Metho memories are made of these
The oldest girls’ school in Colombo marks its 150th anniversary this year
“As far as our Records can tell us the school began away back in 1866 when Miss Scott started a small English school. In those days the whole school met in one rather dark, low-roofed and very bare room – how those early day scholars would stare if they saw our school today….” -Miss H.M. Park, Principal’s Report 1940 Choate, Park, Scott, Rigby, Restarick, Shire - the six houses to which all Methodist College girls belong are named after the intrepid missionaries who spurred by faith, laboured to build a school in a foreign land. When the Methodist Mission in 19th Century Ceylon began a Sinhala School in the village of Kollupitiya even their faith would not have envisioned a school that proudly bears the Methodist name built not just with bricks and mortar but on solid values, that has stood strong amidst the changing tides in the country and the gusty sea breezes that blow over its home between the seashore and the Galle Road.
As Methodist College marks its 150th anniversary this year, it has the proud distinction of being the oldest girls’ school in Colombo.
It was on November 7, 1866, that Catherine Scott, sister of an English missionary John Scott, known for ‘her gentleness and devotion’ began the Kollupitiya Girls’ English School with just one room and 40 students. The room, the story goes was divided into three and while the students learnt Sinhala and English, John Scott was learning Sinhala in a far corner. After nearly two decades of dedicated service it was as a Grant-in-Aid English High School with 99 students that she left it in 1883 and a new name- the Kollupitiya Girls’ High School.
Other pioneering figures were Miss Choate (Principal from 1894-1905 and 1912-1937) and Miss Park (1939-1943) who having joined as Vice-Principal in 1913 began the teaching of elementary science. In 1915, the school was rechristened Methodist College. The missionaries who followed these pioneers were never slow to break new ground. The school was the first in Colombo to introduce Guiding in 1917. To School Manager Rev. Rigby, goes the credit for the building that came to be known as Rigby Hall as well as a classroom block and it was under Rev. Restarick who followed him as School Manager that the new hostel was declared open in 1922 (the school’s oldest building today). For generations of MC girls, these names are part of their school identity; the passage of time may cloud their memory of fellow students’ names but seldom the faces and houses identified by a strip of colour on the green school tie.
As World War 2 overshadowed the country, it was a Ceylonese who took the helm, Mrs. Gladys Loos (1944-1951), a name beloved of older generations of Metho girls.
Deloraine Brohier, the school’s oldest School Captain recalls vividly the war years when most schools moved out of Colombo but Methodist soldiered on. Deloraine’s father R.L. Brohier, then Assistant Surveyor General insisted the family stay in Colombo. This was the early 1940s and the British Naval Works Office had commandeered part of the school “the whole area behind the church with an ugly barbed wire fence dividing this area from the school”. On May 5, 1942, after the Easter Sunday air raid, when school reopened it was with a mere 29 students. Yet, there was a general resolve among staff and students to help the war effort and under Mrs. Loos, a vegetable garden flourished –“when the efforts of sweat and toil were rewarded with baskets of fresh bandakas, red onions, brinjals and beans – great was the delight of all”. The produce went to the school boarding and to their respective homes to supplement depleted food stocks.
During air raid drills, when the sirens wailed, they had to dive under their desks and wait in agonised suspense, biting on pencils as instructed till the all –clear was given. Yet school life was happy – Deloraine recalls carefree girls going on bicycling trips around the city and a tour to Ootacamund hill station in south India for the senior girls chaperoned by Mrs Loos – by train to Talaimannar, then the Danushkodi ferry crossing. Captain of Rigby House and then School Captain in 1946, Deloraine believes she was blessed with her parents and far-sighted teachers recognising her talents and leadership qualities.
Wai Tsing Paktsun now Wai Tsing Dias and all of 86 years old was Games Captain of the school in 1949 and before that captain of Restarick House at a time when there were just four houses – Scott, Choate, Rigby and Restarick – Park and Shire being introduced in 1952. All five Paktsun sisters Wai Fun, Wai Fong, Wai Tsing, Wai Ying and Wai Ping went to Methodist and were in the school committee. Wai Tsing herself is a proud second-generation MC-ite and her family now counts four generations in the school.
Miss Shire and Miss Park were at the helm when Wai Tsing joined and she recalls the gentle words of welcome the former spoke to the little five-year-old. Miss Park was more a disciplinarian, “We had to be very neatly dressed,” she laughs, over the phone from Melbourne, Australia. The first Ceylonese Principal was so motherly, the girls fondly called her ‘Mama Loos’ and went to her with all their troubles.
In Wai Tsing’s day, the school was small, maybe 300-400 students, and there was fellowship, friendship and a sense of belonging to a family, acceptance of one another with no difference of race, caste or creed. Learning the value of discipline, taking responsibility for one’s actions, loyalty and cooperation and above all else, to always do what is right, not what is expedient are the enduring values learnt at MC that have stayed with her throughout her life, she says.
Wai Tsing continued her involvement with the school even after leaving and was among those with Chitra de Alwis, an OGA livewire who organised the first ever MC dance during Miss Robins’ era. Her husband George Dias too contributed immensely serving as President of the School’s Education Society for 20 years.
The school has had long serving principals who have presided over many changes with firm resolve. It was during the era of Miss Grace Robins (1951-1966) that Framjee House on Station Road, Kollupitiya where many bashful youngsters made their first acquaintance with the school was acquired as the nursery and primary. After the school celebrated its centenary, Mrs Shanthi Peiris (1968 -1991) continued the tradition of great principals with major expansion taking place in her time- the Loos block of classrooms opened in 1977 and the Auditorium in 1988 and adjoining hall block of classrooms, also a new four-storeyed building. The school also had several sporting successes – athletics, netball, table tennis and tennis reaching a high.
Mrs. Priyani Fernando was at the helm from 1992-2002, steering the school into the new millennium, with an ambitious programme to expand and refurbish the primary school and the addition of a three-storeyed building with 10 additional classes. Mrs. Fernando had great concern and care for each student in the school and began a wind instrument section in the band as well as a cricket team.
The years of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict presented different challenges for Mrs. Shanthi Dias (whom contemporaries will remember as Shanthi Thambar, the gifted concert pianist) who as Principal from 2003 to 2015 during the heightened period of war, shouldered the responsibility of seeing that all students, whatever their ethnicity felt equal and secure in school.
Respect for teachers and respect for rules were integral among students and parents when she was a schoolgirl at MC, and she remembers how Principal Shanthi Peiris moulded her while never teaching her-“just by being who she wasso fair”. In her own time as Principal, Mrs Dias endeavoured to give all students a chance to enjoy the school’s extra-curricular life driven by the belief that “education mustn’t be outside of community”. So it was that in the aftermath of the war, Methodist College held a programme in Kilinochchi for four schools, with permission from the Army. Earlier, tsunami relief programmes also figured large with OGA support with all such programmes organised by the girls giving T always had funds for sponsorship of needy children.
New issues confront her every day, increasing societal and family pressure on children and technology sometimes proving a threat. The latter is an integral part of a child’s life in the modern world and she sees the challenges as two-fold: using it effectively in the classroom, moving on from strictly textbook teaching, while also making children aware of the everyone a chance to be involved. In pitfalls of social media, to use it wisely drama, choir and debating the school within a certain framework. “I think we achieved noteworthy success and Mrs. need to do more to make them aware of Dias takes quiet satisfaction that the the dangers,” she says frankly. debaters, choristers and dancers all had Moving with the times, London A’L the chance to travel abroad to take part in classes were begun in 2015 and this year international events. As Principal she for post O’L students, idly waiting for instituted a fund for overresults, the school ran courses on human seas training of staff in resource management, accountancy memory of Mrs Peiris and (AAT), and aviation, the latter in conbegan an educational supjunction with the SriLankan Aviation port unit for children who College. “The children were thrilled,” learn differently. Mrs. Fernando says, adding that in its
Taking over in the wake an aeronautical club has been set school’s landmark 150th up – no limits to how high the girls can fly.yearisMrs.Hiranya Fernando, who has been he Methodist Church manages the nurtured in the Methodist school as it always has but Methodist College values all her life. College since 2014 is a fully private school Co-Vice Principal since (earlier it was a Government Assisted 2013, she is the fifth generaSchool). Though Christians make up tion in her family at MC. around two-thirds of the student Her great-great grandmothstrength of 1,875, MC has always er Mary L. Perera was at the embraced students of all faiths and ethschool in the late 19th nicities. Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim Century (the family has a activities figure in the school calendar Bible she had received as a and even under colonial rule, the special prize from Girls’ Methodist College magazine had sections High School, Kollupitiya in Sinhala and Tamil and active Sinhala dated 1888) and her great and Tamil literary and drama societies. grandmother Daisy The 150th year has been hectic, with Jayawardena (later anniversary events intermingled with Jayasekera), a brilliant regular school events. Past Games scholar also attended Captains joined in the sports meet in Methodist (along with all February, young and not so young her six sisters in the hostel). walked oblivious to the rain in the MC So too her grandmother Walk in May and a choir concert Joan de Alwis and mother “Resonance’ saw joyous music fill the Damaris de Alwis Lionel Wendt in June. Still ahead this Wickremesekera, who was head girl in month, the OGA dance and ‘Nethranjali’ 1968. Hiranya joined Methodist in 1984 a Kandyan and Bharatha Natyam dance during Mrs. Shanthi Peiris’s era and has recital - symbolising as the Principal vivid memories of the model of meticusays the unity among all communities lous precision she imparted. that has always been a hallmark of this
As Principal now, her vision is crystal school, very grounded in the culture of clear. “One of the things that was the land. impressed on me when I was in school On November 7th, the schoolgirls will was this idea of service. It was instilled in have a special assembly and on the 12th, me that every act you do it should be done a 150th anniversary gala dinner will as an act of service. Any job you are wrap up a memorable year. And even if doing, you do it with that spirit,” she says, not present at the celebrations, MC girls adding that she sees her role now in the near and far, will no doubt, offer heartsame way. In this increasingly competifelt thanks for their beloved school, tive world, this is an important lesson for inspirational teachers and classmates her young charges- that it’s not about winturned lifelong friends, echoing perhaps ning or conquering, rather doing whatevthe words of the school hymn they know er needs to be done to the best of your so well -“Praise my soul, the King of ability and that, that in itself should be Heaven, to His feet, thy tribute bring…” the reward. Helen Park’s message for the school’s
As teachers, it’s all about validating the centenary holds true today as Methodist child, she stresses. The school’s responsiCollege celebrates its 150th year: “How bility is bringing up good citizens, good my heart goes out in greetings to you all, women for this country who will fill gaps old and young. May the coming years be that other people are not interested in rich and even richer in fuller and wider looking at. Maintaining a high standard service to the Island we all love so well….” of education, yet having it accessible to middle-income parents, the school has