Community service and extracurricular activities are part of the students' schooling, as are discussions, assemblies and club meetings.

It is located close to the town of Madanapalle, Krishnamurti's birthplace, in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

The school is known for its Krishnamurti's teachings-inspired curricula, which includes developing an appreciation for the environment, art and music, and athletics in addition to traditional subjects.

[1] Rishi Valley was born with the idea of starting a world university, conceptualized by Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society, in 1925.

However, before the land was completely assembled, Besant abandoned the idea of a world university because there were more pressing matters of national importance for her, such as India's Home Rule Movement.

Just as the move was completed, an unprecedented 50 inches of rainfall graced Rishi Valley's parched landscape and the area was inundated with water.

[7] Subba Rao's decade-long tenure (1931–1941) was a pioneering one, with some of the teaching methods carried over from his experiences at the Guindy School.

GVS laid the groundwork for the school by practicing a simple lifestyle that included meditation, a quiet life, austerity with material possessions, and harmony with nature.

The beautiful natural expanse of the valley provides for some quiet retreats for 'nature studies'-outdoor lessons which were a part of the timetable.

[8] All senses of division were supposed to be eliminated: caste, gender, religion, and that of anything which might cause fractious relationships among students.

[10] As a result, Subbarao became 'dangerous' for proliferating such material during the heat of the freedom struggle and the wartime constraints Britain was facing at that time.

This incident was later found to have been caused by a disaffected senior student who tipped off the police about the presence of communist literature on campus.

[11] The resignation of GVS had consequences that brought the school to a standstill: expenditures were cut back sharply, co-curricular activities were curtailed and some of the best teachers left.

The fees were reduced to a low level to attract a wide range of students even though it put some pressure on the budget.

S. Balasundaram was made a member of the Krishnamurti Foundation India in December 1955, and took charge of the Rishi Valley estate while simultaneously teaching at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

The administration felt that Rishi Valley should not live in isolation from neighboring communities, and that a Rural Centre be formed which would help the surrounding villages with housing, health, adult education and also provide schemes for them in agriculture and dairy farming.

F. Gordon Pearce, the principal of Rishi Valley School after the Second World War, came up with the idea of Asthachal (sunset point), a tradition which survives to this day.

It is a short but peaceful period of time, which gives children an opportunity for quiet reflection, observation of nature, daydreaming or watching their own thoughts.

Religious and cultural festivals and occasions are celebrated in Rishi Valley like Christmas, Ugadi, Shivaratri and Makara Sankranti (Pongal) when villagers come and perform for the children.

Student cultural activities include: classical Indian dance (Bharatnatyam), Carnatic music, Mridangam, Violin, Tabla and Piano.

[citation needed] Sports include football, cricket, athletics, basketball and volleyball, tennis and badminton.

There is an annual Athletics Meet ("Sports Day") and seasonal football, cricket and basketball extramural matches (colloquially referred to as "Externals") between Rishi Valley and the neighboring teams.

Rishi Valley stands around 800 meters above sea level, and thus it experiences a pleasant climate, with temperatures rarely rising above 38 °C (100.4 °F) or falling below 10 °C (50 °F).

Though the humus content in the soil is low, it is able to support a variety of vegetational types, such as a small zone of wetlands, deciduous woodlands, dry scrublands and drylands.

In 1980, 150 acres of adjoining hillside were leased to Rishi Valley School by the government of Andhra Pradesh for reforestation.

[26] Despite this, relations with the surrounding villages remained tense for several years, during which time the reforestation drive on the South Hills began in earnest.

Almost 20,000 trees and shrubs and thousands of seedlings were planted by students of the school during these years, although their efforts were thwarted to some extent by prolonged droughts in the region during the 1980s.

The large basin was to collect rain water from surrounding hills and service through underground channels the dry wells throughout the valley and beyond.

This event was reported to the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP), and as a result, Rishi Valley was included in the Biodiversity Map and Computerized Data Base maintained by the council at its headquarters in Cambridge, England, as one of the areas in the tropics for global conservation, whose response was: "We have little recent published information on the distribution of this species in the ornithological literature, despite the fact that it is unique to India and apparently rather a scarce bird.

In 1997, Rishi Valley set up an Institute for Bird Studies and Natural History, which monitors bird populations in the vicinity and currently runs a Home Studies Course in Ornithology Rural Education Centre[20] innovated Multi grade teaching methodology in which children are not divided into different annual grades, but children are taught and assessed continuously.