C.S.I. Ewart Matriculation Higher Secondary School

In 1913, the Church of England Zenana Mission began Ewart as a 'finishing school' for Indian girls. Its goal was to bring Christian values as well as the poise and etiquette of an 'English' education to students in India. The school was named Ewart after its first donator, an Irish woman, Miss Ewart. With funding secured, the school started in an old mission house in Chennai with three students on roll.[3]

Miss Frances Baker was the first principal of C.S.I Ewart matric hr.sec. school, presiding over it from 1913 to 1936. In honor of her services a house, "Frances Baker House", and a wing of the school "Frances Baker Block", were named after her.

Ewart school's main auditorium, named after second principal Miss Alice Greene

The second principal of the school was Miss Alice Greene, she presided over the school from 1936 to 1952. In 1943 the school adopted the matriculation syllabus and began to offer Tamil and Hindi as second languages.[4] The school auditorium and a house has been named after Miss Alice Green. Succeeding Miss Alice Green was Miss.C.Davamani, the third principal, who presided over the school from 1952 to 1970. She was the first Indian principal of Ewart.

The fourth principal was Mrs. C. Chelladurai (1970–1988). During her service she received both a National and State award for her leadership of the school. In 1978 the school was upgraded to the status of a Higher Secondary School. Following this event, French was introduced as third offered optional language. Miss Chelladurai was the first principal during whose time computers began to be used in the school.

In 2001, under the leadership of principal A. Williams, C.S.I Ewart was chosen to be one of three schools in Chennai to pilot test the Cambridge Young Learners English Tests. The test was designed by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) for children aged seven to twelve in order to test a child's speaking skills.[5]

In 2009 Mrs. Sheila Lawrence became the seventh principal of Ewart. She is an environmentalist who has brought eco-friendly practices to the school. In accordance with this theme, the school was repainted green in 2009. She has also led the way in adopting the interactive electronic teaching tools by purchasing Promethean electronic whiteboards for every classroom. The school has been awarded 'Best Matriculation School' for the year 2009, by the Mylapore Academy in Chennai................................................... Mrs. Beena Devaprasad took over as the Eighth Principal of Ewart School in 2019. Her developmental work in Ewart has just begun. She is a transformational leader who builds confidence with a deep sense of empathy, instills values and kindles the fire in the young hearts to strive for excellence in various fields. She has been teaching Physics for the last 31 years with over 25 years serving C.S.I schools where her students have achieved state ranks, won several awards and are in high places in India and overseas, while she herself has won several awards during her dedicated service. Over the years, she has made an indelible positive impact in the lives of hundreds of students of C.S.I. Schools who were lifted up from drowning under stress. She is already unleashing the latent potential in the Ewart students to take the school to great heights while reinforcing values based on God's word. .

• Interact Club is a service-oriented club whose goal is to help the less fortunate. Some of the club's missions have been to collect and distribute old clothes during Christmas, or visit Old Age homes to cheer up the residents there. All 11th standard students are part of this club whose members are known as "Interacters". The club has an organizational hierarchy with a president, vice president, director, treasurer, secretary and committee members.
• Nature Club is for nature enthusiasts of the school to meet together. Club events include walks around the campus to identify new plants and animals, discussions about the medicinal properties plants in daily life, and quiz competitions on plant identification.
• Literary Club is a book club where literary plays and dramas are discussed. Club members organize plays and write poetry.
• Cosmetology Club emphasizes preserving beauty naturally through diet, posture, and choice of clothes. Club members learn manicuring and pedicuring, hairstyles, oil massage and simple face packs.
• Art Club members learn glass painting, pot decoration, flower making, flower arrangement and pencil shading.
• Sports Club members participate in sports such as table tennis, chess, volleyball, athletics and badminton.
• Junior Red Cross members help with hospital services, blood bank and HIV/AIDS programmes.
• Guides and Bulbuls club is for outdoor enthusiasts. Club members head out on trails. In 2009 club members hosted a camp on the school campus.
• Cookery Club members come together to learn and share knowledge about cooking. Members experiment with exotic dishes.

• Sports Day - annually in July, sports day is a one-day competitive event among the five houses in challenges including most track and field events, march past, bicycle races, and dance performances.
• Prize Day - In August, prizes are distributed to the winners of the events that took place during Sports Day. Other prizes, like the General proficiency prize and Best girl award, are distributed on this day.
• Pastiche is an inter-school cultural event in which 20-30 schools from Chennai participate in to win contests. It is organized by the Interact club, which consists of all the 11th std. students.
• Inter house Dramatics - The five houses compete for first place. The event provides a platform for the students to showcase their talents in acting.

Carnival, Mission sale and teacher's day

Under the leadership of principal Mrs. A. Williams[8] C.S.I Ewart and Citi Plus, a voluntary organization, jointly co-sponsored an effort to clean Marina beach in Chennai. 1,200 students from 25 schools picked up the litter on a half kilometre stretch on both sides of the Gandhi Statue in the Marina beach on 31 August 1997.[9] For the next 25 weeks, students from schools continued to clean the stretch of land every weekend.[8]

Between 24–25 January 2003, Ewart held a science exhibition called "Vivikta 2003" and themed "A Futuristic Clean World". During the expo Ewarts introduced its plan to clean up the school and the surrounding neighborhood as a part of its larger effort for promoting environmental awareness.[10]

On 23 January 2004, the school organized an interactive session on AIDS with Dr. Fuller and Dr.Libman from the United States along with three doctors from Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute. About 400 girls from standard IX to XII interacted with Jon D.Fuller and Howard Libman, associate professors from Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School. Students asked a wide range of questions from mother-to-child transmission to the origins of HIV and to the symptoms of AIDS[11]

(Drop Everything and Read) - On 23 December 2005, in celebration of the One World Reading Together program started in 1999 by Scholastic Publishing, Ewart Students gathered together at noon in the school auditorium and read silently. At the end of this "DEAR" time, the students yelled "C.S.I. Ewart reads for 2006" and made pledge to reading for the upcoming year.[12]

Ewart has five houses. Students are assigned a house when they enroll in the school. Houses compete against one another in annual events such as sports day or bake sales.

In 2000, Ewartr received donated computer networking materials and a grant from the SEED organization to help improve the technology in the school. The SEED School Network Program offers to disadvantaged schools located in developing countries the financial and technical assistance needed to connect them to the Internet.[13] Ewart used the grant money to set up a computer center and to train teachers on operating Windows 95, NT, and MS-Office. Ms. Mallika Ranjan lead the development, organization, and deployment of the new IT system at Ewart.[14]

C.S.I Ewart was one of three schools awarded the Ford Conservation and Environmental Grant in November 2001. The total grant amount of Rs. 15 lakhs was distributed among the winners to support projects which aimed at preservation of their immediate environment and natural resources.[15] Ewart's winning project proposal was titled 'Proliferating Vermiculture Practice by Community Participation,' and aimed to incorporate vermiculture units on camps to battle environmental pollution.[16]