South Point School

South Point School is an English-medium and co-educational school which was founded on 1 April 1954 at 16 Mandeville Gardens, Kolkata.[10] Administration in the initial years was supervised by the founder Shri Satikanta Guha, his wife and co-founder Smt. Pritylata Guha.

On 1 April 1960, it was upgraded to the Higher Secondary level. To overcome space constraints, the High School wing was shifted to a new building at 82/7A Ballygunge Place on 8 April 1970. Since the acquisition of the institution by the M.P. Birla Group, the school is now run by the South Point Education Society.

The school was recorded as the world's largest school (in terms of student numbers) between 1984 and 1992 by the Guinness Book of Records.[11]

South Point School, the "junior" school, has Nursery I, Nursery II, Transition and Classes from I to V. Students then attend classes at South Point High School from Class VI onwards. From Classes VI to X, students study under the Central Board of Secondary Education curriculum. A majority of Pointers return to the school for the plus-two years, Classes XI and XII, under the Central Board of Secondary Education, under the Science, Commerce or Humanities streams, with several subject options available in each stream.

Previously, South Point High School had been affiliated to both the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (and the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education) and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The West Bengal board however has been discontinued due to lack of demand, and now, the pupils appear for their Board examinations under CBSE only.

The school is affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education of the Government of India. Students appear for All India Secondary School Examination in Class X and All India Senior School Certificate Examination in Class XII. Some facilities available at the school are:[12][13]

• First-Aid Rooms in both campuses with wheel-chairs available for injured.
• Book Counter for sale of textbooks, notebooks, stationery, school satchels, etc. at the junior school building.
• Canteens at both schools. While food can be purchased against coupons bought in advance in the junior school, students can buy directly from the canteen in high school.
• Auditoriums in both schools (seating 300+ in junior school and 200+ in high school).
• Libraries
• Two Computer Laboratories in South Point School; one in South Point High School.
• Physics, Chemistry and Biology Laboratories for students of classes XI and XII.
• Composite Laboratory for Classes VI to X.
• Playroom for nursery classes
• Digital Smart Boards for Classes II to VIII with audiovisual facilities; audiovisual classes for Transition and Class I
• Counselling cell

Some co-curriculars offered are:

• Weekly Physical Education classes
• Karate classes under Kyokushin style – compulsory for Classes II to V, optional for Classes VI to VIII
• Rock Climbing wall in South Point High School
• Yoga training for Classes VI to VIII
• Basketball Court in South Point High School

Some events held across the school year are:

• Athletic Meet
• Biennial Art and Craft Exhibition
• Inter-school competitions and other events
• Inter-house competitions
• Special assemblies for various celebrations or historic days at South Point School
• Annual Prize Distribution Ceremony (with annual function) – every year on 4 July
• Picnics for junior school students

The South Point Education Society received the OHSAS 18001:2007 Occupational Health and Safety Management Certification from the British Standards Institution (BSI) in respect of South Point School, Mandeville Gardens, and South Point High School, Ballygunge Place on 2 August 2017.[14] The OHSAS certification has been upgraded to ISO 45001:2018 standard.

The school has an integrated fire-fighting system, CCTV surveillance throughout the two campuses (barring Staff Rooms and toilets), GPS tracking facility on South Point School buses and other Occupational Health and Safety measures which are vital in maintaining the ageing school-buildings.[15]

In order to address space constraints and enhance infrastructure, South Point School and South Point High School will shift to a new and much larger campus named the Priyamvada Birla Campus of South Point named after Late Smt. Priyamvada Birla, philanthropist and wife of M.P. Birla Group founder Late Shri Madhav Prasad Birla. The campus is currently under construction.[16][17]

The new school will be located off the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass (Biswa Bangla Sarani) at Mukundapur, Kolkata, near the Satyajit Ray Film Institute and the Peerless Hospital. The junior and senior wings of the school will operate from a single campus once the school relocates here. The new campus might become functional in 2021-2022 (uncertain due to COVID-19 pandemic).

With a total area of 6.65 acres and more than 7,61,000 square feet of built-up area, the school shall be one of the biggest schools (in terms of area) in the city.

Some of the salient features of the Priyamvada Birla Campus are as follows:

• Area of Land: 6.65 acres
• Built-up area: 7,61,000 sq ft. (approx.)
• Single shift from Classes I to XII
• Two shifts in Nursery I to Transition (as in current practise)
• Classroom size limited to less than 50 in junior classes and less than 45 in higher classes
• Nursery classes to have 25 students per section
• Each classroom equipped with interactive white board, projectors etc.
• Three Libraries
• One Multipurpose Activity Room dedicated for each class
• Upgraded Physics, Chemistry and Biology Laboratories
• "New-age" Biotech, Home Science, Geography, Psychology, Fashion Designing, Robotics Laboratories and Commercial Art Room
• Seven Computer Laboratories
• Seven Composite Laboratories
• Five Mathematics Laboratories
• Three Language Laboratories
• Six Music Rooms
• Two Art Studios
• Three Auditoriums-cum-Multi-activity Halls, seating capacity 1000+ each
• Large open field for outdoor sports;
• Wifi-enabled campus
• Large Cafetaria with multiple mobile canteen kiosks

The Priyamvada Birla Campus also aims reduce its carbon foot-print, and has received the following recognitions from various agencies for its efforts:

• Platinum Green School Building pre-certification from the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC).
• Included in the Energy Efficient Model Buildings (EEMB) program under the project on Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology (EECB) of the United Nations Development Programme's Global Environment Facility (UNDP-GEF) and Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Govt. of India (BEE).

Solar energy generation, sewage treatment, bio-gas plants and water recycling projects have been proposed.

Note: Most of the above information have been taken from the school website[17]. Level of accuracy unverified.

The World Consulting and Research Corporation (WCRC), Asia, has adjudged South Point High School among Asia's Best Private Education Institutes 2015–2016 in the Category "Best K-12 School for Outstanding Academic Excellence". Evaluated on the basis of parameters such as the admission process, faculty, course and teaching methodology, infrastructure, alumni, extra-curricular activities and global partnerships, the list was finalized by an eminent global jury of CEOs, marketing heads, leading educationists and luminaries from allied fields.[18]

The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence have regularly fetched accolades for South Point in the field of academics and as the Best School adjudged on its all-around performance. Its pupils have received individual awards too. Pointers’ performance in Inter-School Competitions brings in a slew of trophies and awards throughout the year.[18]

The School Emblem, showing a bird (dove or paloma) in flight, symbolizes "man's everlasting quest for knowledge and the desire to soar above the mundane."[19] The motto of the School is 'Courage to Know'.[20]

South Point pupils are assigned to one of six Houses, named after famous personalities from Kolkata:

• Rabindranath Tagore House - Red
• Derozio House - Yellow
• Ashutosh Mukherjee House - White
• Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar House - Green
• David Hare House - Orange
• Sister Nivedita House - Blue

South Point runs in two sessions – Morning and Afternoon – from Monday to Friday. Classes are held on Saturday for a shorter duration for classes IX to XII.

South Point School

South Point High School

• Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Professor of Economics, MIT, Nobel Laureate in Economics [8][21]
• Ritabrata Banerjee, politician, member of Rajya Sabha, India
• Tanmoy Bose, Grammy winning percussionist and tabla player
• Supriya Chaudhuri, scholar of English literature
• Aroup Chatterjee, doctor, author and critic
• Sumit Ranjan Das, High energy physicist and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate
• Saswata Chatterjee, critically acclaimed actor
• Swarup Dutta, actor
• Rituparno Ghosh, National Film Award-winning filmmaker
• Shamik Ghosh, Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar (2017; Government of India) winning Bengali Author
• Prosenjit Chatterjee, National Film Award-winning Actor and Banga Vibhushan (Government of West Bengal) Awardee
• Pratim D. Gupta, film critic, filmmaker
• Bauddhayan Mukherji, filmmaker
• Srijit Mukherji, National Film Award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter
• Bedabrata Pain, National Film Award-winning filmmaker, scientist and inventor
• Sandip Ray, noted filmmaker (son of Satyajit Ray)
• Amitava Raychaudhuri, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate and Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, University of Calcutta
• Anuradha Roy, an acclaimed writer whose book ‘Sleeping on Jupiter’ was longlisted for The Man Booker Prize, 2015
• Sreyash Sarkar, acclaimed poet and engineering researcher[22]
• Sucharit Sarkar, mathematician
• Subrata Sen, filmmaker
• Riddhi Sen, National Film Award-winning actor
• Abhijit Mukherjee (Earth Scientist), scientist and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (Prize) laureate [23]

• Official website