All joking aside, no doubt you visited STJ open day and read up on the schools 'quirky' curriculum. So, may I ask, Why did you decide to send your children here if
1)You knew about the maths and nikilam
2)You knew about Sanskrit and
3)You knew about their ethos/principles....the pause blah blah blah
Obviously parents are aware of all of the above. However, the school also states that it follows a christian based tradition and that it is non-denominational. As parents you don't realise that actually this is untrue, in fact as we all know, a Hindu belief system with special emphasis on advaita vedanta permeates throughout their teachings...all the other major faiths are put to one side.
When I have personally questioned Sanskrit, the response was that it helps with the study of other European languages, that it helps with speech, grammar, art, discipline etc etc. Not once, throughout my time there was I given the real reason.
The principles of Vedic mathematics may be to some a good way to resolve mathematical problems. I have also asked teachers at the school why this system is used and have been told that it increases the mental agility of those practising it, that in fact many children become quicker than a calculator at working out mathematical formula. The teaching of Vedic mathematics for my own children has been a complete waste of time. Not only are they unable to solve simple mathematical problems but it has also served to completely confuse them. It has been suggested that actually Vedic mathematics is in fact another form of numerology and the magic of numbers.
The pause is something which at first I felt was rather nice. In this busy and stressful world, being still for a few moments can sometimes work wonders. We all know that meditation if done properly can be beneficial. Naively, I felt that the school, although somewhat different to other mainstream schools did actually cater for the spiritual side of things. The school did not at any point make clear, that actually, pausing and the meditation being done in the senior school was actually a form of mantra based TM meditation. I never consented or was made aware that the spritual beliefs maintained by the teachers at the school were being passed on to my children under the heading of philosophy. As a result I now have one child who has been adversely affected by the effects of TM and mind control techinques used at the school.
When one looks at a school for their children they do not for one minute think that they are entering into the world of a cult. Essentially parents are sucked in to the niceness of St James but are not aware of the underlying manipulation contained in the school. Like many parents I was sucked in to a cult without even realising it. In the prospectus that I still have (which goes back a couple of years) it states that the schools approach is non-sectarian. A really odd thing to quote when the school is regarded by many as a cult/sect.