisee owner of Busy Ants 3, Salt Lake. She has also worked as a Management Trainee in Earnest and Young for a while. A quick thinker, with a capacity for working hard, Ruchika executes the administrative needs of the school efficiently and is an invaluable asset in the classroom as well.

Priyanka Goel

Vice-Principal Busy Ants 2

A calm and confident communicator, Priyanka Goel, the Vice Principal at Busy Ants, goes the extra mile to motivate our team.
Exhibiting an honest commitment to the children, she has the patience to see things through. Her clarity in understanding the pulse of the academics and her conviction in our method of teaching has led to her position as an External Examiner at the Academy of Progressive Montessori (I). She enjoys teaching children Language and Maths at our added academic extension “Advantage APM”.

Team at Advantage APM

The Full Team

Harshita Valecha

Head Coordinator: Advantage APM 1

Our after school program, Advantage APM 1, is managed efficiently by our Coordinator, Harshita. She has a challenging responsibility which is met efficiently by her many skills, namely, her quickness in offering solutions to problems, balanced with her calm demeanor. She needs to handle disciplinary problems to monitor the teachers and developing their core skills which produce effective results.

Ambika Jeloka

Head Coordinator: Advantage APM 2

She is our responsible Coordinator at Advantage APM 2. Her skills, among others, lie in her keen observation of children, interacting with them at length and progressing with their individual behavioral issues, when necessary. A keen listener, she is an effective mediator for her team and always enhances their core skills. Ambika meets the daily challenges at work with efficiency.