| There is a wide range of extra-curricular activities that the students can choose from – athletics, sports, games, debating, quizzing, dramatics, elocution, art, choral singing, horticulture etc. Students are also encouraged to participate in the activities of the Interact Club and in inter-house and inter-school festivals. Other facilities include the internet café, library etc. The highlights of student activities at the Homes are the wide variety of inter-cottage competitions ranging from gardening, singing and drama competitions to swimming, football, throw-ball, basketball, volleyball, cricket, badminton, table-tennis tournaments as well as athletics and cross-country races. Children are encouraged to take an active role and participate in social work through the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.
There is more to the Homes than just examination results. The wider education of the child is no less a concern at the beginning of the 21st century than it had been at the beginning of the 20th, and in that sense Reverend Dr. John Anderson Graham’s vision for children has indeed stood the test of time. The children of the “Children’s City”, as the Homes is fondly referred to, have not become just another set of anonymous faces in the multitude of modern Indian schools. The boys and girls of the Homes are still set apart by the unique practices of Cottage life and the imparting of sound human values that differentiates a student of the Homes from most others.
Music has always been a special strength of the School and this is reflected in the attention that the Homes’ Choir has attracted both in India and abroad. Since 2002, the Choir has performed every December at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Kolkata and at other venues to the rapt attention and appreciation of music lovers of the city. The “Children’s City in Concert” is now a much looked forward to event in Kolkata’s winter social calendar. In 2007, the Choir was invited to tour the U.K. and received rave reviews. A group of the Homes’ children, trained to play the violin, visited Japan in January 2006 at the invitation of the Japan Committee to play alongside children of the Miyazaki Junior Orchestra.
Moving into the 21st century with the confidence that the dream of its founder, Daddy Graham, still lives on, the Homes has come full circle – from a century of caring for the children to “the School that Looks Beyond”. By preparing children to face their future –adequately equipped academically, spiritually, physically and emotionally – the circle of love and life continues, and with it, the perpetual dream to strive onwards to be “the School that Looks Beyond”.
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