Balvatika

Balvatika means children's garden, and under NEP 2020 it names the three pre-primary years that now sit formally inside school: Balvatika 1, 2 and 3, at roughly ages 3–4, 4–5 and 5–6. Most schools continue to call these years Nursery, Lower KG and Upper KG, and parents certainly do. The names are interchangeable in ordinary speech; the policy's point is that they are school years with a curriculum, not a holding pattern.

We use Nursery, Lower KG and Upper KG, because that is what a parent in Garalgacha actually says — and we add Pre-Nursery below them, from age two.