This year for Activity Week, the community engagement department offered students a chance to go to Kumaon, the other half of Uttrakhand, in order to visit two leading non-governmental organisations in the area; Kumaun Grameen Udyog (KGU) and Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG). I was one of the students who was able to...
This Activity Week, Grade 8 ventured out for a week-long rafting expedition down the upper reaches of the Ganga. Student Asha shares her experience of their adventure in this poem. volleyball and hikes, swimming in a clear blue sky first few days pass as we stay in carefree paradise sleeping with half-roofs over our head, playing empires...
Woodstock Principal Dr Craig Cook explains how exposing students to new cultures, landscapes and experiences during Activity Week provides an opportunity for them to thrive. Harold Garfinkel was a master of the socially awkward. A professor of sociology, he is known as the founder of ethnomethodology – the study of how...
Do you know that there is a fun scale? That is, at least when it comes to the spending time in the great outdoors. Enthusiasts will tell you that there are three types of fun. Type one fun, put simply, is fun – before, during and afterwards. It could be a...
Woodstock Principal, Dr Craig Cook, reflects on the joys of sauntering. In two weeks’ time, our students will be heading off for activity week. Undoubtably one of the highlights of the school year, it gives all our students the chance to swap the classroom for the great-outdoors and step outside their...
Archita Aggarwal from the Class of 2021 puts the spotlight on Vishwa Vidya, a community engagement project with a mission to contribute towards improving the quality of education delivered at economically deprived local schools in and around Mussoorie. In the four years since its establishment, the Vishva Vidhya (Global Education) project has...
In our parents' newsletter, Principal Dr Cook explains why he believes great leadership starts with listening. One of many wisdoms attributed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama is: “When you talk, you only repeat what you know; But when you listen, you learn something new”. It’s hard to argue that there’s...
While every logical, environmental, and financial argument goes against bottled water, people still buy it. Daeun Lee from the Class of 2020 asks why. As I observed how my Instagram feed was being painted with dying turtles and choking marine animals, I wondered if those images motivate people enough to make a...
On Friday 15 September, Students leaders involved in Community Engagement projects presented their work to the Woodstock School Board and General Body, explaining how their initiatives have impacted on their lives and those of people in the local community. Janvi Poddar from the Class of 2021 reports. Once every year, the Community...
What were your interests and passions as a student at WS? Woodstock was the place where many of the interests and passions I still have today really took shape. Curriculum wise, the literature and social science classes captured my imagination, and fed into my university studies and work. Extracurricular experiences like...
Archita from the Class of 2021 writes about our Community Engagement project's partnership with Sanathan Dhraram, a girls' school in Mussoorie. For the past three years now, Woodstock students who are engaged in Community Engagement, have been actively participating in making improvements to a government-aided school, Sanathan Dharam, which is attended...
Navya from the Class of 2020 has had her essay on the philosophy of gender inequality short-listed out of more than 3,600 entries for the New College of the Humanities Year 12 Essay Competition. As I look out my bedroom window into the neighbour's garden, I see a young, beautiful girl...
Our student water conservation team works with the local community to tackle water scarcity in and around Woodstock and Mussoorie. Cofounder Dhrubhagat from the Class of 2020 identifies the pressing issues facing us around water conservation, and some of the practical solutions the team has identified to help Woodstock become more efficient in, and...
What brought you and your family to Woodstock? What years and which grades were you at Woodstock? My story of ending up at Woodstock is unique just like so many of us in this community. My parents were doctors and missionaries with the Emmanuel Hospital Association. We were posted in Raxaul...
This is a piece Wayne wrote for his retirement home newsletter and for his son and daughter and Stephen Goheen. He attended every class but second standard at Woodstock from Lower Kindergarten to tenth standard graduation in the class of 1946. His father, Wayne D. Wardwell, Sr was the first...
