National curriculum
MoE / NCERT
AI & Computational Thinking, Class 3 onwards from 2026–27 — mapped week by week.
Shiksha
AI that helps students learn — not AI that learns for them.
One method taught four ways, from Class 3 to Class 12. Built for the AI and Computational Thinking curriculum every Indian school takes on in 2026–27.
4Pathways, Class 3 to 12
34Weeks mapped in detail
70%Of minutes are screen-free
Piloting with
Already running in two schools.
Shiksha is in classrooms now, not on a slide. Both pilots are in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, running the AI Scouts pathway with Classes 3–5.
Bring it to your school- Live
Universal Academy
Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh
AI Scouts · Classes 3–5
- Live
HM Public School
Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh
AI Scouts · Classes 3–5
Built against the standards, not around them.
Design mapping · not an endorsementStage-appropriate pedagogy
NEP 2020 · NCF-SE 2023
Activity-based and discovery-led. Seven in ten activity minutes use no screen.
Child data protection
DPDP Act 2023
Consent and no tracking — met by collecting no personal data at all.
International frameworks
AI4K12 · UNESCO
Five Big Ideas and the AI Competency Framework — one of each, every week.
Why now
AI is no longer a senior-school subject. From 2026–27 it begins in Class 3.
The Ministry of Education announced it on 30 October 2025. Every school now has a Classes 3–5 question to answer — and almost nothing on the market is built for that age.
- Oct 2025
MoE announces the curriculum
- Dec 2025
Handbooks and NISHTHA training
- 2026–27
Curriculum live, Class 3 upward
- Your school
Ready for it?
What the national brief asks for, stage by stage
Class 3 → Class 12Classes 3–5
AI literacy, not coding
Real-world examples and ethics, embedded in The World Around Us.
Where Shiksha starts
Classes 6–8
Applied understanding
Responsible use of AI tools, bias, and ethical decision-making.
Classes 9–12
Technical skills
Data handling, model building and Python programming.
Three constraints, and only one design survives all three
Most school AI programmes are built for teenagers and pushed downward. For Classes 3–5 that is not a matter of taste — the law, the research and the child each rule it out independently.
The law
No account.
A child cannot hold one
The DPDP Act 2023 requires verifiable parental consent and bars tracking or targeted advertising aimed at children. Mainstream AI assistants separately bar independent use below 13.
DPDP Act 2023
The research
Not screen-only.
Screens teach this badly at eight
Peer-reviewed work on primary AI literacy finds that mixing unplugged with plugged activity outperforms screen-only teaching at this age.
NCF-SE 2023 · peer-reviewed studies
The child
No spare hours.
The screen budget is already spent
Paediatric guidance in India puts 5–10 year olds under two hours of daily screen exposure, and says it must not displace study, play, sleep or family time.
Indian Academy of Paediatrics
What survives
One shape fits all three constraints.
Not a smaller version of a teenage AI course — the only design left standing. It happens to be the one the research says teaches best.
0accounts
No student sign-ups
One supervised class access point, operated by an adult.
70%
Off the screen
Seven in ten activity minutes are unplugged.
15min / week
Shared display only
Nothing at home needs a device.
What it adds to a child’s week
A whole week of Shiksha costs about an eighth of a single day’s paediatric screen allowance — and none of it is at home.
One method, four rungs. AI Scouts is the ground floor.
Each pathway keeps the same discipline — attempt first, verify always, own the work — and hands the learner more of it. What changes is who holds the keyboard, and how much the project has to survive.
- 01Classes 3–5
AI Scouts
Notice, ask, check, make. Unplugged-first literacy, safety and fairness.
Start here- Who types
- The teacher
- Evidence
- Paper log
- 02Grades 5–7
AI Spark
Discover and create. Guided explanation, recall, and a supervised mini-project.
- Who types
- Paired devices
- Evidence
- Activity journal
- 03Grades 8–10
AI Explorers
Study, investigate and publish responsibly. Revision, fact-checking, a no-code build.
- Who types
- The student
- Evidence
- Claim-check + build
- 04Grades 11–12
AI Builders
Prepare, automate and build. Exam systems, agentic workflows, portfolio projects.
- Who types
- The student
- Evidence
- Portfolio + audit trail
Board-aware, not board-affiliated. Schools may adapt any pathway for CBSE, CISCE/ICSE, IB or State Board contexts. Shiksha claims no board approval, endorsement, or replacement of any syllabus.
The curriculum
Every week, for every class group — Class 3 to Class 12.
Four pathways, one method. Each runs two guided sessions a week, and each ends with the learner explaining something they built and naming what went wrong. Pick a class group to read its full week-by-week.
AI Scouts
Classes 3–5 · 8–11 yearsThe ground floor. Unplugged-first AI literacy, safety and fairness, built around the AI and Computational Thinking curriculum that begins at Class 3 from 2026–27.
“I can spot AI around me, ask a careful question, check whether an answer is true, and make one small thing I can explain.”
Format: 8 weeks + 2 optional · 16 sessions · ~11 guided hours
Academic emphasis
Reading for evidence, explaining in full sentences, sorting and classifying, patterns, cause and effect, new vocabulary.
Build emphasis
Paper-first logic, a storyboarded mini-project, five test cases and one honest failure — built with an adult at the keyboard.
Safety emphasis
The Never-Share list written and signed by the class, the Check-It Rule, and a trusted adult named by every child.
1
AI around me
Recognise AI in an ordinary Indian day — maps, translation, recommendations, fingerprint locks — and separate it from a machine that just follows a switch.
Evidence
My AI Map + spoken reasons
2
Patterns & rules
Sequence, pattern and simple algorithms without a computer. One child instructs another who may only obey literally, and the class hunts the missing step.
Evidence
Rule card + pattern sheet
3
Learning by example
How a machine learns from examples — and how deliberately unfair examples produce a deliberately unfair machine.
Evidence
Labelled example set + prediction
4
Good questions
The Question Ladder: a vague wish climbed rung by rung into a precise question that sets length, audience and format.
Evidence
Question ladder sheet
5
Confident but wrong
The pivot of the pathway. A machine sounds certain and is wrong; the class catches it against their own textbook and cheers.
Evidence
Mistake hunt log + verdict
6
My data is mine
Role-play refusal: a friendly bot asks for name, school, address, a photo, a password. Children practise saying no and naming a trusted adult.
Evidence
Signed Never-Share list
7
Fair & kind AI
Who does a tool leave out? Drawings first, discussion second — then two genuinely useful public-good demonstrations.
Evidence
Fairness card
8
Make & explain
Paper plan approved first. The group directs, the adult executes, five cases are tested, one failure is recorded.
Evidence
Storyboard + tested build + 60-second demo
9opt
Improve together
Peer feedback on one confusing part, then fix exactly one thing. No group rebuilds from scratch.
Evidence
Before / after record
10opt
Family showcase
Every child speaks for sixty seconds, and the class reads its own Never-Share list aloud to the parents.
Evidence
Reflection page
Choose one mission
Chapter Quiz Quest
Ten questions on a chapter they have studied, answers checked against the textbook.
Explain-It Story
A six-panel comic explaining one concept to a younger child.
Sorting Machine
A paper classifier with the rule written out and the tricky cases listed.
Helper Poster
One page teaching the whole school a rule they have mastered.
Supervision & boundaries
No student accounts and no personal data. The teacher operates the only screen; children direct but never type. About fifteen minutes of shared display per week.
Optional weeks deepen the build and the showcase. Schools may compress the calendar, but not the total guided hours, the paper-planning stage, or project-testing time.
The method
One loop, taught twice — once for children, once for teenagers.
The younger pathway learns five words it can chant. The older pathways run the same logic as a six-step study cycle. Nothing has to be unlearned when a learner moves up.
Classes 3–5
Try · Ask · Check · Make · Show
- 1
Try
The child writes or draws their own answer first, on paper — even if it is “I do not know yet.”
- 2
Ask
The class turns a vague wish into one precise question. The teacher types it exactly as dictated.
- 3
Check
Tested against the textbook, the teacher, or a trusted grown-up — right, half-right, or confidently wrong.
- 4
Make
Something small — on paper first, then built with the adult at the keyboard.
- 5
Show
Sixty seconds: what I did, what the machine did, and one thing that went wrong.
The pencil goes first. The machine goes second.
Grades 5–12
The six-step study cycle
The same discipline, with the learner responsible for verification rather than the teacher.
- 1
Attempt
Begin with the learner's own thinking, notes or first answer.
- 2
Ask
Use a precise question: explain, compare, quiz, hint or challenge.
- 3
Understand
Restate the idea in the learner's own words.
- 4
Verify
Check against the textbook, teacher guidance or a trusted source.
- 5
Practise
Use recall questions, examples and spaced revision.
- 6
Explain
Teach it back, and record what remains unclear.
Eight capabilities every learner practises
Concept clarity
Simplify without oversimplifying.
Doubt questioning
Ask for hints and reasoning, not final answers.
Revision
Turn notes into concise recall material.
Practice
Create and evaluate questions at the right level.
Research
Compare sources and flag unsupported claims.
Planning
Break goals into realistic study actions.
Communication
Explain, present and reflect clearly.
Creation
Build tools that support a real learner need.
Positioning
What Shiksha deliberately is not.
Most of what gets sold to schools as “AI” is a coding class, a robotics kit, or a licence. This is none of those — and the differences are the whole argument.
Not
a coding class
Programming appears at Grades 9–12, where the national curriculum puts it.
Instead
Judgement about machines, long before syntax.
Not
a robotics kit
Nothing to purchase per child, nothing that breaks, nothing that needs a lab.
Instead
Cards, paper and a classroom floor — eleven of twelve activities need no power.
Not
an app subscription
No engagement scores, no streaks, no notifications, no child logging in.
Instead
A paper log the child fills in, and takes home at the end.
Not
an answer machine
Nothing is submitted automatically, and no output is accepted as fact.
Instead
The learner's own attempt, first, in every single session.
It is not lying to you. It does not know that it does not know.
Inside a session
Eighty minutes a week, accounted for minute by minute.
Both session types run to a fixed shape, so a class teacher can predict them, observe them, and eventually deliver them without us.
Session A
Wonder Circle · 35 min · no screen
0–3
The chant
Try, Ask, Check, Make, Show — said together with five hand signs.
3–7
Last week's catch
Two children read out a machine mistake they found at home.
7–12
Think Ahead minute
One planning, patience or protection question.
12–27
The unplugged activity
Cards, movement, role-play or paper, in groups of five.
27–32
Say it out loud
Two groups explain their reasoning. Disagreement is welcomed.
32–35
Log and close
The take-home card is read aloud, so no child depends on reading it.
Session B
Discovery Lab · 45 min · one display
0–5
Try First, on paper
Every child writes their own answer before the display is switched on.
5–10
Build the class question
The class dictates one precise question; the teacher types it exactly.
10–22
The demonstration
Twelve narrated minutes. Everything read aloud. Hands stay on the desk.
22–25
Screen off, verdict up
Children rate it: right, half-right, confidently wrong.
25–40
Back on paper
The build, the mistake hunt, or the storyboard.
40–45
Sixty seconds, then log
One child per group explains without notes.
Hands on the desk
No child touches a device during the demonstration.
Read it aloud
Nothing appears on screen that has not been spoken.
The coordinator's seat
School staff sit at the back, able to stop the session instantly.
If the power fails
Eleven of twelve activities need no electricity.
Non-negotiables
Twelve rules that cannot be waived, by anyone, for any reason.
These are not a disclaimer at the back of a document. They are the operating conditions of the programme. If a rule cannot be met in a school, the cohort does not run there until it can.
01
No student accounts
No child creates or logs into an account on any AI service. One supervised class access point, operated by an adult.
02
No child at the keyboard
The adult types. In Week 8 the group instructs and the adult executes. Children direct; they do not operate.
03
No personal data, ever
No name, school, address, photo, phone, roll number or Aadhaar is entered anywhere. Projects use invented characters.
04
Try First
The child's own attempt is on paper before any machine speaks. A facilitator who skips this has breached the method.
05
Visible screen, always
One display, facing the room. No private screens, no headphones, no session behind a closed door.
06
Read everything aloud
Every prompt typed and every answer received is voiced by the adult. Nothing enters the room silently.
07
Pre-approved demonstrations
Scripted, rehearsed and cleared with the school coordinator beforehand. No improvised prompting in front of children.
08
Screen off before discussion
If anything unexpected appears, the display goes off first. Logged and reported to the school the same day.
09
Two adults in the room
A Grow10X facilitator and a school staff member, together, every session. The school member holds unconditional stop authority.
10
Check before believing
No machine output is treated as fact until checked against the textbook, the teacher, or a trusted adult.
11
No selling, ever
No product, brand offer, app or lead capture reaches a child, or travels through a child to a parent.
12
School policy wins
Where anything here conflicts with the school's own honesty, device or child-protection policy, the school's policy takes precedence.
If an activity cannot be run with the screen facing the whole room and every word spoken aloud, it does not belong in a Classes 3–5 classroom.
Child data protection
Built to the DPDP standard by not collecting the data at all.
The DPDP Act 2023 and Rules 2025 require verifiable parental consent before a child's personal data is processed, and prohibit tracking and targeted advertising aimed at children. This programme is designed so the simplest compliance route is also the best pedagogy.
Verifiable parental consent
A signed, purpose-specific form collected and held by the school before enrolment, and separately re-confirmed for any photography. A tick-box or a forwarded message is not consent.
Data minimisation
Grow10X receives no student personal data. Attendance and evidence stay with the school. Any reporting is aggregate — counts and percentages, never names.
No tracking of children
No app, no login, no analytics platform, no engagement score, no notification. The learning log is paper and goes home with the child.
No targeted advertising
No product, brand offer or lead capture reaches a child or travels through a child to a parent. This is a condition of delivery, not a preference.
Right to withdraw
A parent may withdraw at any point, in writing, with no reason required and no effect on the child's standing.
Third-party terms
Mainstream AI services bar independent use below 13. No child is placed on any such service.
What we store about a child
Nothing digital.
One paper log, kept in the classroom and taken home afterwards. One attendance sheet, held by the school. That is the complete record.
The Never-Share list — written by the children themselves
- My full name with my school
- Where I live, or my route home
- My photo, or my family's
- Any phone number
- Any password or PIN
- Aadhaar or any card number
- Anything about family money
- A secret a friend told me
Photography and publication
No image, video or identifiable work is published or shared without separate written parental consent obtained by the school for that specific use. Consent to participate is never treated as consent to publish.
Assessment
Proof over polish. A beautiful output is not enough.
From Grade 5 upward, work is weighted across five areas. In Classes 3–5 the same five areas are used, but described in words — no marks, no rank, no comparison between children.
Learning process
30%
Attempts, questions, source checks, reflection and steady improvement are visible.
Understanding
25%
The learner explains the concept and their project decisions in their own words.
Build quality
20%
The core feature works, stays in scope, and serves a named learner need.
Testing & honesty
15%
Failures are logged; AI assistance and limitations are disclosed.
Presentation
10%
The learner communicates problem, process, proof and next step clearly.
Every learner's evidence pack
- A baseline task or self-assessment
- A prompt or question repair exercise
- A verified study artefact
- A paper plan or workflow map
- A build journal showing real decisions
- A test log with failures and improvements
- The final project, and the learner's own reflection
No marks guarantee
The programme is designed to strengthen understanding, habits and confidence. It does not promise a particular school or examination result — and a learner who reports a failure clearly is assessed higher than one with a smooth demo and nothing to report.
For parents
Six things you can see at the dinner table.
If an outcome cannot be noticed at home without being announced, it does not belong in a Classes 3–5 programme.
Schoolwork, strengthened
Each week is tied to a live Classes 3–5 outcome: reading for evidence, explaining in full sentences, sorting, patterns, cause and effect.
At home: The child explains instead of repeating.
A child who questions
The Try First rule is absolute — the child's own attempt goes on paper before any machine speaks.
At home: “But how do you know?”
Real online safety
One rule a child can actually use: my name, school, address, photo, family's money and any password never get typed into a machine.
At home: Refuses a form, and says why.
Screen time goes down
No home screen work at all, and about fifteen minutes in class. Children also learn to name their own screen habits.
At home: Notices their own screen use.
Fairness, as part of the subject
Who does a tool leave out — the classmate who cannot see, the grandparent who speaks only Marathi? This is the national curriculum's own theme.
At home: Argues about what is fair.
The Think Ahead habit
Five minutes a week: plan a little, wait a little, protect what matters, tell a trusted adult. No product is ever mentioned to a child.
At home: Plans before starting.
The questions parents actually ask
Answered straight, including the noes.
The Ministry of Education has decided it is not — the national curriculum begins at Class 3 from 2026–27. And your child already lives with AI: it picks the next video and unlocks the phone. The choice is not whether they meet it, but whether an adult explains it.
For teachers
The school keeps the capability, not just the cohort.
By the end of eight weeks one of your own teachers should be able to run the pathway again with the next Class 3 batch, unaided. That is the design goal, not a bonus.
- Before Week 1Half-day orientation
The five-step method, the twelve non-negotiables, the exclusion list, the data position, and a walk-through of the learning log.
- Weeks 1–4Teacher observes
The facilitator leads. Your class teacher runs the Think Ahead minute from Week 2, and one unplugged activity from Week 3.
- Weeks 5–8Teacher co-delivers
Your teacher leads the Wonder Circle; the facilitator leads the Discovery Lab and holds the keyboard. Reversed by Week 8 where the teacher is ready.
- AfterTeacher owns it
The school keeps the twelve activity cards, the session scripts, the take-home set, the rubric and the log master.
What the teacher does not have to do
- Learn to code, or use any AI tool themselves before Week 1
- Write lesson plans — all sixteen sessions are scripted
- Mark anything: there are no scores, no papers to correct
- Manage devices, accounts or passwords for children
The facilitator pack uses the same vocabulary as the NISHTHA teacher-training modules and the NCERT handbooks prepared alongside the national rollout — so a teacher trained here is not learning a second, competing language.
For schools
What a school protects — and where we would tell you not to start.
These are preconditions, not preferences. We would rather lose a cohort than run one badly at this age.
Time
16 sessions across 8 weeks — a 35-minute circle and a 45-minute lab each week. About 11 guided hours.
Cohort
Up to 30 children per facilitator, seated in groups of five. A combined Classes 3–5 cohort works.
Room
An ordinary classroom with movable seating for a circle and group work, and one display facing the room.
Access
A browser on one teacher machine, on the school's own network behind the school's own content filter.
People
A trained facilitator plus a designated school coordinator in every session, with stop authority. Ideally the class teacher.
Calendar
Scheduled away from your examination weeks. Testing time and the showcase are booked before the cohort starts.
This is a good fit if
- You need a Classes 3–5 answer to the 2026–27 AI curriculum, evidenced
- You can protect eighty minutes a week outside examination periods
- You want your own teachers to end up owning the delivery
- Your parent body will ask hard questions about screens and data
Do not start if
- You cannot guarantee two adults in the room for every session
- You want a coding class, a robotics lab, or a certificate to advertise
- You need a promise that it will raise examination results
- Consent cannot be collected and held through your own office
How a pilot actually runs
Stage 1 · 3–4 weeks
Fit and approvals
School selection, a device and filter audit, consent forms and the demonstration list approved, facilitators briefed on your child-protection policy.
Stage 2 · 1–2 weeks
Parents and teachers first
Letter issued and a parent orientation held before any child begins. Half-day teacher orientation. Consents collected by your office.
Stage 3 · 8–10 weeks
One cohort
A single cohort of up to 30 children runs the full core, the teacher moving from observing to co-delivering. Any incident reported same-day.
Stage 4 · 2–3 weeks
Honest review
Evidence reviewed against the pilot indicators; teachers, coordinator and a sample of parents surveyed. What failed is written down before anything is repeated.
Where we are honest: AI Scouts is a pilot-stage programme. It has not yet run a full cohort, so we publish no completion statistics and make no claims about results. The success thresholds we work to are targets set from the delivery model — and we will tell you what missed them.
Next step
One pilot cohort. Thirty children. Eight weeks.
We would rather run one cohort properly and show you what failed than sell you a rollout. Tell us about your school and we will send the full curriculum pack — all eight weeks, the session scripts, the safety rules and the parent letter you can send home.
- What you get first
- The 43-page curriculum pack as a PDF, plus the parent letter as an editable document.
- What we need from you
- Board, city, how many Classes 3–5 sections, and whether you can protect eighty minutes a week.
- What it is not
- A licence, a subscription, or a device purchase. Pricing is a conversation once the fit is clear.