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On the Roof of Africa: Shiv Nadar School students summit Mt. Kilimanjaro!

At 2 a.m., very little distracts you from the mountain; you only think about your next step. There is the sound of footsteps. The cold. The beam of a headlamp. The person walking ahead. The person behind. And the next step.

For 13 students from Shiv Nadar School, that meant walking towards Uhuru Peak, the highest point of Mount Kilimanjaro at 5,895 metres. The temperature had fallen below freezing. The air was thin. The trail was steep and covered with loose volcanic rock. Beyond the beam of their headlamps, there was darkness. They had been walking for hours, and the summit was still ahead.

“I just kept reminding myself to take one step at a time,” recalls a student from Gurgaon campus.

It is a simple thought, but on a mountain it becomes a way of moving forward.

At Shiv Nadar School, Outbound Learning Experiences (OLEs) are designed to take students into environments where they have to engage with situations rather than simply learn about them.

The students had travelled to Tanzania to climb Africa’s highest peak, and one of the well-known ‘Seven Summits’. The climb was a part of their OLE, where the unfamiliar becomes a space for students to observe, make decisions, work with others and discover how they respond when circumstances change. The mountain provided the setting. The experience provided the learning.

The Journey Started Long Before

Most students did not arrive at Kilimanjaro as first-time climbers. Their expedition was the culmination of a three-year mountaineering programme. In 2024, they began with Mount Patalsu, a 4,000-metre climb that introduced them to navigation and camp craft. In 2025, they progressed to Mount O, a 5,100-metre technical climb where they learnt rock and ice craft, rope techniques and rappelling. Before travelling to Tanzania, they completed a 40-day training programme focused on physical fitness and expedition preparedness.

Each climb asked more of them. Each experience added another layer of knowledge.

The preparation also gave them something less tangible: an understanding that a demanding experience is shaped long before the moment when the challenge arrives.

That is one of the principles behind Outbound Learning at Shiv Nadar School. Students are given opportunities to prepare, participate and take increasing responsibility for their experiences. The summit was only a destination and the learning had already begun.

The Landscape Keeps Changing

Kilimanjaro offers distinct landscapes. As the students climbed via the Machame Route, they moved through cultivated land, rainforest, heath and moorland, alpine desert and the summit zone.

The changes were gradual at first. Then they became impossible to miss.

The rainforest gave way to open terrain. Vegetation became sparse. Temperatures shifted. The air became thinner. The landscape became quieter.

In the lower reaches, the students encountered blue monkeys and colobus monkeys. Higher up, the wildlife disappeared. The mountain seemed to change with every stage of the climb.

For the students, this wasn’t an ecological zone marked on a map. It was something they were moving through.

A student from Shiv Nadar School, Noida, found the alpine desert particularly challenging because of its changing temperatures and barren landscape. From Faridabad, another participant noticed the glaciers emerging against the volcanic rock.

An environment like this asks students to pay attention. They have to notice what has changed, understand what that change means and decide how to respond.

That is one of the possibilities that arise from learning outside familiar settings. Knowledge is no longer something to recall. It becomes something to use.

When the Mountain Asks You to Listen

The summit push began in the middle of the night.

For another student from Shiv Nadar School, Gurgaon, who is also a competitive basketball player, the experience was unlike the short bursts of effort she was accustomed to on the court.

At altitude, physical strength was only one part of the challenge. During the climb, the fellow student she had been walking with had to descend because of altitude sickness, but she continued with her guide.

“I always had the option to give up and go back to camp,” she says. “But I reached a part of me I never knew I had.”

There is a difference between being told that a challenge will test you and finding yourself inside one. An OLE creates that space.

Students may discover abilities they did not realise they had. They may also discover that they need to change their approach. They learn to recognise uncertainty, assess their own response and make decisions with the information available to them.

On Kilimanjaro, that meant paying attention to their breathing, energy and physical wellbeing. It meant knowing that continuing was not always the right answer. It meant knowing when to slow down.

Sometimes Progress Means Going Slowly

The group followed pole pole, a Swahili phrase meaning “slowly, slowly”.

Rest breaks and health checks were built into the expedition as students acclimatised to the altitude. The climb required them to listen to their bodies and accept that moving slowly could be what allowed them to keep going.

A student from Noida campus who had previously climbed Mount O noticed the difference between the two expeditions. Mount O had demanded technical skills. Kilimanjaro demanded a different kind of attention.

“The climb-high, sleep-low strategy of our team leaders really helped,” he says, “as none of us experienced any serious bouts of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness).”

For students, this is where resilience comes with judgement. When do I continue? When do I change my approach? When do I ask for help? When do I stop? These decisions are part of learning too.

The People Around You Matter

A mountain can begin as a personal challenge. It does not stay that way for long.

The 13 students had to move as a group, look out for one another and share what they knew. Seven students had previous Himalayan expedition experience. Their knowledge became useful to the rest of the team as they navigated the demands of the climb.

The experience also changed how students understood leadership. It is also about helping someone find their footing. Sharing something you had learnt on an earlier climb. Speaking up when something did not feel right. Or stepping back when another person needed to take the lead.

A student from Gurgaon campus saw the importance of this collective experience. “It’s much more rewarding when everyone reaches the summit together,” he says. Because achievement lies in what a group enables its members to do.

The Summit Is Not the Whole Story

As they reached the Uhuru Peak, after hours of walking in darkness, the sky began to change. The sun rose over the African landscape as the students stood at the summit. It is an image that will stay with them. But the photograph cannot capture everything that made it possible. The months of preparation. The 40 days of training. The changing terrain. The thin air. The student who had to descend. The moments when someone needed help. The decision to slow down. The decision to continue.

The many conversations and small acts of support along the way. The experience demanded that mental toughness counts for as much as physical fitness. The summit was a visible outcome. The less visible outcomes were the judgements students made along the way.

Learning Beyond the Familiar

This is what makes an Outbound Learning Experience: it asks students to notice, question, make decisions, work with others, manage uncertainty, take responsibility, and reflect.

The Kilimanjaro expedition also brought students face to face with a changing environment; they witnessed the effects of global warming. As they climbed, they saw glaciers that were smaller than expected. The retreat of Kilimanjaro's glaciers has been documented over the past century, making the mountain a visible reference point in conversations about climate change.

For students, seeing this landscape is different from simply hearing about it.

A place can turn an idea into a question. What has changed here? Why has it changed? What might happen next? What is our relationship with the environment we inhabit?

These questions can stay with students long after they have returned home.

Bringing the Experience Back

An OLE goes beyond the journey. Students return with memories, but also with new ways of looking at familiar things. Learning to slow down on a mountain can change how one approaches a challenge. Asking for help can reshape the way independence and interdependence are understood. Supporting a teammate can offer a new perspective on leadership. And standing above the clouds can change the way a familiar landscape is seen thereafter.

This is why Outbound Learning is part of the learning journey at Shiv Nadar School. It creates situations that cannot always be replicated within familiar surroundings, giving students the opportunity to take what they know into new contexts and discover what happens when knowledge, judgement and action come together. The mountain may be left behind, but what students discover about themselves along the way becomes part of the journey ahead.

The contingent included students from across Shiv Nadar School campuses:

From Shiv Nadar School, Gurgaon - Varshini Venkatesh and Tiara Mongia (Grade X); Ayaan Sharma, Sana Sahrawat and Parth Mehta (Grade XII). From Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad - Maira Sikka and Ameya Kunwer (Grade X); Aashita Baid (Grade XII). From Shiv Nadar School, Noida - Vivaan Agarwal, Nalin Das, Tashna Aggarwal and Reyansh Dhaneshwar (Grade X); Avantika Sehgal (Grade XII).