Clarence High School (India)
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Clarence High School (CHS) is a private
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
minority school in Bangalore East for girls and boys. It is located in Richard's town in
Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
,
Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...
, India and is for day scholars. It has classes from the preparatory level until the 12th grade and is in the
Indian Certificate of Secondary Education The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) is an examination conducted by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, a private board designed to provide an examination in a course of general education, in accordance wi ...
syllabus.


History

Clarence High School was founded in 1914 by the Redwood brothers, Alfred and Walter, two Englishmen, who named it after their own school in
Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...
,
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. The Redwoods left Bangalore in the 1960s and were no longer involved in the institution’s management. The school’s alumni raised money to construct the Flack Memorial Auditorium, named after one of the school’s former principals, A C Flack, who came from Australia in 1946. In 2014, Clarence High School became the fifth Anglo-Indian origin school in Bangalore to reach the 100-year milestone, after St Joseph’s (1858), Bishop Cotton (1865), Cathedrals (1866) and Baldwin (1880) schools. Fr Jose Aikara CM, chairman of the
Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) is a privately held national-level board of school education in India that conducts the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) Examination for Class X and the India ...
(CISCE), inaugurated the centenary celebrations.


School heads

Some of the former school principals are Mr. A. C. Flack, Dr David Coates, Mr. M. T. Thomas, and Mr. Benny Joseph.


Campus

For a while the school was located in a bungalow on Palm Road (now M. M. Road, near the Fraser Town Mosque). This building now houses the Fraser Town Post Office. The school is now located on Pottery Road, at a junction near Richard's Park. It lends its name to a bus stop for buses moving towards and from M. S. Nagar, Lingarajpuram, Banaswadi, Kammanahalli, Kalyannagar and Hennur. While the main gate faces Pottery Road, the side gates face Viviani Road and
Mosque Road Mosque Road is a street in Fraser Town, Bengaluru, India, that links MM Road with Coles Road. The road is a commercial centre and one of the busiest shopping areas of Bangalore. Iftar celebration in this road is particularly well-known. There ar ...
Extension. The fourth side faces apartments that line John Armstrong Road. The school has a number of buildings, one of the newest among them being the William Carey block. This block has several of the classrooms, the laboratories, the physical education department, the music room and faces the playground field. The Coates library houses 9 000 books. There are a number of laboratories for the various science subjects (Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Computers). The Flack Memorial Assembly Hall can house around a thousand people. The kindergarten students have a separate block (KG Block) and playground. The Stewards Block, a building for the Special Needs Department, has a large clock on top which is visible from the roads adjacent to the school campus. The campus has several trees, the most prominent among them being a Christmas tree and a Peepal tree.


School motto

The school motto is "Our Utmost For The Highest". The philosophy of the founders is also summed up in a verse from the
Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
- "The Reverence of The Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom." This is taken from the book of Proverbs (chapter 9, verse 10).


School song

The school hymn, composed by Mr.G.C. Rogers, begins with the words: ''"We thank Thee now O Father"''


Academics

The school practises a five-day week schedule. The day begins at 8:00 a.m. (formerly at 8:35 a.m.) with a daily assembly which is normally twenty-five minutes long and is conducted within the school hall. The lunch break is between 12:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. (formerly between 12:35 p.m. and 1:05 p.m). The day ends at 3:00 p.m for students from class 3 onwards and 2:30 pm for the kindergarten students. It used to end at 3:10 for the junior pupils (until 6th Std.) and at 3:45 for the senior pupils. The entry level is at the Preparatory class, equivalent to the Upper Kindergarten (UKG) class, meant for five-year-old children. The Preparatory, First and Second Standards are called the Kindergarten with classrooms in the KG block along with a separate library and playground (called the KG Lane). The rest of the school use the school field and the school library which houses several thousands of books. A basketball court and a few more buildings also form part of the school premises. The first language is
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, the second language was formerly
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
or French but now
Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
is made the second language for pupils from prep onwards from 2018 as the state government has made a rule urging schools to do so. The tenth standard examinations are conducted in the ICSE (Indian Council for Secondary Examinations) format. The eleventh and the twelfth standards are divided into Science, Commerce and Arts streams. The twelfth standard examinations are conducted in the ISC format (Indian School Certificate). Both public examinations are conducted by the
Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) is a privately held national-level board of school education in India that conducts the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) Examination for Class X and the India ...
Board.


Sports

The school has a separate playground, called Assaye Field, beside Assaye Road. The school organises and conducts the ''Clarencian shield'', the prestigious inter-school Basketball tournament, every year around the months of October and November. Football, cricket and throw-ball are some of the other team events that the students of Clarence High play.


Houses

The
house system The house system is a traditional feature of schools in the United Kingdom. The practice has since spread to Commonwealth countries and the United States. The school is divided into subunits called "houses" and each student is allocated to o ...
is a feature common to Public schools in India (based on an equivalent system in England). The Houses distribute a school community into smaller, more personal units, and thereby build a sense of loyalty and competition. Traditionally there were three houses: Barton, Redwood, and Theobald. Their team colors are green, red, and blue respectively. Wilcox, a new fourth house was made with the team color yellow. Their mottoes are: "Never Despair" for the Barton house, "Ad Astra" for the Redwood house (''Aim for the stars'' in Latin), "Never Give In" for the Theobald house, and "Press Onward" for the Wilcox house. The Kindergarten children also belong to one of the above houses.


Controversy

In April 2022, the school was in the midst of a controversy for forcing all students including non christians to carry bible in their school bags. Few Hindu organizations called this a violation of Supreme Court guidelines and violation of Article 25. Following this the state government announced its intent to inspect the curriculum being taught by Christian educational institutes in the state. The school defended saying this was not a new practice and students were taught the bible as any other subject textbooks.


Notable alumni

*
Dino Morea Dino Morea (born 9 December 1975) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films. Early life Dino Morea was born in Bangalore to an Italian father and an Indian mother. His mother hails from Kalamassery in Kochi. He is the second of three broth ...
, actor *
Rahil Azam Rahil Azam (born 25 September 1981) is an Indian actor and model, who has appeared as Hatim in '' Hatim'', as Nakul in ''CID'', as JD in ''Tu Aashiqui,'' as DSP Anubhav Singh in ''Maddam Sir,'' and as Rahul/Ajinkya in Achanak 37 Saal Baad. Ear ...
, actor


References


External links

* {{coord missing, Karnataka Schools in Colonial India High schools and secondary schools in Bangalore Educational institutions established in 1914 1914 establishments in India