“Catch them young”, a policy on which Queen Mary’s College endeavours to reach out, goes even to the grassroots level of school education. Queen Mary’s College is one of the few colleges which has a primary school on campus.
The Social Service League School (SSL) was started in 1946 by Miss. K Myers, Principal of Queen Mary’s College as a “free school” for children of families below the poverty line. The children of SSL hail from the areas in the vicinity of the college, namely Kailasapuram, Nadukkuppam, Rutherpuram, Totary Nagar, P.M. Darga, Thulukkanathottam and Rotary Nagar. Fourteen years after its inception in 1946, the school gained permanent recognition by the State Government. The school functions as a government school. The children receive free lunch and all concessions given to government school children.
There is a vibrant knowledge sharing that defines the connection between the college and the school: every department of the college schedules regular meets with the children in which they organize interesting activity-based learning programs for the children. Science departments enhance the children’s knowledge of scientific facts, processes and the wonders of the universe, language departments (Urdu, French, Sanskrit and Telugu) introduce the children to new words, while the Tamil department gives them exciting activities related to Tamil language and literature: the humanities departments help the students gain a strong foundation in General Knowledge and the English Department finds innovative ways of improving their knowledge of English.
