Welcome
Welcome to Woodstock Day School
If you are seeking a school that takes kids seriously as thinkers, doers, problem solvers, composers, makers and activists, then take note. And if you are seeking a school that foregrounds joy, well being and becoming a good human, then go no further. Welcome to Woodstock Day School. We have been here for nearly 50 years, making culture and producing citizens in the Hudson Valley.
With Overlook Mountain gracing the campus like a mantlepiece, our sensibility is built around an ecological framework. We are a school that takes learning seriously, while embracing the vitality of play, the arts (all), and children’s natural affinity with the outdoors. Our aim is to intentionally forge linkages between children and the natural habitat and as well as to their community. We do that through a place based approach to learning, within a spiralling curriculum that integrates knowledge through experience. Projects are undertaken, while knowledge and inquiries are constructed as journeys across disciplines and sometimes continents. In the new educational landscape, we understand learning as local and global.
In our Early Childhood science program, young children walk in the woods once a week to make observations, ask questions and simply take in their natural surroundings. In our Lower school, students belong to the “mulch brigade,” and work to keep our campus tidy and our plants healthy. Our High School students participate in town council meetings to advocate for more rigorous environmental standards. One of our seniors is doing an independent project to significantly reduce the tick population on campus through research and advocacy. Taking stewardship and civility seriously are some of the ways in which we engage students with the wider world.