To ask you about schools with ‘alternative’ educational philosophies?

[peepeelongstocking]

Not really an AIBU, but I love reading about these schools. So far I’ve read about:

• A. S. Neill’s Summerhill
• Steiner/Waldorf schools
• the London Acorn school
• Sands
• Bedales
• New Forest small school (and other ‘small schools’)
• Montessori

Any other interesting ones? They’re my current obsession

Fascinating.
Are they all fee paying?

If looking at Bedales I'd also look at St Christopher's in Letchworth and Frensham Heights.

I would also look at the Quaker schools - far more traditional but with a caring ethos.

Park School, Dartington.
I did some work at Summerhill in the 1990’s. Loved it.

@parrotonmyshoulder

Park School, Dartington. I did some work at Summerhill in the 1990’s. Loved it.

My Summerhill knowledge is based entirely on reading the ‘Naughtiest Girl’ books-I believe Whyteleaf is based on Summerhill!! Is it really like that?

The waldorf/ Steiner have a dark past. I'd be carefully scruitinising any materials etc.

Bedales is amazing. Such a good education and it instils a sense of self confidence that isn’t misplaced. The arts are incredibly well supported so it suited me down to the ground.

I think the biggest issue with Steiner seems to be that each individual school implements the philosophy so differently.

I know that that's due to the fact Steiner wrote so much material, but I suppose it's difficult to know whether the school will focus more on superior races and reincarnation or fairies and lyres until one's children are actually in the school.

@parrotonmyshoulder You're so lucky to have been to Summerhill!

Not at all like Whyteleaf but I love the Naughtiest Girl too.
My DD went to Park for EYFS but we moved her to a mainstream primary for Y1.

As the parent of a student who required AAA at A level to get into her university course I would like to know how well pupils do academically at these schools where attending classes is optional. Where do they find the motivation to study?

DD was at school with pupils who had to be "encouraged" to work to pass exams.

I don't have any Steiner/Waldorf direct experience, but the curriculum can be very rigid in some ways. Children can't deviate from the the work in their year. Most children who have been read to want to read on and explore other books long before 8. Learning certain musical instruments at different stages, learning only the very basics in some crafts, and creating your own lesson books is are givens; deviance from these rules is forbidden. Waldorf freedom is rather like Puritan freedom; you can do as you like, but only while obeying our rules.

I love reading about alternative education, I studied it a little as part of my uni course. I think so many of us have a view of how education ‘should’ look based on our own experiences that it is interesting to challenge that.

Probably explains why I home ed my dc!

Ooh Reggio Emilia too,
DS1s nursery was Reggio Emilia inspired, it was fantastic.
A bit marmite though - I loved how they gave the DC real glasses/china and let them use real tools but some of my mum friends were horrified at the idea

I went to a Steiner school for a few years. It suits some very well but was absolutely disastrous and a miserable experience for me and some of my friends. I’ve chosen a different education for my children. My daughter has a new girl into her school (Y9) from the local Steiner school and she is enormously behind. She’s bright and will catch up I think, but is currently pretty overwhelmed by the gap in her learning.

I know this is slightly off on a tangent, but the Suzuki method of teaching music is interesting and sufficiently different from conventions of teaching music to provide some interesting reading material .

@Ginfordinner

As the parent of a student who required AAA at A level to get into her university course I would like to know how well pupils do academically at these schools where attending classes is optional. Where do they find the motivation to study?

DD was at school with pupils who had to be "encouraged" to work to pass exams.

The simple answer is that at most you don't.

Many kids come out of these schools (especially Summerhill) with few or no qualifications. But most of the parents are not aiming for qualifications, but for a more holistic, rounded curriculum that teaches the kids things like humanity and creativity.

I know someone who went to an alternative school. In his case it was a specific Christian curriculum, which finishes with a High School Diploma not recognised by any university. It is also a curriculum which does not teach the sort of thinking and analysis skills you need for university.

he is VERY angry, and says that he feels as if it is a form of child abuse to deny a child the opportunity to gain qualifications.

It is one thing to go to a lovley Montessori nursery aged 6 (and most are lovely) and another to go to Summerhil for your secondary education.
You are not comparing like with like.

@steppemum

That’s my take, too. The person I knew who was ex Steiner had some horrendously racist ideas and behaviour, a huge ego, massive gaps in their basic knowledge plus their subject knowledge but no perspective, self awareness or depth. I’ve never been around a woman o would say was capable of real cruelty but this woman gave me that vibe. For her, doing what she wanted as opposed to falling in line with state schools rules meant she was special.

Also believed she was an indigo child which when I looked it up seems a self help mechanism to cope with not being able to do some things expected at school.

@HumphreyCobblers

I know this is slightly off on a tangent, but the Suzuki method of teaching music is interesting and sufficiently different from conventions of teaching music to provide some interesting reading material .

Isn't that all about teaching by ear instead of by readong music?

I've always thought that was really interesting, as someone who is genuinely musical will get much further, much more quickly.

I'm sure there must be a point though where you introduce the written form, and I wonder how that goes, and how easy it is to then transfer.

My Grandfather could sit at the piano and play pretty much anything, he had been taught by ear using 'do ray mee' and he couldn't read music. I think he had perfect pitch though. (something I sadly didn't inherit!)

Some of these schools sound fascinating! The only alternative type I have any experience of is Steiner schools. I had a boyfriend for a couple of years who was Steiner educated. I also hung out with a lot of his friends from the same school. I found that they were all good fun but seemed strangely amoral. The thing that stuck me most is that they would talk about bullying-type incidents that they experienced at school, some of which were shocking, with total detachment, as though they didn't necessarily think it was bad. My BF used to openly admit to having done some really unpleasant things at school and didn't appear to have any discomfort about it. I remember asking whether the adults at school had intervened and it sounded like they didn't. It was one of the things that made me read up more on Steiner and it seems that not dealing with bullying is a common theme.

I remember being constantly asked by his friends and acquaintances whether any children we had would be Steiner educated. We were nowhere near that level of serious so it was doubly odd. I remember his mother bursting into tears once and saying to me how a mainstream education would destroy a child's spirit.

He always said to me that none of the (appalling) race hierarchy stuff was taught at the school, but I heard a lot of racist talk among his friends. Even if it wasn't taught, I don't think racism was tackled either. He also said that he had always got the message that being homosexual was wrong and that he didn't realise that it wasn't a universally-held view until he left school and started mixing with a more diverse peer group.

While I think that there are probably some positive aspects of it, I think it's really concerning that the system is rooted in 'anthroposophy' and all the unpleasant ideas that go with it. It's all very well saying that it's not taught in schools and isn't an important part of the philosophy, but then why isn't it removed from the training and literature altogether?

But most of the parents are not aiming for qualifications, but for a more holistic, rounded curriculum that teaches the kids things like humanity and creativity.

I agree that being creative is life enriching, but, given that even the most basic jobs require a minimum of GCSE English and maths, what happens to these holistically educated children when they leave school?

@Ginfordinner

But most of the parents are not aiming for qualifications, but for a more holistic, rounded curriculum that teaches the kids things like humanity and creativity.

I agree that being creative is life enriching, but, given that even the most basic jobs require a minimum of GCSE English and maths, what happens to these holistically educated children when they leave school?

I didn't say I agreed, just that that is what the parents are aiming for!

While I have a lot of concern about our exam heavy education system, and the closing down of child centred learning, I also recognise that if my kids want to have a life within society, I have to help them get the things they need to access that, which includes some GCSEs etc.

@Ginfordinner

Most of these types of schools do offer GCSEs, but often don't make kids take them, so you can argue that it's their fault if they leave without qualifications as it was their choice. Although I think almost everyone who is given the choice between taking an exam or not taking one would choose not to-- especially as a short-sighted teenager.

I remember talking to a parent doing a very alternative 'character based' Home Ed.
As part of my job I support several families doing Home Ed and came across lots of different curriculae and I am very interested in them.

I asked her what qualifications they would have. None. I asked her about going to college etc, and she said they wouldn't need to because they would pursue alternative lives, which have value, and don't need college education.
I asked if any of the people she knew following that Home Ed curriculum (there were many, it is a big thing in the states) had kids that decided otherwise, eg decided that they wanted to be a doctor etc, or rejected the parents choice, and how they and their families managed that. We were having a proper discussion, I was genuinely interested in what she was doing, had asked all about what they were doing and was asking proper open questions, not criticising etc. But when I asked that she got really defensive and angry, and then went on about the quality of character her kids would have.

I came away and the more I thought about her kids, the angrier I got. I felt really sorry for them.

[quote peepeelongstocking]@Ginfordinner

Most of these types of schools do offer GCSEs, but often don't make kids take them, so you can argue that it's their fault if they leave without qualifications as it was their choice. Although I think almost everyone who is given the choice between taking an exam or not taking one would choose not to-- especially as a short-sighted teenager.[/quote]
Given a choice my ds woudl have done no work and no exams.

Fortunately his school was a little more insistant that they did some work!

I had 2 years education at a school modelled after Summerhill - was an ambition black hole. If no one makes you go to class then why ever bother. Education must not be important. Don't say you weren't warned.

[quote peepeelongstocking]@Ginfordinner

Most of these types of schools do offer GCSEs, but often don't make kids take them, so you can argue that it's their fault if they leave without qualifications as it was their choice. Although I think almost everyone who is given the choice between taking an exam or not taking one would choose not to-- especially as a short-sighted teenager.[/quote]
My DH's cousins went to a Steiner school - two out of the three are still functionally illiterate as adults (no diagnosed SEN, but then the Steiner ethos doesn't recognise SEN, so who knows). They are girls, and the expectation from their parents was that girls are there to look pretty and catch a man, so it's better if they don't learn too much anyway. Both now hippy SAHM earth mother types. Seem quite happy.

The other child, the boy, went back as an adult and retook his GCSEs, Alevels, and went to university. Now has a fairly normal lifestyle, just started off a few years behind his peers, so no obvious disadvantage).

The girls look back on their schooling as a magical time, when they could hang out with their friends and had no responsibilities. The boy has a very different recollection, that it was chaotic, neglectful, with no teaching whatsoever - you had to actively seek out learning, against a tide of anti-intellectualism and "swot-shaming" (from both staff and students), which eventually dissuaded most children from trying.

I just had a quick look at the school in question's website, and even now the students seem to only be allowed to take 6 GCSEs each, with the rest of the time spent on creative pursuits. Given the small number of subjects studied, and the fact it is a fee-paying school with small class sizes etc, the results are not great quite honestly. I'd be pissed off if I'd paid 20k a year for my kids to get a 6 and a couple of 4s. A levels even worse - no STEM grades above a C. But then I'm obviously not the target demographic!