Kollam: A government-aided school in South Kerala is making headlines not just for its academic achievements but also for a bold step in classroom innovation — an idea sparked by a fleeting scene in a Malayalam film.

At Ramavilasom Vocational Higher Secondary School (RVHSS) in Valakom, a banner celebrating former student G P Nandana’s stellar achievement — 2nd rank in Kerala and 47th nationwide in the Civil Services Examination — welcomes every visitor. But just past the gate, what’s happening inside its primary classrooms has caught even wider attention.

A layout that puts every student in the front row

The school has done away with the conventional concept of front and back benches. Instead, classrooms are now designed so that seats run along all four walls of the room in a single row. The effect? Every child is a frontbencher — literally.

Inspired by a brief moment in the Malayalam film ‘Sthanarthi Sreekuttan’, the seating redesign was initially implemented in a single lower primary class. The outcome was so encouraging that the school extended the arrangement to all lower primary classes. “Ganesh Kumar discussed this with us and his wife, who manages the school. We also agreed to start it in one class. The results we got were very positive and we introduced them to all lower primary classes,” said Sunil P Sekhar, headmaster of RVHSS.

From reel to real: A movie's unexpected impact

The scene that sparked this change featured a seventh-grade student in the film who proposes the idea after facing humiliation for sitting at the back of the class. That moment resonated beyond cinema halls.

“I got a message that a school in Punjab has also adopted it after the principal saw the movie on the OTT platform. He also screened the movie for the students. I am happy that it got national attention,” said ‘Sthanarthi Sreekuttan’ director Vinesh Viswanathan.

“It is not an idea created by us, but we did have such a seating arrangement earlier in classrooms, as part of District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), and we had lost it somewhere in between,” Vinesh added.

According to the school authorities, it was Minister K B Ganesh Kumar — whose family manages the school — who first floated the idea after watching a preview of the film a year before its release. He discussed the potential of introducing the concept to young learners at the school, and the faculty soon followed through.

The response? Students and teachers love it

Meera, a lower primary teacher with nearly three decades of experience, said the new seating arrangement has made classrooms more interactive and balanced. “I am able to attend to each of the students in the classroom, and give better care to each of them. The students are also happy as they see the faces of all students in the classroom and also pay close attention to the teacher,” she said.

The school’s leadership believes that giving each child an equal place in the classroom promotes confidence and greater teacher-student engagement. “Lower primary classes are where students learn a lot of new things and they naturally get rid of the concept or taboo of sitting on the backbenches,” Sunil said.

Going viral across states

The buzz around the model has led to at least eight other schools in Kerala adopting the same layout. Remarkably, it has now reached as far as Punjab. According to Vinesh, similar classroom designs are already used in countries like Finland and Norway, where lower student-teacher ratios allow for more dynamic classroom structures.

However, not everyone is convinced. Some social media users criticised the practicality of such an arrangement, particularly in schools with over 80 students in a single classroom. Addressing this, Vinesh said, “It is actually against our existing law to have so many students in a class, and the authorities are now taking action against that school.”

A nod from Anand Mahindra

The innovative classroom also caught the attention of industrialist Anand Mahindra, who tweeted in support of the model. “It is a welcome move,” he said, even as he humorously noted his fondness for backbenchers.

(With inputs from PTI)