| St. Paul's School | |
|---|---|
|
Moniti Meliora Sequamur
|
|
| Location | |
| Darjeeling, West Bengal INDIA |
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| Information | |
| Type | Residential |
| Established | 1823 |
| Founder | John William Ricketts |
| Chairman | Rt. Rev. Ashoke Biswas (Bishop of Calcutta, CNI) |
| Headmaster | Mr. R. H. Soler |
| Grades | Class 1 - 12 |
| Number of students | 800 approx. |
| Colour(s) | Maroon & Dark Blue
|
| Affiliation | Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Examination (ICSE) and The Indian School Certificate Examination (ISC) |
| Former Pupils | Old Paulites |
| Old Paulites Web Forum | Old Paulites Web |
| Website | [1] |
Founded in 1823, St. Paul's School is one of Asia's oldest and most pre-eminent private boarding schools known for its rich academic tradition and elite alumni base. It is located in the town of Darjeeling, in the far northern portion of India. At about 7,800 feet (2,400 m) above sea level, it is the highest private boarding school in the world. The school is also known as Eton college of the East due to its exclusive nature. Admission is extremely competitive and the exorbitant fee structure and quality of education makes it an institution attended only by the elite of Asia.It is one of the most coveted and multicultural school in Asia and there are alumni associations in 50 nations with regional head quarters in the UK, USA, India and Dubai. St.Paul's is home to over 750 Indian and international students from neighboring Sub-continental,South-East Asian and European countries. The school is run by the Church of North India and is led by the Rector, who functions as a school principal and resides on the sprawling 69-acre (280,000 m2)school campus. The school follows the curriculum prescribed by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations based in New Delhi and is considered the most academically prestigious residential school in the nation with most graduates going on to finance, diplomacy, politics, the armed forces and the law.
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In 1823, John William Ricketts, an Anglo-Indian leader from Calcutta, conceived the idea of a school to meet the educational needs of the growing British and Anglo-Indian community in Calcutta. At 7:00 AM on (Thursday) May 1, 1823, the Parental Academic Institution was established and started functioning on 11, Park Street between the Archbishop House and the then Sans Souci Theatre with an amount of then Rs 3551. The first Principal of the institution was Dr George Smith.
In 1847, the school was renamed St. Paul's School by Bishop Wilson, who had associated the school with St. Paul's Cathedral in Calcutta. During 1863, the school was in difficulties and Bishop Cotton decided to move the school to Darjeeling. The current buildings were not the location of the initial school and were later additions as the school expanded.
In 1864, the school was moved to its present Jalapahar ("Burning Mountain") estate in Darjeeling with 31 boarders and a few day scholars. The estate was purchased from Mr Brian Hodgson for Rs.45,000. The original two-storied building, built on what is today known as the Lower Field, no longer exists, and the magnificent buildings that form the core of the school were largely built in 1898. The first electricity lines in the school were connected in 1909. The Lefroy Hospital was commissioned in 1914 and the Lyon Hall in 1915 respectively. In 1920, the chapel was demolished to make room for Westcott Hall, thanks to a liberal donation from the Maharaja of Burdwan. Construction for the existing school chapel began in 1933 and was completed in 1935.
The Rectory in St. Paul's School, Darjeeling houses the Rector of the school and his family. The Rectory is one of the oldest buildings in Darjeeling hailing from the British-Indian Era. Built in 1813, it was the residence of the owner of the Jalapahar estate till 1864. In 1864 Bishop G. E. L. Cotton acquired the Jalapahar Estate for establishing the School and this building was christened the 'Rectory' which remains, till today, the official residence of the Rector.
'Pelly's' is the residential building which houses the official residence of the Senior Master of St. Paul's School and his family. The building is named after a former Rector of the School, Rev. R. L. Pelly.
A number of its students fought in both World War I and World War II. Many of those who died are remembered in plaques that can be found in the school chapel. Bishop Foss Westcott, Metropolitan of Bengal, Burma and Ceylon, played a very important role in the school. L. J. Goddard, was the longest serving and, perhaps, the most important Rector, leading the school between 1934 and 1964 — including the transition from British-ruled to independent India. His successors were David Gibbs (1964–72) and Hari Dang (1977–84). L.J.Goddard and David Gibbs received the OBE.Goddard for his contribution to Education in India and his work at St Pauls and Gibbs for his work at St. Paul's, while Dang received the Padma Shri.
Over the years, a number of estates were purchased and merged with the existing school estate, thus growing to its present size. The Mount Vernon Estate (now known as Dawkins) was purchased at the beginning of the 1900s and the Terpsithea Estate in 1955.[1] The school was under the guidance of Mr. Gardner from 1984-1990.
Today, St.Paul's is home to over 750 Indian and international students from neighboring Sub-continental,South-East Asian and European countries. Mr. R. H. Soler (2007–present) is the Officiating Rector and Headmaster (Senior Master) of the school.
The school is situated in Darjeeling and shares the Jalapahar estate with an Indian Army Cantonment. It is the highest public school in the world, located at 7,800 feet (2,400 m) above sea level. The Kanchenjunga mountain range forms the scenic backdrop to the school. The school is physically separated from Darjeeling by its location on a high hill that is a few kilometres above the main town. Large expanses of wild land and greenery surrounds the campus, affording the campus a feeling of isolation and spectacular views of the town, the high foothills and snowy peaks of the Himalayas. Many believe the school's tennis and basketball courts are the highest, and the Chapel the second-highest in the world.
| St. Paul's School Administration | |
|---|---|
| Headmaster | Mr. R. H. Soler |
| Bursar | Mr. K. Trivedi |
| Head, Jr.Wing | Mr. P. Lama |
| Dy. Head, Jr.Wing | Mr. A. Alva |
| Head, Pr.Wing | Mrs. C. Lawrence |
| Chaplain | Rev. J. Halder |
The school is divided into Primary Wing (Classes I-V), Junior Wing (Classes VI-VIII) and Senior Wing (Classes IX-XII). The three wings run independent of each other with the Primary Wing being more independent from the other wings by virtue of having a semi independent campus and slight difference in uniform. The Senior and Junior wing share many of their facilities with each other.
The Rector is the Head of the school. Next in line is the Senior Master who sees to the day to day functioning of the school, particularly the Senior Wing, while the operations of the Junior Wing and Primary Wing are seen to by the Head Junior Wing and Head Primary Wing respectively. All the departments of the school are run under the supervision of a Teacher in charge with the assistance of a student secretary.
The houses in the SW are named after distinguished persons from the British period of Indian History.
Clive - named after Lord Clive, the first Governor of Bengal.
Hastings - named after Lord Hastings, the Governor-General of Bengal from 1813-1823.
Havelock - named after Major-General Sir Henry Havelock, a British general, noted for his role in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Lawrence - named after John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence, the Viceroy of India from 1864 to 1869.
The houses in the JW are named after either great benefactors of the school or those who have been closely associated with the school.
Anderson - named after John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley, Governor of Bengal (1933–1935), a benefactor to the school library.
Betten - named after Mr. Malcolm Betten, a tea planter and a member of the Board of Governors of St. Paul's School.
Cable - named after Ernest Cable, 1st Baron Cable, an old boy of the school and a very generous benefactor.
Westcott - named after Bishop Foss Westcott, Chairman of the Board of Governors of St. Paul's School for 35 years, and whose grave on the school grounds is a tourist attraction.
The houses in the PW are named and linked with the 1st successful expedition to Mount Everest in 1953.
Hunt - named after Lord Hunt - the leader of the expedition.
Hillary - named after Sir Edmund Hillary who climbed Mount Everest in 1953.
Tenzing - named after Tenzing Norgay who climbed Mount Everest in 1953.
Everest - named after Colonel Sir George Everest, former Surveyor-General of India. Mount Everest was named in his honour.
The staff is recruited from all over India. The staff of the Senior Wing are at least post-graduates from Indian and overseas universities. In the Junior wing and the Primary Wing, the staff is mainly composed of men and women who are trained teachers and under the direction of experienced heads. Most of the members of the staff live on the school estate. Some quarters adjoin the dormitories; others are on the boundaries of the estate in separate houses.
In addition to the teaching staff, there are the Matrons-in-charge of the personal welfare and care of the boys in the Senior, Junior and Primary Wings. Caterers are in charge of the boys' diet and of the cooking and serving of food. The Estate Manager’s duties include the maintenance of the buildings and of the estate in general along with the employment and welfare of the domestic staff.
Students of St. Pauls' are referred to as Paulites and the alumni as Old Paulites.
The school uniform for the senior wing and junior wing boys are white shirt, gray trouser, gray jersey, black shoes, school blazers and school tie — the uniforms must be bought from either of the three prescribed stores: Kapurchand and Sons (Darjeeling); Bepin Behari Das (Calcutta) Akberaly's (Calcutta). On a daily basis the students are not required to wear the school blazer and must substitute the school tie for their respective house ties. The boys of primary wing have the same uniform with a gray shirt substituting the white shirt and shorts for younger children. On visits outside of the school campus, all students are required to dress in prescribed suits and carry umbrellas, thus earning them the nickname chhata wala (chhata meaning umbrella in various Indian languages). The students of the sixth form wear distinct blazers from the rest of the students.
The student government consists of staff-appointed prefects, headed by a School Captain, who is assisted by the Vice Captain, house captains and prefects. These students are typically drawn from Class 12 in Senior Wing and impose order among the student body. Junior and Primary Wings have their own system of prefects and are called monitors, who exercise jurisdiction over their own wings. The sixth form students enjoy advantages over the rest of the students. The school prefects wear prefect's neck ties in order to distinguish themselves from their peers.
The Gerrard Van gym is the new privately-maintained gym. It has bodybuilding equipment and provides energy drinks, bars and supplements. At the end of the year, certificates are given to punctual and progressive students. Students were earlier trained to perform annual artistic gymnastics exhibitions which included uneven parallel bars, balance beam, floor exercises and other such activities at the Darjeeling Gymkhana Club, although this practice has since been discontinued. When boxing was part of the school sports calendar, a ring used to be built in the gym.
Community-service and nation-building programmes are a part of the school programmes under the NCC, The Duke of Edinburgh's Award, the IAYP and Outward Bound activities.
These are all run by the boys under the supervision of masters. Each of the four Houses in the Senior Wing presents a concert from time to time, and the School Dramatic Society stages a play annually in October. Indian and Western music and elocution and drama play a part in the lives of the boys, assisting in the development of self-confidence. A boy joins the club of his choice at the commencement of first term. In the Senior Wing, the hobbies that are encouraged include Arts and crafts, Indian and Western classical music, model making, photography, woodworking and lathe work, and computer programming.
In the book Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (2001), the authors Paul Dimeo and James Mills credit former Rector, L J Goddard, with "ensuring the popularity of soccer at the school as he created new pitches and played in the school XI. He did the same for cricket. The game tradition that he made secure lives on to this day in the Anglo-Indian St. Paul's.... Goddard was responsible for transforming a crumbling monument to inefficiency and woolly-mindedness into one of the finest education institutions in Asia. Renowned for its academic and athletic achievements, for its highly-disciplined, well-mannered boys and its healthy cosmopolitanism...."[2] The school places stress on the development of sports spirit among the students. The school follows a sports calendar with seasons reserved for different sports. The major sports seasons are cricket, football, hockey, marathon and athletics. While other sports like basketball, volleyball, tennis, squash, eton fives and gymnastics are interjected between the major seasons. It is compulsory for all students to compete in inter-house leagues for all the sports during their respective seasons. The seasons end with the house teams competing against each other for the championships. The school has official teams for most of the sports which represent the school. St. Paul's School is one of the few places in the world and the only one in India which maintains an eton fives court and plays the sport as a part of their annual sports calendar.
The school has an annual prize-giving ceremony where awards are given out for excellence in academics, sports and extra-curricular activities. During the annual Sports Day, certificates recognizing athletic achievements are given to the students. The school also follows the tradition of awarding Colours to students for exceptional achievements in sports or other extra-curricular activities. The award gives the recipient the privilege of wearing a special necktie and a star under the school crest on his school blazer. Receiving five Colours gives the student the privilege of wearing a special white blazer. However, Colours are awarded sparsely and years may separate them, while white blazers are extremely rare, with only a few instances being recorded in the school's long history. On the last day of school, called G.H.D, trophies are given out to the houses for winning intra-school tournaments and events. One house traditionally is recognized as the winner of the year based on year-long tabulation of points earned during various inter-house competitions. Besides "bragging" rights for the next year, the house also wins the ″Sikkim Shield″, which is displayed in the winning house's corner in the dining hall for the following year.
The school publishes a fortnightly student-run magazine called The Paulite and an annual St. Paul's School Chronicle; besides these, the Kolkata-based Old Paulites Association publishes a magazine for the school alumni. The Old Paulite Association (Europe) publishes and circulates a bi-annual Newsletter.
The Chapel holds a central place in the life of the school. It is here that the school meets as a community for prayer and worship. Students from the Senior and Junior Wings attend Chapel daily, while the boys from the Primary Wing attend on a weekly basis. It is the Chapel where the daily announcements are made. Boys and staff of diverse faiths worship together in the Chapel. Boys and staff of many faiths and denominations share and to some extent officiate, in the experience. Many of the Occasional Prayers used in the service book are poems from Gitanjali or are other works by Rabindranath Tagore, or are quotations from the Gathas, or from Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda, or from the Bhagavad Gita, or the Koran along with Christian prayers.
The environment the children grow up in is strictly controlled, and interaction with the outside is limited to exeats (permits for town leaves) twice a month for the boys of the Senior Wing, once a month for the boys of the Junior Wing and once in two months chaperoned exeats for the boys of the Primary Wing. During these exeats, the movement of the students are restricted and many areas of Darjeeling are out of bounds for them. The students are allowed a limited amount of pocket money and must wear the prescribed school uniform. Besides the day exeats, overnight exeats, typically over certain weekends, are issued (the frequency of which differs from wing to wing) to children when a parent or a person authorized by the parents visits the boy. Even during these overnight exeats, the student is expected to follow the schools guidelines pertaining to the dress code and out of limit areas.
Darjeeling has gloomy and persistent rainfall during the monsoon seasons, often lasting for days. The sunshine holiday is a unique feature of the school culture where an unscheduled holiday is declared on a sunny day after a long spell of Darjeeling monsoons.
A part of the school culture is the chota hazri, a tradition from the British Raj which is still practised today. Chota hazri is early morning tea served with biscuits. Chota hazri is more stringently followed in the Primary and Senior Wings.
According to the EW Survey of School 2009, conducted by Education World Magazine, the school has been acknowledged as the Best Residential School in Eastern India (Ranked 7th in India) and the Best Residential School in Academics in India for the year 2008-09.
According to the EducationWorld C-Fore Survey 2011, St Paul School, Darjeeling retains its position in the elite group of the 10 Best Residential Schools in the country and is the Best Residential School in Eastern India for the year 2010-2011. This recognition was formally received by the Headmaster, Mr R H Soler, at the Education World Awards Night on 17 September 2011 in New Delhi.
The Old Paulites Association is a community spread across the world, holding meetings in India, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Europe and North America. It has an Internet presence at the official website for Old Paulites. The Old Paulite Association (Europe) publishes and circulates a twice yearly newsletter.
Alumni with wikipedia articles are listed below -
The school has been featured in Hindi and Bengali language films. Hamraaz (1967), Mera Naam Joker (1970) by Raj Kapoor, Shimabaddha (1971) by Satyajit Ray, Do Anjaane (1976), Bada Din (2000), Main Hoon Na (2004) by Farah Khan and Chowrasta Crossroads of Love (2009) by Anjan Dutta are among them.
Vivien Leigh was born in the school campus at a place now known as Dawkins, beside the old basketball court. Today, Dawkins houses staff members teaching at the school.
In the year 2010, the school witnessed General V. K. Singh (Chief of Army Staff, India) as the chief guest to the 187th Speech Day.
The school motto is derived from the passage 'Cedamus Phoebo, et moniti meliora sequamur' in the Latin epic Aeneid by Virgil. 'Moniti meliora sequamur' means: "Having Been Advised, We Follow Better (Higher) Things".