Category: Articles

When I start talking about self-directed education, one of the first questions which comes up is, but what about exposure? Surely children don’t know all the things which are out there, and it’s our responsibility to make sure that they do? Isn’t that what an education is all about? How can we leave Maths ‘up […]

A Statement from Zoë Readhead-Neill, Principal at Summerhill School: Today the UK government is launching an enquiry into sexual harassment, physical violence and even rape between students in UK schools. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is launching a special helpline to learn more about its prevalence and offer support […]

Children’s long term well-being depends on being given the time to make sense of their experiences. What will we want to do when finally this pandemic is over, and restrictions are lifted? See people we love, go to places we’ve missed, buy non-essential items in shops, find a crowd and just marvel at how many […]

[This article was originally published on Age of Awareness which is Medium’s largest publication dedicated to education reform.] Join the #Imlearning movement and showcase kids’ learning to squash the “covid gap” narrative With the assumption that only measurable, National Curriculum-based learning is important, the government has identified, and publicised, a ‘covid gap’ in learning. To […]

Our world needs creative problem solvers. People who know how they learn, how to communicate, and are adept at creative collaboration. But how do we nurture these natural qualities within the current education system which is based on the Standardization Philosophy?  We politely, kindly, and insistently agitate for change. We join together and advocate for […]

Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist and author.  Her book ‘Changing Our Minds; How Children Can Take Control of Their Own Learning’ is out now, published by Little, Brown. This time a year ago, we’d never have guessed how many people would have spent this year homeschooling.  School seemed as much part of life as […]

[This article was originally published by Radix whose vision is a sustainable society where all citizens can live securely with dignity, are active participants in society and are free to pursue their own interpretation of the good life.] Over the past half century, despite many changes of government, and many impassioned pleas for alternative visions, […]

By Andrea Hazeldin, Deputy Principal and Head of College, Uckfield Community Technology College, 2013 Introduction The title is taken from a comment made by a Year 8 student at the College. This article outlines the approach that prompted that comment – and others such as ‘I’ve learned more from these five sessions than in my […]

Open letter to the Education Select Committee The following letter was sent on 17 December 2020 to the Chair of the Education Select Committee Mr Robert Halfon MP, to the Clerk, to the Children’s Commissioner and to the Local Government Association and signed by the parties below. Misuse of key terms by Children’s Commissioner and […]

There is no need for a change in current arrangements for home education. The law on the ‘otherwise’ criterion is clear on the right to an education that is not in school. Below is some evidence for the need for schools to change, based on the book ‘Self Managed Learning and the New Educational Paradigm’ […]

Transcript from Derry Hannam’s talk at the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) on 30th October 2020 #WebIDEC2020: I must warn you that although this lecture is not a lecture or a speech or even just a talk – it is a story – and that still gives me the opportunity to say a lot!! “Another […]

I’ve worked with families that home-school for a variety of reasons.  Some enforced and some consciously.  Like many things on the edges of a society it is a place that is so often misunderstood, but a place where you can learn so much from the community and I am glad that I found this community […]

After six months of school buildings being closed, debates, balance sheets, proposals, controversies multiply around questions about “recovering learning”, “automatically approving or failing”, “how to follow protocols on returning to school”, “when closing the school year”, ” how to diagnose learning loss “, among others that address education with language of accounting. More extreme positions […]

Recently there have been renewed concerns from the media and policy makers about home educated children who are not formally taught, and who may be classed as Children Missing Education. This blog is intended to speak directly to anyone with concerns. Children are hard wired to learn from the moment they are born. There is […]

Recruitment, retention, results. This was what I gathered from my first meeting on the Sixth Form Management Team (SMT), back in the early teens of last decade. We called it the ‘3 Rs’ and it formed the basis of decision-making within our Sixth Form, an ambitious offshoot of the competitive inner-London academy I was employed […]

With our youth-led research project, Breaking The Silence, we’re exploring the impact of the UK’s educational system on young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Today we hear from Jaspar Khawaja, a doctoral student at the UCL Institute of Education, who has been collaborating with us in recent months to develop the research. Asked about the […]

With our youth-led research project, Breaking The Silence, we’re exploring the impact of the UK’s educational system on young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Today we hear from Jaspar Khawaja, a doctoral student at the UCL Institute of Education, who has been collaborating with us in recent months to develop the research. In our previous […]

You maybe don’t realise but in order to home educate successfully parents have some serious un-learning to do! Un-learning? That’s a bit contrary for an education blog isn’t it? How is that going to help with home schooling when there’s so much new stuff to understand? And that’s the whole point; there’s a lot of […]

Diversity? Financial sustainability? Creativity? Let us unleash all potential! As an active member of the Luxembourg Treasury Association (ATEL) for about 20 years, I had the honour of being one of the rare guests to attend this annual conference like no other, given the health circumstances. Indeed, times are changing, and for the first time this […]

Rather than impose my own idea of the kind of structures that the class democracy should have I decided that we would make it up as we went along by dealing with issues as they arose. The one thing I was clear about was the need for a class meeting. As the school required that […]

This is a transcript of a speech given by Derry Hannam at the Holistic School, Taiwan on 18th October 2020: I am very pleased to be invited to give this talk at the Holistic school in Taiwan – the Summerhill School of Asia – and to follow in the eminent footsteps of my good friends […]