Cities / Chennai / Surana High Tech International School
Surana High Tech International School
A small, young IB candidate primary school in the heart of Besant Nagar, run by the long-established Surana group and built around project-based, inquiry-led learning.
In brief
A small, young IB candidate primary school in the heart of Besant Nagar, run by the long-established Surana group and built around project-based, inquiry-led learning.
Surana High Tech sits in Besant Nagar, a quiet beachside pocket of south Chennai, and is operated by the Surana Group of Institutions, which already runs CBSE and other schools across the city. The campus is an IB Primary Years candidate school rather than an authorised one, and it currently runs only the early years through middle school, roughly KG to Class 8 (ages 3 to 13). The teaching model leans on transdisciplinary projects, technology in classrooms from kindergarten, and a stated link with High Tech High in California.
It is a genuinely small, recent operation, with enrolment numbering in the low tens rather than hundreds, so families are buying into a school still establishing itself rather than a settled institution. Indicative fees run around INR 2 lakh a year. The published curriculum stops at the primary and middle stage, with no upper school yet in place. The principal is Ms. Kiran Merchant.
Fees
Annual fees
| Year level | Age | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee (indicative) | ₹200,000 |
Reviews
Parent accounts cluster around the early and lower-primary grades, where families describe young children settling in happily and a campus where the principal, management, and teaching staff are reachable in person rather than at a distance. The recurring note is the hands-on, technology-led classroom: parents talk about screens, robotics kits, and project work folded into day-to-day teaching, and about an IB approach that has been adapted to a Chennai and Indian frame rather than imported wholesale. Set against that, the listed logistics are spare, with families arranging their own transport and after-school cover, and the body of independent parent comment is small and skews early-years, so a longer lived record across the upper grades is not yet there to read.
Positives
- Technology-led, inquiry classrooms. Parents single out the way screens, robotics, and project work are built into everyday teaching, with one describing technology folded into the traditional classroom to support self-led inquiry. The hands-on, build-things texture comes through as the school's distinctive draw.
- Small school, reachable staff. Families describe the principal, management, and teachers as personally approachable, the kind of attention that comes with a low-roll campus. Several frame the small scale and central Besant Nagar location as the reason their child is known by name.
- Early years settling. The strongest thread is from pre-KG and lower-primary parents, who report children happy to go in each day and visible progress in the first year. The warmth of the early-years experience is what most reviewers return to.
- IB adapted to a local frame. Parents value that the IB programme has been tailored to an Indian and Chennai cultural setting rather than run as a straight import, which several call a clear plus for local families.
Considerations
- Transport and after-school cover fall to families. Listings consistently show no school-run bus and no on-site daycare, leaving pick-up, drop-off, and after-school arrangements to parents. For a school drawing from across the city, the daily logistics sit with the family rather than the campus.
- Short, early-skewed track record. The pool of independent parent comment is small and weighted to the youngest grades, with little that speaks to the middle years or to outcomes further up. The settled record an established school can point to is not yet there to read.
Leadership
Ms. Kiran Merchant
Gone are the days when learners flourished by being ‘book smart’ or ‘exam smart.’ For the current generation of learners, education is not just about being ‘smart’ or a means for gaining employment but for nourishing their inner selves, arising out of curiosity, context, and identity. These are essential and incredibly powerful gateways to deeper learning and understanding. A School’s mission should, therefore not be restricted to academic excellence but also help their learner discover their true self, and empower them with skills and attributes to help them thrive in the highly dynamic world.
Location
E-153, 6th Cross St, RBI Quarters, Besant Nagar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600090, India