Enrichment

Dr Craig Cook on Activity Week with Grade 9

28 Dec Three Threads for Woodstock’s Future

Posted at 10:57h in All, Centre for Imagination, Education Matters, Enrichment, Principal's Views 5 Comments

Principal Dr Craig Cook looks back at his experiences on this year's Activity Week, and forward to share what's needed to ensure Woodstock remains distinctive into the future. It was my privilege during Activity Week to be with the ninth graders on their village trip. While the village was only a...

16 Dec Keep Reading this Winter Break

Posted at 10:11h in All, Centre for Imagination, Education Matters, Enrichment, Principal's Views 3 Comments

The last few days have been cold, wet and windy up here on the hillside, and most of us are looking forward to getting down to lower altitudes and warmer climates. The winter vacations are an important time for us all, not just to escape the most severe of our Himalayan...

12 Dec One-Book Woodstock – Maus

Posted at 08:25h in All, Centre for Imagination, Education Matters, Enrichment, Principal's Views 3 Comments

One-Book Woodstock is back for the winter break. The idea is that everyone – students from Grades 6 up, teachers and staff – will read the book over the Christmas period. When we return in the Spring, the book’s themes will feed into our studies across the curriculum. Essentially, we’re...

25 Nov Becoming a Reusable Water Bottle Campus

Posted at 09:41h in All, Enrichment, Principal's Views 7 Comments

From January, Woodstock is becoming a reusable water bottle campus, where students and staff alike will not be using plastic bottled water at school or in dorms. Principal Dr Craig Cook explains why. Spinning the bottle For the industry, It’s the modern-day equivalent of the philosopher’s stone, sought by alchemists to turn...

08 Nov Fair Share

Posted at 14:22h in Community Development, Education Matters, Enrichment, Student Views 5 Comments

In many schools in India which are attended by children from low income families, access to hands-on science and maths education has still not been achieved. The education system in these schools needs to be reformed in order to provide better tools and create a hands-on model for learning. As a...

03 Nov Social Enterprise in the Kumaon

Posted at 09:52h in Community Development, Education Matters, Enrichment, Student Views 0 Comments

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...

02 Nov Across the Ganga

Posted at 12:15h in Education Matters, Enrichment, Outdoor Learning, Student Views 1 Comment

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 students jump into a river during activity week

21 Oct Into the Breach

Posted at 15:54h in All, Enrichment, Outdoor Learning, Principal's Views 0 Comments

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...

07 Oct Three Types of Fun

Posted at 10:03h in All, Enrichment, Outdoor Learning, Principal's Views 0 Comments

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...

30 Sep Saunter, Don’t Hike

Posted at 10:31h in All, Enrichment, Outdoor Learning, Principal's Views 1 Comment

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...