Tyndale Biscoe School


Tyndale Biscoe School is a school in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. The school was founded in 1880 CE and is one of the oldest schools in Jammu and Kashmir. The school was started by Christian missionaries and was named after Canon Cecil Tyndale-Biscoe. It still has affiliations with the Church Mission Society. Parvez Samuel Koul is the principal.

School organisation

Houses

The school is divided into four houses, named after mountain peaks in the Kashmir Valley.
Competitions between these houses are held. Points for different activities are thus allotted to the houses. The house scoring the most points at the end of the session is awarded the "Champion House Trophy".

Departments

The school has five departments. The activities of the departments are looked over by well experienced Head Of Departments.
DepartmentClasses
Lower Primary Department.Nursery to II
Junior DepartmentIII to V
Middle DepartmentVI to VIII
Senior DepartmentIX and X
Higher Secondary XI and XII

Activities

Tyndale Biscoe School is known for its extra-curricular activities, especially swimming, skiing, mountain climbing, camping and regatta. School placed emphasis on physical activities including mountaineering, tug-of-war, trekking, boxing, boating, football, cricket, and swimming stimulating sense of courage, masculinity and physical fitness.
When football was introduced in the Valley by Missionary School, there was resistance initially. Students felt the cow leather was holy and touching the ball, made out of it, was blasphemous. Instead they played football with  a wooden clog in their feet. Similarly, when boating was introduced in Mission School students did not like boating because, in Kashmiri society, boatmen weren't consider respectable members of the society. But later it was adopted and the Mission School boys became efficient paddlers and rowers.

History

Rev. J.H. Knowles, in 1880, laid the foundation of the C.M.S. School on the hospital premises in Srinagar. The school was started with 5 pupils. In 1883, the number of boys in the school increased to 30.
It was in 1890 that the Government permitted the C.M.S. to shift the school to downtown, and it was moved from the hospital premises to a large house and compound on the river bank in the middle of the city at FatehKadal. As a result of this, the number of students increased to about 200 in 1890.
Canon C.E. Tyndale-Biscoe joined the school in 1891, there were 250 pupils on the school roll. The primary school grew into a middle school and eventually into a high school. The high school was designated the Hadow Memorial School after the name of its honorary treasurer for 40 years. Eventually, five other mission schools were set up, one each in different parts of the capital city and one in Anantnag.

Notable alumni

Rajan Sandhu, former Estates Supervisor of Tyndale-Biscoe and Mallinson society, along with member of Saints Paul Church, Isaac Samuel, approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate Srinagar to claim that chairman of joint management committee, Bishop of diocese of Amritsar, Pradeep Kumar Samantaroy, Principal and Director, Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson School, Parvez Samuel Koul, Headmistress of Mallinson School and The Kashmir Valley school, Joyce Kaul, Administrator Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson school, Rahul rex Kaul, Chief Accounts officer of Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson School, and Accounts and estates officer, Vijendara Dhanvantri were in league with each other in resorting to illegal and corrupt practices which was bringing harm to the school and that they “withdrew unaudited crores of rupees by way of labeling the sums as basic salary, cost of living, honorarium, travel allowance, medical expenses overtime etc”.
Further, they claimed that the assets of the society have been converted into personal assets.“The illegal conversion of society assets into personal assets needs a thorough investigation. As in case of Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson school Tangmarg, spread across an area of 19 Kanals of land, 12 kanals have been purchased in the name of Parvez Koul and seven Kanals in the name of Joyce Kaul, using the money of the society as reflected in the book accounts,” the litigation states.