Home/Student Life
The part of school that is not on the timetable
Character is formed in the yard, on the stage and on the ground as much as in the classroom.
Investiture
Responsibility, handed over in public
Each June the school gathers to invest its student leaders. The school pupil leader, the house captains and the prefects come forward, receive their sashes and badges, and make their pledge in front of the whole school and their parents.
It is deliberately formal. A responsibility conferred quietly is easy to put down again; one conferred in front of six hundred people tends to be kept. From that morning these students run the assembly, marshal the lines, look after the youngest children and answer for what happens on their watch.
The Annual Sports Meet
Twenty-eight years and counting
The Sports Meet is the largest day in the school year. It opens with the march past — houses behind their flags, the Olympic flag carried in front — and the lighting of the torch. Then every section of the school, from the smallest children upward, performs a mass drill display it has been rehearsing for weeks.
The track finals run through the afternoon and the day closes with the prize distribution: individual champions, the winning house, and the overall trophy presented on stage.
Almost nobody watches. Nearly every child in the school is in it somewhere, which is rather the point.
Clubs & activities
Where students find their footing
Scouts & Guides
The Bharat Scouts and Guides troop trains through the year and presents candidates at district test camps for the Rajya Puraskar award.
Green club
Raises saplings, tends the school garden, and takes the Laudato Si' goals from a poster on the wall to something students actually do.
Choir & music
Sings at assembly, at feast days and at every major function. No audition — anyone who wants to sing is welcome to come.
Dance & drama
Classical and folk dance and full-length plays, rehearsed after school and performed for the whole school and its parents.
Yoga & physical education
Games and drill in the weekly timetable, with mass yoga sessions on the ground on International Yoga Day.
Civic awareness
Road safety briefings with the traffic police, Constitution Day, and campaigns that send students out into the neighbourhood.
The year
Days that belong to the whole school
A calendar of national days, feast days and school occasions. Dates shift a little from year to year; the shape of the year does not.
| When | Occasion | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| June | Investiture Ceremony | Student leaders receive their sashes and take the pledge. |
| July | Kamarajar birth anniversary | Speeches and cultural items honouring the architect of Tamil Nadu's school system. |
| July | Parents' meeting | Class-wise meetings with teachers, and a general session in the hall. |
| August | Independence Day | Flag hoisting, the pledge, patriotic song and dance. |
| August | Annual Sports Meet | March past, mass drill, track finals and the prize distribution. |
| September | Teachers' Day | The senior students run the school for the morning and honour the staff. |
| November | Feast of St Mary Mazzarello | Prayer at the grotto, drama and dance for the co-founder of the Salesian Sisters. |
| November | Constitution Day | Reading of the Preamble and student presentations on rights and duties. |
| Through the year | Peace with Creation | Tree planting, the school garden and the Laudato Si' exhibition. |
| March | International Women's Day | Programmes led by the girls of the senior school. |
Parents
Part of the school, not visitors to it
Parents' meetings are held each term — class-wise with the teacher who takes the child, and in general session in the hall or on the ground. They are working meetings: marks are gone through, difficulties are named plainly, and what the school will do about them is agreed out loud.
Between meetings the office is open on working days and a parent who telephones about a child will be put through to someone who knows that child. We would much rather hear a concern in September than in March.
See the year in pictures
Over a hundred photographs from the sports meet, the feast days, the laboratories and the ordinary school day.