Pinegrove School, Dharampur (Solan)

Ranked among the top 15 legacy boarding schools in north India in EW league tables 2010, this fully residential CBSE-affiliated school is all set to celebrate its 20th anniversary

Hectic preparations are afoot on the two 25-acre campuses (Dharampur and Subathu) of Pinegrove School sited at an elevation of 5,000 ft. in the Shimla Hills of the Solan Valley, in scenic Himachal Pradesh. Sometime later this year, this fully residential CBSE-affiliated school with an enrolment of 850 boarders (600 boys and 250 girl students) instructed by 80 highly-qualified teachers, will celebrate its 20th anniversary with considerable pomp and ceremony.

“Currently we are in the process of constructing a new 750-seat auditorium on our Dharampur campus. Our 20th anniversary celebrations will coincide with inauguration of the new auditorium later this year,” says Capt. (Retd.) Amarjyot Singh, an alumnus of the Lawrence School, Sanawar; National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla; Indian Military Academy, Dehradun and College of Materials Management, Jabalpur, who is currently principal and executive director of Pinegrove School. Commiss-ioned into the Army Ordinance Corps in 1982, Capt. Singh served the Indian Army in several sectors and commands including counter-insurgency opera-tions before resigning his commission in 1987 to aid his father Wing Commander S.S. Gyani (1919-2004), a respected educationist, former principal of Air Force Central School, Delhi, and the founder of two St. Soldier Divine Public schools at Panchkula and Banur,  and the Pinegrove School in 1991 under the aegis of the Pinegrove International Charitable Trust.

“I joined Pinegrove when it was just a month old and from then on we have never looked back. We’ve constantly grown by re-investing our surpluses in infrastructure and faculty development, earning the trust and respect of students and parents in India and abroad as well,” adds Singh.

This assertion is supported by the excellent ranking Pinegrove School has received in the EducationWorld-C fore India’s Most Respected Schools 2010 survey. Despite its relatively recent vintage, Pinegrove was ranked among the country’s top 30 legacy boarding schools and 15th in the north zone league tables headed by the Doon School (estb.1935) and Rishi Valley School, Chittoor (1926), receiving its highest rating on the parameter of sports education (see EW September 2010).

Scholastically, the school has quickly earned a reputation as a centre of academic excellence. Since the first batch of class X students wrote the CBSE boards in 1996, the school has produced impressive cent percent results. The first batch of class XII students wrote their board exam in 2004, and all but three passed in first division. In March 2010, all 117 students who wrote the class X and XII board exams passed in the first division. “Pinegrovians are now match-ing the performance of older and well-established schools in academics, sports and cultural activities,” says Singh with justifiable pride.

Pinegrove’s growing reputation is supported by an excellent academic infrastructure which includes latest educational aids, DLP projectors and interactive boards in all classrooms, multimedia technology and supple-mentary education content available on the network in hard disks, compact discs, VHS systems and on servers.  Each classroom is a Smart Class. Moreover the school has installed state-of-the-art computer laboratories which are also extensively used by teachers to design computer-aided pedagogies. These facilities are augmented by the school’s libraries which boast over 10,000 volumes and 40 journal subscriptions.

Games and sports facilities include natural-turf playing fields for all major games including cricket, hockey, soccer and for athletics, an oval 200 m track and a straight 100 m track. The Dharampur campus also boasts a flood-lit sports stadium. Both schools provide hard-surface basketball, tennis and badminton courts, while the senior school is equipped with a 25 metre swimming pool, shooting range, indoor badminton and squash courts, carpentry workstations and a modern multi-gym.

By way of co-curricular education, music (Indian, vocal and instrumental), art, crafts, painting, stitching, knitting, embroidery, gardening, brass band and karate classes are offered in addition to dance, drama, debate, declamation, quiz, adventure camps and excursions.

In keeping with its progressive outlook, Pinegrove is well-linked with the outside world. The school is a member of the IPSC (Indian Public Schools Conference), IAYP (Interna-tional Awards for Young People, aka the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme), UKIERI (UK-India Educational Research Initiative), GSP (British Council’s Global Schools Programme), is a member school of the NCC (National Cadet Corps) junior division and has been awarded ISO 9001:2008 certification.

Looking ahead, Singh is optimistic about the future of Pinegrove School and Indian K-12 education in general. “Promoting and establishing an internationally benchmarked residential school is an arduous and demanding task. Twenty years on we have over-come the teething pains of development and can look forward to continuous improvement of our infrastructure and pedagogies. Immediately after compl-etion of our 750-seat new auditorium later this year, we will begin construction of the country’s most modern indoor all-weather sports complex spread over an area of almost two acres. With continuous improvement as our credo, I am confident that by the time we celebrate our silver jubilee five years hence, Pinegrove will be ranked among the country’s top 10 boarding schools in the EducationWorld annual survey of schools,” says Singh who quite obviously believes that aiming high and setting challenging institutional goals is the precondition of continuous improvement.

Autar Nehru (Delhi)