St. James School, Entally, Kolkata

Overview

St James’ School, Kolkata is an all boys day school associated with St. James Church, Kolkata and is affiliated with the Council of Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE). The school was established in 1864 by Bishop Cotton. It is a Church of North India school and one of the oldest private schools in India. ,

The school closed in December 1904 due to financial difficulties, causing an upsurge of sentiments among parents, well wishers and alumni of the school. In 1907, it was reopened with financial assistance from the Church Education League. However, it again ran into difficulties and closed in 1918. It opened its doors again in 1924 under the rectorship of The Reverend Thomas H. Cashmore, also the Vicar of St. James’ Church.

The school motto is “Pro Ecclesia Et Pro Patria”, meaning “For church and for country”.

Campus

The school has separate buildings for the junior and senior schools. The campus houses a large field, a shaded basketball court, playground for junior school children that comprises of swings, jungle gym etc. The school also has a large hall for morning assemblies, a library with huge collection of books, an air-conditioned computer room with 40 modern standard computers and internet access. The school has separate laboratories for physics, chemistry and biology with latest equipments.

Academics

Grading system is used in the junior classes to judge the students on academics. Each class is under the supervision of a single teacher who teaches all the subjects and interacts with the students for their betterment in academics. Children are taken for an educational field trip once a year and for weekly trips to the school library.

In class I, students are introduced to the study of a vernacular language of their choice – either Hindi or Bengali. In class II, children are introduced to general science and in class III they are introduced to social studies as a subject. In class IV, students are given an opportunity to show case their leadership skills as the best students from the preceding 6 years are chosen to be junior school leaders to lead their fellow students.

In the middle school, students are introduced to half-yearly and annual examinations and higher level of study of the subjects already being taught.

In senior school, seminars and workshops are held. From class IX onwards, students no longer study third language and can choose their stream of science or commerce along with a sixth subject from computer (only science students), economics, art or physical education. The students of class X appear for their first board examination for which the school prepares them by arranging two pre-board examinations to improve on their academics.

In class XI, science students can choose between biology, computers, economics, physical education or art for their sixth subject, while commerce students are introduced to accountancy and can choose between business studies and math; their sixth subject may be economics, physical education or art.

Class XII students are given the chance to be prefects and they have the highest powers assigned among the students. They also prepare for the Indian School Certificate (I.S.C.) examinations in the last year of their school life.