Shrewsbury International School, which is under the prominent public boarding school Shrewsbury School UK, has been set up on 150-acre land in Bhopal, the capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. 

“Bhopal is the cleanest and greenest capital city of India. Its central location is an advantage as most of the legacy schools are in the hills and are difficult to access. Moreover, Bhopal has a growing focus on getting the best of national institutes like AIIM, SPA, NID, and NIFT have established their campuses in Bhopal.

“The second thing was the landscape. We wanted to create a campus which is self-sufficient and has the best of facilities,” Abhishek Mohan Gupta, founder and president, board of management at Shrewsbury International School, India, told The PIE News. 

The Indian campus will be a co-educational boarding school for students aged 11-18 and will adhere to the British National Curriculum, leading to Cambridge International examinations and A-Level courses.

“At Shrewsbury, we intend to integrate India’s spiritual wisdom and intrinsic passion for learning with a holistic education model. We want our students to experience the strengths of both cultures and cultivate individual responsibility, confidence, discipline, and a deep love for knowledge,” said Dominic Tomalin, the newly appointed founding headmaster of Shrewsbury at an event in Mumbai celebrating the launch of the school’s India campus. 

The inaugural event also saw the presence of Harjinder Kang, His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for South Asia and the British Deputy High Commissioner for Western India, consul generals of 11 nations, celebrities and more. 

At Shrewsbury, we intend to integrate India’s spiritual wisdom and intrinsic passion for learning with a holistic education model

Dominic Tomalin, Shrewsbury International

Although the school’s academic session will begin exactly a year from now, admissions are already open and parents have been encouraged to schedule visits to the campus starting in October 2024. 

“Complementing a rigorous academic curriculum, the campus will boast more than 20 indoor and outdoor sports including Indoor Rowing, Scuba Diving, and Fencing for the first time in the country,” stated Gupta. 

“The school has also collaborated with Trinity College London to provide diplomas in disciplines such as music and dramatics.”

Contrary to India’s average teacher-to-student ratio of 19:1 for upper primary, 17:1 for secondary, and 27:1 for higher secondary, as per recent data, Shrewsbury UK will focus on maintaining the global average with its Bhopal campus. 

“We are opening 100 seats for classes 6-12th, with a maximum of 12 students per section and 1:8 student-teacher ratio,” Gupta told The PIE. 

The school will also look to bring in non-conventional academic and teaching methods at the Bhopal campus. 

“With a goal to provide pioneering academic facilities, Shrewsbury will feature hands-on laboratories for innovation in subjects such as Design and Technology, Science, Astronomy, and much more. Moreover, diverse languages will enhance the learning environment with more than six Indian and European languages on offer,” stated Dominic.

British boarding schools have been building up their profile in India in recent years, through boarding school fairs and campus branches in major cities across the country. 

Affluent Indian families, which are growing in number, are willing to spend anywhere between £37,000 to £65,000 (INR 40 lakhs to 70 lakhs) in annual fees for their child’s admission to UK boarding schools. 

Known boarding schools such as Harrow School and Wellington College established international branches in Bangalore and Pune, respectively, last year. 

But Shrewsbury aims to stand out from its counterparts. 

“Shrewsbury India is going to be a fully residential school, unlike others who are established in India. Its model of whole-person education – The FLOREAT – is distinctive and has been successfully operating for the last 472 years. The 150-acre campus, which is going to be the largest campus of any British residential school, will stand the school apart from the rest,” said Gupta.