S. Thomas' Preparatory School

S. Thomas' Preparatory School was founded on 17 May 1938 by William Thomas Keble,[2] while Sri Lanka was under British colonial rule. Keble was a British scholar, author, educationalist, and an alumnus of Keble College, Oxford, which was named after his maternal great-uncle John Keble. He arrived in Ceylon in 1928 to join the staff of S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia, during the tenure of warden Kenneth McPherson.[3][4]

He was the author of several books, including Ceylon, Beaten Track, A History of St. Thomas' College, Colombo, and Astrapani: A Romance of Sigiriya, a novel based on Sigiriya. The school was the first preparatory school to be established in Sri Lanka based on the English public school model.

The institution, which commenced with a student population of 95 boys and a staff of seven teachers, currently has a student population of 975 and over 100 staff members. At first, the school only accepted students between the ages of 5 and 11 years, as its founders tried to focus on the educational needs of younger children without the interference or influence of older students. Nevertheless, over the years the school began accepting older students, and currently has classes up to grade 11 in preparation for the GCE Ordinary Level examination.[5]

The school is governed by the Anglican Church of Ceylon. It is classified as a private fee levying school and is not financially dependent on the government. It is administered by a Board of Governors (established by the S. Thomas' College Board of Governors Ordinance No. 7 of 1930) of which the chairman is the Anglican Bishop of Colombo, thereby retaining a connection between the church and the school. The day-to-day activities are managed by the headmaster. The school has a sectional head for the upper, middle, and primary schools.

Rev. Dushantha Lakshman Rodrigo assumed duties as headmaster on 1 January 2015[6] and continued to serve until 2021, when he was appointed the 16th Anglican Bishop of Colombo.[7]

Rev. Nihal Fernando was inducted as the school's sixth headmaster in February 2021.[8]

The student population is in excess of 900 students, aged 5 to 16 years, although the roll has declined from its peak of around 1,100 students in the year 2000. The students come from diverse ethnic backgrounds (Sinhala, Tamil and Moor amongst others). The four main faiths practiced by the students of the school, in descending order of frequency, are Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. The majority of students live in the suburbs of Colombo.

Flags of S. Thomas' Preparatory School, Kollupitiya displayed at the 2017 School Walk

The school campus consists of an assembly hall, over 50 classrooms, a chapel, a computer laboratory, two music rooms, three art rooms, two playing fields, two basketball courts and a cafeteria. The school has separate laboratory facilities for science.

Students of the school are allocated into are allocated into one of four houses:[9]

The houses compete against each other in many sporting events throughout the year. An athletics championship, traditionally held each year in February, facilitates students in each of the four houses to compete in athletic events.