Website
Website : www.loretosealdah.org

Address
Address : 122 Acharya Jagadish Ch Bose Road, (AJC Bose Road), Kolkata 700 014
Phone : 033 22653845 / 91 9674748899
Email : sealdahloreto@gmail.com

Loreto Day School, Sealdah, offers 12 years of study pattern and is affiliated to West Bengal Board of Education. It offers Madhyamik (Secondary) and Uccha Madhyamik (Higher Secondary) examinations.

School timing 7.45am to 2.00pm

Madhyamik (Secondary)
Recognized by West Bengal Board of Secondary Education.

Uchha Madhyamik (Higher Secondary) Recognized by West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education.

Subject combinations offered for Uccha Madhyamik Examination:
Compulsory Subjects
• English A
• Bengali B

Elective Subjects
Biological Sciences/Home Management & Home Nursing/Business Economics including Business
Mathematics
Geography/Economic Geography/Mathematics
History/Chemistry/Accountancy
Physics/Nutrition/Education/Business Organization & Management
Political Science/Sociology/Economics

Extra-curricular activities
• Career counseling
• Children Science Congress
• Earth day
• Games
• Groups & Movements
• JPIC
• Projects
• Rainbow teaching
• Sapling count
• Village programme

Admission: for details please visit the school website https://www.loretosealdah.org

Our vision
Our goal is to form women alive to the needs of our world, with the knowledge which gives them power to act and motivated by the love which gives them purpose and wisdom in their action.

The education of girls from every social background has to be undertaken so that there can be produced, not only women of refined talents but those great soiled persons, who are so desperately needed by our times.

Mary Ward, whose vision of education of girls was far advanced of her times, recognized the significance of the same and chose as her special area of service the education of girls. Her missionary zeal was taken up by Mother Teresa Ball, whose vision for the world was ‘go and set the world on fire with the love of God’. We carry forward today, the traditions of a spirit of service, to labour, to extend His glory, to live in an attitude of discernment seeking God’s will in all and to make our own, the values of love, sincerity, justice and freedom.

Our mission
We the Loreto Community (Sisters, Staff, Students and Parents) are called to promote the Glory of God. We create an environment where the girl child is nurtured and empowered in the spirit of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation. The students are thereby transformed into Persons of competence, conscience, compassion & character.

Our philosophy
We are called as an Institute to promote the Glory of God, lovingly discerning God’s Will for us in growing freedom, sincerity and justice. We believe that every human being who is empowered to develop to her best potential, proclaims the Glory of God.

We see this empowerment as the distinguishing feature of all our educational effort and are convinced that it takes place best in a school which is a dynamic entity involved continually in discerning the needs of our times and flexible enough to re-adjust its structures and activities to respond to them.

We recognize that it requires a school atmosphere where the values of love, freedom, sincerity and justice are experienced and lived out by all and where striving for excellence at the level of one’s potential is an essential element.

We accept that all this demands a certain awareness at administrative and staff levels so that it becomes a continuous process, affecting staff, students and parents and taking precedence over all other motivations.

We recognize and strongly affirm that the special thrust of our Institute becomes credible in India today when our schools are centres where a preferential love of the poor is lived out both in attitudes and structures. In cherishing the most deprived of His people, and enabling them to take their place with dignity among the others our schools becomes places where truly the Glory of God is manifested.

History
Loreto Day School, Sealdah, was inaugurated on August 1, 1857, under the principalship of Sister Mary Catherine Cantopher. In 1902, the school relocated to its present site donated by the Archbishop of Calcutta. Mother M Martina Wilson and Sr Evangelista Considine being sent to Loreto Day School, Sealdah, the sisters travelling to and from Loreto House daily by ‘gharry’, a horse-drawn cab or carriage.

Over the years, like a huge 3-D puzzle, Loreto Sealdah has had buildings repeatedly built, extended, modified and removed. In 1927 a new section comprising a concert hall and large second story classroom was erected. A ‘free’ school block, for the economically deprived local population, was

built inside the gate in 1932. A description of the school from 1954 depicts how: “Two rather old- fashioned houses contain classrooms which have something about them that tends to foster that ‘homely’ spirit – an informality that is never indiscipline.”

Under the leadership of Mother Dorothy, some Loreto schools began to challenge the code for Anglo-Indian schools whereby only a token group of poorer Indian students would be admitted, saying, “I could not bear to close the doors of our schools to Indian children in their own country” (Colmcille, 1968, p.281). Thus, the Loretos began to operate ‘free’ schools alongside their regular schools. In time this saw 20 percent of all admissions being reserved for the economically deprived.

Increasingly over the years, and particularly since the arrival of S. M. Cyril in 1979, Loreto Day School Sealdah has undergone a procession of structural alterations, all tailored to meet the perceived educational needs of a growing school. Slowly the school’s scholastic reputation grew and as private schools went, it was regarded as a good school with sound delivery on its academic promises.

Mary Ward - A woman beyond compare
Foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto) pioneer in the field of education, Mary Ward foresaw the need for a sound religious and moral education for young women who would assume responsibility in society.

The serenity and confidence in God with which Mary Ward accepted opposition and sufferings makes her a model of faith, trust and courage for all. Her conviction was that "Women in time to come will do much."

In 1985 we celebrated the 4th Centenary of the birth of MARY WARD. In 2011, we celebrated the 4th Centenary of the founding of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the Congregation of Loreto). Although her aims and objectives of education were formulated in the early 17th century, so farseeing was she, that the goals of our education today are in essence the same as the goals of our Foundress. In modern society, the most important issues to be raised are issues of values and the translation of these values into action. Hence, the goal of our education today continues to be the all-round development of the child. This prepares every student to take her place and make her contribution to society.

Thus Loreto education today follows the goals set by Mary Ward – "that incomparable woman" who saw Integrity, Justice, Freedom and Love as essential qualities for any person.

Teresa Ball
Francis Ball was born in Ireland in 1794, and educated at St. Mary's Convent, a boarding school run by the members of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in York, England.

She heard the unmistakable call of God "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His justice and all these things will be added unto you."

At the age of twenty, Francis returned to York to enter the novitiate, preparing herself for the foundation of the Institution of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ireland, and made her profession as Mother Teresa.

In 1821 Teresa Ball established the first House of the Institute in Ireland and called it Loreto, the name by which all the subsequent foundations made from Ireland are still known.

Delphine Hart
Loreto in India owes its origin to a visit by Dr. Bakhaus to Loreto Abbey, Ireland, in 1840 to request Mother Teresa Ball to send sisters to set up a school for Catholic children in Calcutta. In 1841, Mother Teresa Ball sent seven Loreto Sisters and five Postulants, all in their twenties, under the leadership of Delphine Hart to India, announcing that they would probably never see their homeland again.

They were welcomed at Calcutta by Bishop Carew, and installed at Loreto House, 7 Middleton Row. They were the first congregation of Sisters to come to North India.

Alumnae association
Ex students of Loreto Day School Sealdah are spread nationwide and abroad. In its own capacity the Loreto Sealdah alumnae has unofficially been meeting annually over the years in the school premises.

However since 2009, efforts are being made to convert the Alumnae of Loreto Sealdah into an official body. We are presently in the process of strengthening it by creating a database of all alumnae members who have registered with us over the years. The vision of Loreto Sealdah Alumnae is to reflect and uplift, through its existence and activities, the spirit and ethos of the school – that of service and the pursuit of excellence.

Loreto chorus
To East and West of that fair isle
Where the first Loreto stands
Loreto’s banner now doth fly in many distant lands.
In sunny Spain, on Affric’s strand
And under the Southern Cross
And westward ho, where rainbow-hued.
Niagara’s waters toss
Chorus Loreto’s banner gaily floats In lands both East and West
Loreto’s name each girl reveres
And holds it ever blest
But first Loreto found a home beneath our Indian skies
Where now o’er plain and mountain peak
The well loved banner flies.
Loreto’s standard bearers we in girlhood’s springtime gay.
O may we e’er be loyal and true
To the school friends of today.
And when our school days ended are
And our varied paths divide
O may the ideals of our youth
Still ever be our guide
High ideals of purity, of duty and of truth
Learnt while we bore Loreto’s flag in the sunny days of youth.

Source: https://www.loretosealdah.org