HIGH in the picturesque summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains overlooking the panoramic view of the Pedro Plains and the Caribbean Sea rests Munro College.

The institution, which has the history as one of Jamaica’s finest secondary level educational institutions for boys is the only remaining all-boys’ boarding school.

Their motto is In Are Sitam Quis Occultabit (A City Set On A Hill Cannot be Hid).

The school started as the Munro and Dickenson Free School in Black River in 1856, two years earlier than its sister institution Hampton School.

It was as the Free School that Munro left Black River, a year after its foundation, for its present location some 2,000 feet above sea level on 150 acres of hillside land in the Santa Cruz Mountains near the Potsdam village. The school subsequently became known as Potsdam School. The name Munro College dates back to when a decision was taken that the school should no longer bear the name of the German Kaiser’s principal palace in Berlin after World War II. However, the surrounding Potsdam district did not change its name. Munro College is the only school in the English-Speaking world to have a post office named after it.

There are currently three boarding houses at Munro: Coke Farquharson (the oldest part of the campus), Pearman Calder and Dickenson. Currently, a state-of-the-art dormitory is being built which is expected to house about 200 boarding students.

Munro College is the only Jamaican school ever to be formally recognised in Britain as a public school and caters to a multiplicity of student nationalities including Nigeria, Germany the United Kingdom and the Caribbean.

This school has not only been dominant in the field of academia, but prides itself on having an equally impressive record in the worlds of sports and other extra-curricular activities.