St. Stephen's School is a Roman Catholic school located in

Chandigarh Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which a ...

, India. The school was founded by an Anglo-Indian Catholic Principal Harold Anthony Patrick Carver in 1982. The school is affiliated to 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 ...

(ICSE) board. The school has over 2,400 students and 165 staff members. The curriculum includes a range of subjects, and its students are divided into four houses named after planets. Extracurricular activities include various sports and competitions, with the school offering numerous sports facilities. Notable alumni include Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra and Indian professional football goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu.

History

The school was founded in 1982 by an Anglo-Indian Catholic Principal, Harold Carver. He was previously a teacher in St. Joseph's College, Allahabad and

St. John's High School, Chandigarh St. John's High School is an Edmund Rice Educational Institute, founded by the Congregation of Christian Brothers in 1959. The school building was designed by prominent French architect Pierre Jeanneret. It is located in Sector 26, Chandigarh. ...

run by the Christian Brothers. The school was started on 12 April 1982, as a primary school from nursery to class five with a staff of twelve members. Located in three bungalows in sector eight, arrangements were later made in sectors nine and eleven until land was allotted in Sector 45 by the UT Administration. When the first batch of Class ten passed out in 1988, the school was upgraded to senior secondary level in 1997. In October 2010,

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall Camilla (born Camilla Rosemary Shand, later Parker Bowles, 17 July 1947) is Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms as the wife of King Charles III. She became queen consort on 8 September 2022, upon the ac ...

, from the United Kingdom, visited the school. She viewed an exhibition of models on environmental issues and another about festivals and cuisine, which was organized by the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI). She also spoke to students at Park View Academy in

Haringey The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) is a London borough in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of ...

, London, which is twinned with St. Stephen's, via a

video link Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...

. The school is housed in its own four-story building with over 2400 students and 165 staff members.

Academics

At the tenth level the subjects offered include Hindi/Punjabi, English literature, English language, Computers, Mathematics, Business Studies, Accountancy, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Political Science, History, Geography, Economics, Art, and Physical Education. The student strength per classroom is 40–45. A monthly assessment, in which each student is discussed individually, is part of the assessment system. High performing students are encouraged with monthly awards of distinction and commendation. Low performing students are placed on the house masters/headmasters list and are helped to do remedial work in their weak subjects.

Houses

The four houses are named after planets in the

Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

. All the extracurricular activities are conducted between these four houses. * Jupiter (Royal blue) * Mars (Red) * Neptune (Green) * Saturn ( Sunglow yellow)

Sports

Teams represent the school in state and national level competitions. Sports and games include

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

, association football,

carrom Carrom is a tabletop game of Indian origin in which players flick discs, attempting to knock them to the corners of the board. The game is very popular in the Indian subcontinent, and is known by various names in different languages. In Sou ...

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, s ...

judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo"). ...

, karate and

soft tennis Soft tennis is a racket game played on a court of two halves, separated by a net. Soft tennis originated in Japan in 1884. Like regular tennis, it is played by individuals (singles) or pairs (doubles), whose objective is to hit the ball over the ...

. The school also runs a cricket academy.

Facilities

Sports facilities include: * Multi-purpose Hall with a gymnasium and facilities for indoor

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players p ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, and

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

* 1 Artificial Turf Pitches * 1 Basketball Court * 4

cricket Nets Cricket nets are used by batters and bowlers to practice their cricketing techniques. They consist of a cricket pitch (natural or artificial) enclosed by netting on either side, behind, and optionally above. The bowling end is left open. Net ...

* 1 field for

Field Hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

and Association Football, which can be converted to four cricket pitches to accommodate seasonal sports, and a

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

Notable alumni

A student attending the school or an alumnus is termed a "Stephenian". There is an alumni association called as The Old Stephenian Society (TOSS). * Abhinav Bindra – Gold medalist for India in the

10 metre air rifle 10 metre air rifle (N.B. For "Meter" in this article – read "Metre") is an International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) shooting event, shot at a bullseye target over a distance of using a calibre air rifle with a maximum weight of . It ...

event at the 2008 Summer Olympics. *

Uday Singh Taunque Sergeant Uday Singh (1982–2003) was the first U.S. Army soldier of Indian descent to die during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was born in a Punjabi Sikh Saini family. His death in Iraq was widely reported in the Indian and American media. Ear ...

– First soldier of Sikh descent to die in

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...

while serving the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

. A memorial has also been constructed in Uday's memory at the school. *

Gurpreet Singh Sandhu Gurpreet Singh Sandhu (born 3 February 1992) is an Indian professional association football, footballer who plays as a goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper for Indian Super League club Bengaluru FC, Bengaluru and the India national foo ...

–

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n professional football goalkeeper, played for Norwegian club Stabæk.

References

External links

*
The Old Stephenians Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Stephen's School, Chandigarh Catholic schools in India Christian schools in Chandigarh Educational institutions established in 1982 1982 establishments in Chandigarh