Age Range 3
The Age Range Train. How many coaches? The most important coach?
Design A School 2-2: Vision/Mission Statement Podcast
This week’s Design A School Podcast is about The Vision/ Mission Statement. What does that mean ? What makes a good Mission Statement/Vision.
Design A School 1-2 Reasons Why Podcast
This is the first of a series of Podcasts. We talk about our motivations: why are we interested in setting up democratic schools? Our motivations are different and yours will be too! Share your ideas with us
The Curriculum
Broad Definitions of the Curriculum Democratic Education has a bad reputation for chucking out the whole curriculum. It is time to get over this. The option is to forever be at the mercy of charismatics leading children up the garden path. I’d like to start by proposing three principles. Let’s make a curriculum appropriate to…
The Essentials: Big, Little or In Between
Big Little or In Between Here There and Everywhere We’ve been talking about democracy and scale … size of the school and the building and the finances and the student population and the number of staff and so on. Can a democratic free school environment work regardless of scale; how does scale change delivery? Are…
A Democratic School Critic
Working Within the System “Democratic schools are just groups of privileged kids playing at equality,” says Ted. “That’s not really democracy. You can’t learn about good governance by shutting yourself away from the world.” “What do you mean?” I ask. “What’s wrong with giving children choices?” Children Born Into a World of Choices “Ha,…
Saturday Summerhill Take Aways: A Year of Parties
“You old curmudgeon!” Zoe said. I had proposed unsuccessfully that the party should finish at midnight so that I could get some sleep. My room was in the house and that is where the boom-chacka of the party was loudest. “Hey,” I said, “What kind of democracy would it be if I couldn’t say what…
Thursday Thoughts: More Options, Less Choice
Roy was exasperated. He was trying to engage kids in his classroom and had a timetable so that they could come for scheduled lessons, but another adult had taken over the Café- an open access space with colourful furnishings, bean bags and free coffee. He found that the kids were more drawn to the social…
