Doon School – Creating all-round brilliance

The Doon School is an all boys, independent boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.The Doon school is a member of G20 Schools and Round Square group. 

History

Doon was a dream of Satish Ranjan Das, a lawyer from Calcutta and advocate-general of Bengal, who in 1927 became a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council of Lord Irwin on the condition that he would use the prestige of this position to raise funds for a new type of school in India. He decided to name the new school “Doon”, as it was situated in the Doon Valley. 

In 1935, the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, presided over the formal opening of the school. 

Doon follows the house system; there are five main houses (Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kashmir, Tata and Oberoi) 

Academics

Students at Doon School take the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) exams in tenth grade, which replaced Indian Certificate of Secondary Education in 2017, and are thereafter offered two strands for the final two years: International Baccalaureate (IB) or Indian School Certificate (ISC).

The school practices a five-and-a-half-day week consisting of 40 periods each of 40 minutes.

Infrastructure

The school is spread across a single campus covering approximately 72 acres flanked by Chakrata Road and Mall Road in the Dehradun Cantonment area of Dehradun city, Uttarakhand, India. To house the school, the IPSS acquired Chandbagh Estate in Dehradun from the Forest Research Institute (FRI). Some portion of the estate was once a deer park.

The buildings on campus include the main block  which houses offices and classrooms, structures for sports facilities, science blocks, music school, library, arts and media centre, auditorium, amphitheatre, dining hall, wellness centre, recycling and waste-treatment plants, and masters’ residences.

Activities

There are around more than 50 clubs and societies, including astronomy, business, The Doon School Model United Nations, quiz, photography and film, aeromodelling, robotics, paper recycling, weather reporting, pottery, carpentry, amateur radio and birdwatching, besides many others.

Sports are mandatory for all pupils. Major sports activities include;

• Cricket
• Hockey
• Football,
• Athletics 
• Boxing
• Table tennis
• Badminton
• Squash
• Basketball
• Swimming
• Gymnastics 

Alumni

The students of Doon have reached the zenith of success. Some of these names are ;

Rajiv Gandhi

Prannoy Roy

Mani Shankar Aiyar