S. Thomas' Preparatory School, Kollupitiya

S.Thomas' Preparatory School
S. Thomas' Prep School Crest
Location
Kollupitiya Sri Lanka
Coordinates	6°55′0.6″N 79°50′50.4″E / 6.916833°N 79.847333°E / 6.916833; 79.847333Coordinates: 6°55′0.6″N 79°50′50.4″E / 6.916833°N 79.847333°E / 6.916833; 79.847333
Information
Type	Private
Motto	The Lord Is My Shepherd
Established	17 May 1938 (17 May 1938)
Headmaster	Rev. Dushantha Lakshman Rodrigo
Colour(s)	Dark Blue, Light Blue and White
Affiliation	Church of Ceylon, S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia
Website	www.prepobu.lk

S. Thomas' Preparatory School is a private Anglican, multi-ethnic, primary and secondary day school for boys ages 5 to 16, located in Kollupitiya in the Colombo District of the Western Province of Sri Lanka, founded as a branch preparatory school of S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia.

The school was founded on 17 May 1938. It is governed by the Board of Governors of S. Thomas' College of the Church of Ceylon. The school is amongst the elite schools of Sri Lanka and is affiliated with the three other Thomian schools and colleges administered by the Church of Ceylon.

The school was founded in 1938 by the late William Thomas Keble M. A. (Oxon), the school's first headmaster, while Sri Lanka was under British colonial rule. The school was the first preparatory school to be established in Sri Lanka based on the English primary School model. Keble was an eminent British scholar, author and educationalist, an alumnus of Keble College Oxford, which is named after his maternal great-uncle John Keble. He was the author of several books, including the Ceylon Beaten Track , a History of S. Thomas' College, and a novel on Sigiriya. He arrived in Ceylon (the name for Sri Lanka during the British colonial governance) in 1928 to join the staff of S. Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia, during the tenure of warden Kenneth McPherson.

The institution, which commenced with a student population of 95 boys and a staff of seven teachers, currently has a student population of 975 and over 100 staff members. Initially, the school only accepted students between the ages of 5 and 11, as its founding fathers sought to remedy a conceptual void in the educational system by placing a new emphasis on the requirements and aspirations of younger children to be educated and to be allowed to express their creative talents and faculties unfettered and unhampered by older and more mature students. Nevertheless, over the years the school began accepting and educating older students.

The school is governed by the Anglican Church of Ceylon. It is classified as a private fee levying school and is not at all financially dependent on the government. It is administered by a Board of Governors (established to the S. Thomas' College Board of Governors Ordinance No. 7 of 1930) of which the chairman is the Bishop of Colombo, thereby retaining the connected between the church and the school. The day-to-day activities are taken care by the headmaster. The school has a sectional heads for the Upper, Middle, and Primary schools.