The Bishop's School (Pune)

St. Mathews Academy
Location
Pune, Maharashtra
India India
Information
Type Private
Motto "Thorough!"
Established 1864
Principal Mr. Frank R. Freese
Faculty 320+ staff
Number of students 10,500+ students
Color(s) Maroon Gold
Slogan "Play up Bishops, Never let our colours fall"
Website http://www.thebishopsschool.org

The Bishop's School, Pune, India, was established by Lt. Col Sydney T. Stock on 19 April 1864 to cater for the sons of warrant officers and non-commissioned officers of the British Indian Army. The school has since functioned as a Christian Anglo-Indian minority institution.[1] It is located in Pune Cantonment close to MG road. In addition to its day school, Bishop's also has a boarding school. The school has three branches, with the one in Camp being the first and oldest and an all-boys school. The school has opened two branches in the Kalyani Nagar and Undri areas of Pune. These branches, unlike the flagship camp branch, are co-educational.

Bishop's School (2)

The school is ranked 1st in the city(Pune), 12th in the State(Maharashtra) and 44th in the country(India).[2]

The school is affiliated to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), New Delhi.

Location and Branches

The Bishop's School, Kalyaninagar

The main campus is situated in Pune Cantonment, 2 km from Pune Railway Station. The campus is one of the oldest school campuses in India, and one of the most important landmarks of Pune. Adjacent to the campus is the St. Marys Church built by the British in the 19th century.

Following rapid development of the city and increasing demand for education, the school opened two new branches at Kalyani Nagar and Undri areas of Pune.

Administration

The Bishops School, Pune is administered by a board of governors traditionally many of its members are or were military officers, they formed the Bishops Education Society, the management council appoints a Principal to administer the schools. The society appoints a Headmaster to administer the Camp School.

Clothing

Mr A.E. Lunn Principal, The Bishops School, Pune created the all white school uniform, with a maroon and gold stable belt, which includes a brass buckle emblazoned with the school crest of a Bishop's Mitre and the school motto "Thorough" embossed on the buckle, other accoutriments include a maroon blazer with a school crest emblazoned on the top left pocket in the individual's house colour, this changed in the 1960s to a gold school crest with the school motto "Thorough" and the date 1864 to that years date often with personalised information on the owner's status, such as 'House Captain' or 'Prefect'. This was only possible because the school crest was sewn on to the blazer top left pocket. At some point in the 1970s the school crest was sewn directly onto the blazer pocket, so the title of 'Prefect' now appears on a lapel pin badge. The blazer buttons are silver with a gold school crest on them. The school jumper is maroon v-neck with two gold bands around the neck and waistline of the garment. The school tie is maroon with gold stripes, while school house captains and prefects wear a maroon tie with the gold school crest emblazoned upon it. There used to be a silver tie-clip, which consisted of a silver chain with the school crest silver pendant suspended from the chain. The clip attached to the shirt, while the tie was passed through the loop of the chain. There were even white socks, with a maroon and gold band woven round the top.

After school hours the blues and greys uniforms are worn during free time and recreation. This consists of a blue shirt and grey trousers. For sports and recreational activities individuals wear their house shirts and shorts, which have two stripes of that individual's house colours running along the seams.

House system

The Bishop's School, Pune started with just three houses, Mansfield House (Maroon), Harding House (Blue), and Arnould House (Green), this was considered sufficient because there were only 120 boys and 7 staff members under the Rev A.R. Cooper, who was Principal from 1919 - 1946. Inter house sporting activities were rather casual events usually organised by the students themselves. Mr A.E. Lunn took over as Principal in 1947, he immediately recognised the necessity of increasing staff faculty and student numbers if Bishops was to survive as a credible academic institution. By the early 1950s staff faculty and student numbers had increased exponentially and an interest in physically proactive sporting activities was growing consistently and becoming more organised. Mr William (Bill) J. Wright joined Bishops in 1948 and was subsequently appointed the new fourth Bishops House master between 1950 to 1953. Now with four houses: Arnold House (Green), Harding House (Blue), Mansfield House (Maroon) and Bishops House (Gold/Yellow). Every new student on joining Bishops is selected to join one of these four houses and their individual merits are added up with the rest of the members of the house and at the end of each academic year all the points are aggregated together and added up and the house with the greatest number of points is awarded the highly coveted honour of bearing the title "*** House". One thing is certain a great deal of effort, energy, rivalry, and passion is expended by every student in an effort to ensure that his house earns that highly sought after title...

In Bishop's Kalyaninagar there are four houses Cooper (Green), Freese (Blue), Roberts (Maroon), and Lunn (Gold/Yellow). Undri also follows a similar format, the houses are Rae (Red), O'Connor (Green), Wintle (Blue) and Young (Gold/Yellow).

Grading system

Instead of deriving a student's percentage at the end of a semester there is a point system. For every bracket of marks a student gets a certain point score is allocated. The student with the least number of points gets to the highest level in class.

In the senior classes, students are marked according to the Board exam pattern in order to provide a picture of their expected performance in the Board exams.

Academics

The school provides education up to the 10+2 level (ICSE and ISC). The average percentage of the students is 72 percent, with at least 40 boys scoring above 90 percent in each grade. The percentage of students who pass in this school is 97%.

Sports

Historically Bishops School, Pune used to include track and field sports including shot-put, javelin, discus, cross country long distance marathon race, and a long distance road run, 100metres, 200metres, 400metres, 800metres, 1,500metres and relay races, gymnastics (ground work and apparatus), boxing, sabre fencing, tug-o-war, swimming, and many other sporting activities including long jump, high jump, triple jump, rock climbing and rapelling. However, many of these sporting activities were dropped on health and safety grounds.

Sports include badminton, football, cricket, basketball, table tennis, hockey, volleyball and tennis. Cricketers who have passed out from Bishop's are playing in tournaments like the Ranji trophy. The school has won the PSAAA football cup 18 times and has triumphed in the All India Anglo-Indian football cup three times. It has won the PSAAA cricket cup seven times.

Other sports at the school are boxing (one of only two schools in Maharastra to have it as a part of its regular activities) and athletics. There are long distance runs where juniors run 2.5 km and seniors run 5 km).

Activities

Mr A.E. Lunn Principal of the Bishops School, Pune revived the First Pune Bharat Scout Group in the early 1950s, which promoted many outdoor activities and community services. However, the scout troop grew so large, it had to be split into two and the 'B' Troop was formed by Mr Tommy Thompson. The school also had a troop of Cub Scouts for junior individuals. The Scout Troops were very closely allied to the ASPT (Army School of Physical Training), the NDA (National Defence Academy), and the SRPF (State Reserve Police Force) the Maharashtra State armed paramilitary police force and the military ammunition factory in Kirkee. Because of these connections, the First Pune Bharat Scout Troops, had the unique distinction of using the military and SRPF firing ranges and test firing all types of munitions including LMGs (Light Machine Guns), HMGs (50 calibre Heavy Machine Guns), and 17 lbs 76mm tank guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons. It was not unusual to have 13 year olds, driving and commanding battle tanks on these military weapons training firing ranges under the command of regular military or SRPF officers. The First Pune Bharat Scout troop also had boats, which included a cox eight racing boat. (Which led to some interesting and robust racing challenges from the military engineers, which also had boats and pontoons). The school is known for inter school football in which they are almost unbeatable.

Please note: When the Panshet and Khadakwasla dams burst on the 12 July 1961 causing vast devastation and loss of life in Pune, the Bishops School First Pune Bharat Scout Troops were mobilised and sent into the affected areas to support the clean up operations.

Every Friday evening at 21.00 Hrs the school screens a film, which was arranged by Mr Jagos for all the boarders and dayscholars a tradition, which continues to the present day.

The school holds concerts including a joint staff and student play at the end of every academic year that was open to the public, choirs, debates, quiz competitions, essay writing, science fair, art competition, boxing, and gymnastics display.

Notable alumni

References

  1. ↑ "YReach".
  2. ↑ "Education World Rankings" (PDF).

External links