In Jan, 1957 with a small amount from his personal savings Ch. Puran Singh who came from a distinguished family of landed gentry and who had just started his practice as a lawyer at the district courts Dehradun requested his wife Satyabala to put their own residence at disposal to set up a small preparatory school for boys and girls at Lytton road called ‘The Blue Bird’. This small initiative soon became too big for the premises it occupied and had to be shifted to another location close by.
Three decades later and with some experience of running schools the Puran Singh family entrusted their younger son, Sandip Puran Singh – an environmentalist and an old boy of Doon School to take charge and lay the foundation of Dehradun Hills Academy at its present site on the outskirts of Doon valley close to the Rajaji National Park with a belief that what the city-based children need most, was a school set in quiet sylvan surroundings to encourage a mindful creative approach to life.
