Diocesan College

The college is on Campground Road at the main campus, and a small portion of this land is used for the pre-preparatory school. The Preparatory School is situated in Fir Road, Rondebosch close to the college campus.

The college has eight houses: Founders, School and White are the boarding houses, and Birt, Gray, Kidd, Mallett and Ogilvie are for day-scholars. Each house has about 70 to 100 students, and is governed by a house director and an assistant director. The houses are further broken down into tutor groups of about 15 to 20 boys (three or four boys per grade). Each house is equipped with a common room, kitchen, study room, matric room, quad, dining hall, and offices for the head of house and house directors. The preparatory school has four houses: Van der Bijl (for boarders and day-boys), Bramley, Brooke and Charlton.[1]

The institution also offers a dynamic and global alumni organisation, the Old Diocesan Union which has over 5,000 active members in 28 branches around the world.[2]

Bishops is one of four schools in the world to offer an annual Rhodes Scholarship to an ex-pupil to attend the University of Oxford, having been part of the initial Rhodes Scholarship experiment. The school now shares the scholarship with ex-pupils of Herschel School, St. Cyprian's School, and LEAP Schools.[4]

The original HA Molteno Library (which was initially funded by Harry Anderson Molteno as part of the 125th anniversary of Bishops) was designed by Maciek Miszewski and opened in 1977, before which the library had been housed in the Brooke Chapel. It was recently renovated in 2013 to provide a modern, academic, and cultural hub central to the school grounds. Known still as The Molteno Library, the centre provides digital, written and social resources to expand and enhance learning beyond the classroom and the curriculum. The new entrance opens up the library into the History and English quad, just behind the Memorial Chapel, positioning it as a focal point within the academic precinct of the school. The library consists of three floors and four areas - social and research, learning, reading, and indaba.[5]

In 2018, a new trans-disciplinary curriculum was introduced for Grade 9 students called Big Ideas, focusing on sustainability and promoting critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. The curriculum was based off the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a way for students to learn about global issues, and culminated in a project undertaken by all students that tackled an aspect of a global issue.[6]

The school offers numerous opportunities to high-performing students for growth. The school enters boys annually into a number of prestigious competitions such as the UCT Mathematics Competition and the South African Mathematics Olympiad, and many students often qualify for the provincial or national Mathematics teams. The school also participates in the Eskom Science Expo, with many students progressing to prestigious fairs such as ISEF. Senior boys write the National Science Olympiads, with students regularly breaking top 10 in the country, or even winning outright.[7] Bishops further offers the Nexus program for academically talented boys, where they are given leave for certain classes for more advanced pursuits.

Music plays an integral role in the daily life of all boys at Bishops – from daily Chapel Services to the annual Eisteddfod. Many would consider the Eisteddfod, which takes place in the last week of the second term, to be the most important. Over two days the skills of the boys in all spheres of music, art, drama, speech and debating are contested as the Houses compete for the coveted Eisteddfod Owls. It is a showcase of the talent in the school while also uniting the students in an atmosphere of camaraderie and fun. In the drama section a major play production takes place in either the first or second term each year, while in September a one-act play festival is held. The aim is to encourage and stimulate a musical interest in all boys who attend the school, whether it is from just hearing music daily to actually playing an instrument and being part of a musical ensemble.[8] The Bishops Pops takes place tri-annually and throughout the year several art exhibitions display the talent in visual arts, digital design and photography while musical concerts present the work of the ensembles such as the orchestra, chapel choir and choir, jazz band, wind ensemble, brass band and marimba band.

The John Peake Music School underwent extensive renovations during 2002. It now houses two well-equipped teaching classrooms, five offices for the full-time staff, nine instrumental teaching rooms, a dedicated percussion studio, a staff room, two dedicated practice rooms, the Hyslop Concert Hall, a recording studio, a SoundHouse for music technology and two store rooms.[9]

There are over 30 societies presently functioning at the College. These societies are run by members of staff, with the assistance of senior boys.

All Bishops pupils are expected to belong to at least one of these societies, depending on their interests and opportunities, and most are very well attended. Each society can hold meetings from every week to two or three times per term, either in the evenings, after lunch, or during Open Period - a free block that every boy has during the day. Some, such as the Public Speaking and Debating societies, are world renowned, and several boys represent or have represented the national team in this regard.

The current list of societies include:

• Accelerated Art
• African Relations
• Astronomy
• Audio Visual
• Book Club
• Career Forum
• Chess
• Cooking
• Dance
• Debating
• Democritus (Science)
• Drama
• Entrepreneurship
• Field and Stream
• Film
• Forum (General)
• Global Issues Network (Sustainability)
• Historical Bench (Politics)
• History
• Impact (Christian)
• Interact (Community service and President's Award)
• International
• Investment
• Lingua Franca (General)
• Mathematics
• Museum and Archives
• Music
• Philosophy
• Public Speaking
• Ten Club (the 10 top academics in Matric, each boy presents a talk to the club on an interesting topic)

The first concerns a teacher, Leonard Kaplan, who was accused of inappropriate conduct toward students. He was ultimately asked to resign from the school.[10][11] One report in the media stated "similar allegations had been made against Kaplan 19 years earlier but he had been allowed to stay on at the school".[12]

In March 2000 five matric boarders were expelled having been found guilty of beating about twenty Grade 9 and Grade 10 students in a hazing 'raid'. Fourteen months prior two boys were also victims of hazing. The school has publicly committed to eradicating the culture of bullying at the school.[13]

In October 2019 a teacher and water polo coach was accused of having a sexual relationship with a pupil. The teacher has since resigned from the school and the investigation is ongoing.[14]