Why CIRS
The future of our world rests upon the quality of its youth. Quality comes through care and attention.
Swami Chinmayananda, whose vision the school was built on
Since 1996
It opened with ninety-six students.
CIRS was inaugurated on 6 June 1996 as an undertaking of the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust.
A hundred acres
Eighty of them were left to the forest.
The campus sits in the Siruvani foothills, with roughly eighty acres left to native flora and fauna.
The motto
Knowledge. Service. Skill.
Knowledge is gained to serve the world efficiently, with compassion and dedication.
Boarding
The part of the education that is not timetabled.
Students from twenty-four Indian states and twenty countries share one residential community.
The vision
Competent, sensitive, ethical.
Academic proficiency and character development are treated as one education.
Junior School
Where curiosity gets its first push.
Grade V begins a broad exposure to music, sport and the sciences alongside the CBSE curriculum.
From Grade XI
Two boards. One ambition.
Students choose CBSE pathways or the IB Diploma from Grade XI.
In short
The school, in figures.
- Inaugurated
- 6 June 1996
- Founder
- Swami Chinmayananda
- Chairperson
- Swami Swaroopanandaji
- Grades
- V to XII
- Curricula
- CBSE & IB Diploma
- Medium
- English
- Campus
- 100 acres
- Left as forest
- c. 80 acres
- Indian states
- 24
- Countries
- 20
- Students today
- 580+
- Recognition
- Green School Award
Since 1996
Ninety-six students, and a hundred acres.
Chinmaya International Residential School was conceived by Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda and inaugurated on 6 June 1996, three years after his mahasamadhi, opening with ninety-six students. It is an undertaking of the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust.
The motto is taught as a daily practice rather than displayed as a crest. CBSE and the IB Diploma have run side by side since the beginning, each taught by teachers trained in that curriculum.
The campus
A decision that cost buildable land.
Roughly eighty of the campus’s hundred acres have been left to native flora and fauna. It cost the school land it could have built on, and earned it the Green School Award from the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi.
The school sits in the Siruvani foothills outside Coimbatore, and takes boarders from twenty-four Indian states and twenty countries.
Our motto
Knowledge, service and skill.
kaṭibaddhā vayaṁ sarve lakṣyaṁ sādhayituṁ varam śikṣāyāstrividhaṁ yadvai jñānaṁ sevā ca kauśalam
The motto holds that knowledge is gained in order to serve the world efficiently. It asks for continual learning towards a positive impact; for service offered with compassion and dedication; and for efficiency, because efficiency is what turns good intent into contribution.
The three together, not one of them alone.
Boarding
Mentoring is structural, not extracurricular.
Houses carry the names of India’s great teachers, and seniors and juniors share corridors by design.
Boarders arrive from twenty-four Indian states and twenty countries and share a single dining hall, a single timetable and a single set of house rosters. Difference is not a programme here — it is the corridor.
The vision
Unlocking potential with care.
An individual’s unique perspective, shaped by personal values, is key to nurturing morally upright citizens who can serve society effectively. Education aims for holistic growth, blending academic proficiency with character development, and CIRS provides an enriching environment for students to excel.
The approach is to develop competent, sensitive and ethical young people, and to unlock the potential of exceptional children until they are conscientious global citizens. Safety and holistic well-being come first, and the strategies for both are revised continually rather than settled once.
CIRS teaches through the Chinmaya Vision Programme, which integrates culture, philosophy and academics. The programme sets out to equip future citizens to meet challenges positively, and asks children, school management, teachers and parents each to contribute to that.
Senior School
Two boards, one ambition.
From Grade XI students declare a direction — CBSE’s Engineering, Medicine or Management streams, or the IB Diploma, where every teacher is IB-trained and several serve as IB examiners.
The Diploma runs across six subject groups, three or four of them at Higher Level, anchored by the Extended Essay, Theory of Knowledge and CAS — recognised by universities in India and worldwide.
Junior School
A broad first exposure.
The junior years begin in Grade V, introducing boarding life, house mentorship, and a broad first exposure to music, sport and the sciences alongside the CBSE curriculum. Value education runs alongside the timetable from Bal Bhagavatam onward.
[Placeholder — junior-school-specific programme detail to be supplied by the school.]
Under construction
This page is still being written. Photographs, names and figures marked in brackets are placeholders awaiting the school, and more will be added here in the weeks ahead. Tell us what is missing.
