SUMMER AT

DOON
LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
24th May to 06th June 2024
 Message from the Headmaster

I am delighted to welcome aspiring and enthusiastic young men and women aged 14 -
18 years from all over India and across the globe to The Doon School’s Summer at
Doon Leadership Programme May 2024.

The Doon School has long been associated with innovative thinking and leadership
and is passionate about being at the forefront of educational opportunity for its
students. Summer at Doon seeks to create a very special experience that will enable a
wider student body of girls and boys to discover essential qualities within themselves
that will help them on their journey of action, leadership, service and fulfillment.

The course will be taught by many of our experienced staff as well as by alumni and
other special guests. The two week long programme will be an adventure that
promises to be challenging and intellectually demanding, enabling students to meet
and make likeminded friends, and learn from each other, as well as from the adults
leading the Summer at Doon Programme.

We have created a dynamic and thought provoking course that will ensure
participants receive a profound understanding of what global citizenship and youth
leadership looks like in our complex and ambiguous world.

I am very pleased to be a part of the Summer at Doon faculty and look forward to
leading a few of the modules that we have in store for the 2024 cohort.

Dr Jagpreet Singh
 About The Doon School

The Doon School aims to be an institution of excellence, dedicated to finding and developing
exceptional students to serve a meritocratic India. Founded in 1935 by Satish Ranjan Das, The Doon
School has had a long and distinguished history on India’s tradition-enriched soil. It offers national &
international programmes to 560 boys between the ages of 12 and 18 in a fully boarding environment.
More than a quarter of students, who come from every socioeconomic background and from 26 Indian
states as well as many countries overseas, receive scholarships or bursaries as part of the school’s
mission to attract exceptional boys irrespective of their religion, caste or economic background.

Nestled in the Doon Valley with the magnificent Garhwal Himalayas to the north and the sal-clothed
Shivaliks to the south, the school is set in a wooded 70 acre campus which offers an idyllic location for
young people to live and learn together and explore their interests. The curriculum is broad and
provides a balance of intellectual challenge, creative problem solving and adventure in addition to a
strong sporting tradition and love of the arts. Service, social responsibility and leadership are part of
the school’s curriculum and are embedded in its ethos. With a lifetime’s experience of residential care,
the guidance and support that students receive from committed teachers in and out of the classroom
is second to none in India. Boys achieve first class academic results every year and go on to study and
succeed at top universities and colleges at home and abroad.

In the last few years our students have gained admission to IITs and Delhi University, to Singapore and
Hong Kong universities, to Oxford and Cambridge as well as the Russell Group universities in the UK, to
Canada and to Ivy League colleges and highly regarded liberal arts and science colleges in the US. The
school’s founding Headmaster, Arthur Foot, was a master at Eton before taking up his post at Doon, so
many of its traditions and its ethos are rooted in the British education system. Since its foundation, the
school has had a disproportionate impact on India and has produced many distinguished alumni in all
walks of life, including Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, many chief ministers of Indian states, ambassadors
and luminaries in the world of arts and letters such as sculptor Anish Kapoor and authors Vikram Seth,
Amitav Ghosh and Ramachandra Guha. Doon is a member of the Round Square, The Headmasters’ and
Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) and the International Boys’ School Coalition (IBSC) and is also an IB
World School.

The Summer at Doon Leadership Programme is designed to help participants discover

themselves as team members, leaders, servants and citizens. By engaging in the
workshops, sessions and activities designed to explore and identify attributes and skills
that make teams and leadership work, they will build their own capacity to become
agents of change and thought leaders in their own communities.
The Pedagogical Approach
At the core of the programme is the engagement between the participants and the
programme leaders. The action that it brings about, through forum theatre, Socratic
dialogue, workshops, adventure, design challenges, service and play, will create a powerful
and transformative learning experience. Readings, talks and films will be the starting point for
classroom based activities that will include the thoughts of thinkers, philosophers, writers,
statesmen and entrepreneurs from the past to the present who have actively shaped the
world around them or are leading the world with thought and action. This will be an invaluable
preparation not only for leadership roles in the future, but also for university and college
studies and participation at top institutions in India and worldwide.

The programme will allow students to expand their horizons across multiple academic
disciplines and learn through the lenses of history, geography, philosophy and economics.
This learning approach will be a departure for many students and will provide them with a
unique, intellectually stimulating and creative approach to understanding what engagement,
participation and leadership are and how it can been seen historically, and presently leading
them to envisage what role they can play to impact the future.
How to apply to the Summer at Doon Programme?
Register and apply by e-mail or in hard copy
Course offer is made by the School
Payment
Place confirmed
You come to The Doon School for the Summer at Doon experience!

Admissions Criteria
Interested candidates are required to provide the following:
A completed application form obtainable from the website:
http://doonschool.com/summer-at-doon/
A short personal essay
A reference from a teacher
Payment once acceptance has been acknowledged.
Leadership Case Studies
Students explore case studies to analyse and reach conclusions based on facts, conflicting
goals and values, and their impact on people and societies. We have developed our own, as
well as drawn on relevant political and business case studies from institutions such as
Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. Leadership case studies can also be enriched
from the student’s own experiences in their schools, friendship groups and interests that
require an understanding of what leadership is and how it can have a profound effect on the
positive, and the negative, where it is poor or, perhaps worse, non-existent. Leadership is a
taught part of The Doon School’s curriculum and the school’s faculty are experienced in
teaching its practical and theoretical aspects.
The Performing Arts
Music and Drama programmes are used to explore creativity and self-expression by giving
students opportunities to develop ideas, script, practise and perform. In addition to
supporting spatial learning and temporal reasoning in young adults, the programme is
designed to give students an opportunity to collaborate, influence and lead. Students will
have the chance to be taught by experienced teachers from the school and to perform in the
Rose Bowl amphitheatre and/or indoor theatre spaces.

Communication
The curriculum offers participants opportunities to understand the impact of (and to
practise) influential writing, speaking, presentation skills and non-verbal cues (e.g.,body
language). It uses compelling speeches from well-known leaders to ensure that participants
are able to internalise both substance and style. Soft skills help students to deal with, and
positively manage, diverse environments, dissent, challenging situations and people.

The Outdoor Experience

The programme makes use of Dehradun’s
proximity to a rich and diverse natural
environment. Outdoor activity provides an
appreciation for natural beauty and its
forces. This is based on short, age
appropriate activities such as trekking and
camping outdoors – inspiring planning,
endurance, leadership and team work, as
well as enhancing participants’ awareness
of the environment and the challenges we
human beings pose to it.
Social Service & Social Responsibility
Students will participate in selected social and
community projects from amongst the many that The
Doon School supports. These include building schools,
village development, orphanage support, and similar
projects that make an impact on the lives of the
marginalized sections of society. At the core of the
school’s own curriculum, community service inspires
empathy, compassion and creates a bias towards
action in young leaders.

Leadership Agenda & the Project

Participants will be helped to lay out their own leadership agenda for the future and to
commit themselves to a personal project to build on the skills and experiences developed
during Summer at Doon. The programme is transformative in profound ways and students will
leave it wanting to make a difference in the world in their own unique and individual ways.

Reflection
Central to the course are periods of reflection and contemplation. These enable the
participants to develop the mindfulness and equilibrium essential to inspirational leadership.

Guest Lectures
A variety of guest lecturers will speak to
and interact with the boys and girls on the
programme, including NGO leaders,
politicians, writers, journalists, business
leaders, artists and innovators from many
walks of life. They will provide practical
and anecdotal examples of leadership and
what has worked and not worked for them.
Where are we?
Nestled in a secure 70-acre environment, the School is situated 240 km from Delhi. The Doon
School is easily accessible with 30-minute flight from Delhi to Dehradun Jolly Gant Domestic
Airport, it offers convenience with daily flights from Delhi and direct connections from major
Indian cities. The School is also accessible by train or road from across India.

Contact Information
Ms Abia Qezilbash
Summer at Doon
The Doon School, Mall Road, Dehradun,
Uttarakhand, India - 248003

T : +91 (0)135 2526400

E : [email protected]
Website: https://www.doonschool.com/summer-at-doon/

/thedoonschoolofficial