St. James' School

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The main school building

St. James' School


Motto	Pro Ecclesia Et Pro Patria
Established	1864
Type	Private
Principal	Terence Hamilton Ireland
Staff	Varies
Students	Varies
Location	Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Campus	Urban
Nickname	Jacobeans
Website	N/A

St James' School, Kolkata, India, is a well known CNI school, and one of the oldest public schools in India. It is associated with the ICSE board of education. It was established in 1864 by Bishop Cotton.

The current principal is T.H Ireland; past principals have included the well-known educators John Mason and D.L. Bloud. The school, with its adjoining unique, double steepled church, is well known in eastern India not only for its curricular prowess but also for the extracurricular merit shown by its students. At present the school is equipped with a basketball court, a huge games field, unique in a crowded city like Kolkata, a fully air-conditioned computer lab and three science labs.

The school motto is "Pro Ecclesia Et Pro Patria", which may be rendered as "For Church and for Country".

1 Houses
2 Activities and awards
3 School timings
4 External links

[edit] Houses

The students are divided into four houses, each named after one of the school's founding members. They are Copleston (yellow), Westcott (red), Cotton (green) and Lefroy (blue), named for bishops of the Anglican Church in India. Competition between the houses takes place in the form of interhouse activities like quizzing, debating, athletics, drama, and elocution, as also the Monday morning uniform inspection. Meritorious houses are awarded house points and the house with the most points at the end of the year wins the prestigious Cock House cup, which was instituted following a gift from the RAF after the school buildings were used as barracks during World War II.

[edit] Activities and awards

Interschool activities are stressed at St James', the school having won The Telegraph School of the Year award (given by a local English daily) a number of times for its prowess at interschool activities. Recently, in the year 2005, the school,after having won the award for a record sixth time was inducted into The Telegraph Hall of Fame. This meant that the school would not be eligible for this award again in the future so as to give other schools a fair chance. Non-competition activities take place in the form of various clubs like drama, space, nature, interact, eastern Cultural, quiz, SPICMACAY and various other clubs, each hosting a number of public events throughout the year, ranging from the annual photography contest of the photography club to the annual interschool quiz organised by the quiz club, known as 'Jaco-Iz'. One of the most sought after fests, Jaco-synthesis is hosted by this school. The students call themselves Jacobeans, as does the annual school magazine.

[edit] School timings

School is open on week days from Monday to Friday. The timings are, as follows:

Start - 7:45 a.m.

Assembly - 7:50

Periods 1 to 4 - 8:15 to 10:45

Break - 10:45 to 11:05

Periods 5 to 8 - 11:05 to 1:30p.m.

Dismissal - 1:30.p.m

Apart from these standard timings, many extra-curricular activities are held after school (e.g. inter-class football, cricket etc matches). School is also open on Saturdays for Cubbing, Scouting , the chess club, school cricket team practice and school basketball team practice.