We are delighted to welcome ‘home’ our new Headmaster, Mr Mathew P John and his wife Anuradha (who will be teaching English to Years 6&7). A Cottonian himself (but from the ‘other place’ in Bangalore), Mr John taught at BCS, Shimla from 1994 to 2000 and was instrumental in setting up the Slater Debates. Since then he has enjoyed a successful career in school leadership raising standards in a number of prestigious schools across India. His main task at BCS will be to raise our academic profile to new heights and he has already reinstituted the tutorial system for this purpose. Mr John is very much looking forward to the return of the pupils and for the journey to continue.

‘When I first stepped onto the First Flat at Bishop Cotton School, it was late spring or early summer of 1994. I remember feeling as if I had come home, though I had never been in Shimla before, let alone, BCS. In 1998, it was in June that I brought Anu back to BCS, and we were greeted by Upper Sixth boys outside our locked quarters. With a typical Cottonian welcome, they put whatever they were doing on hold, to get us our keys and to help with our considerable luggage! This time was different.

Long before we arrived in School, old boys as well as old colleagues were calling and messaging to congratulate and welcome us back. However, it was on Sunday, the fifth of July that we were finally let out of our quarantine and walked onto the First Flat for the first time after twenty years, drinking in the clear air of the hills and the old familiar view of Tara’s Gap. We were Home again!”

Director Simon Weale welcomes back The Johns to BCS