Summerhill School Disturbing

[Hfstjsufysyfykdhoxg]

Summerhill School is currently advertising a job vacancy and, out of curiosity, I watched this old documentary about it

What an awful place it looks! Male teachers massaging semi-naked female students, chasing and beheading a domestic rabbit, 'marriage ceremonies' for children presided over by staff, rife with bullying.

AIBU to wonder how it is still open?!

how such huge safeguarding risks were permitted in the '90s seems ludicrous to me

I wouldn't want to have attended my ofsted outstanding school in the 1991! Safeguarding was lacking but times have, on the whole, changed.

If a male teacher had massaged topless girls, in my school in 1991, he would have been arrested!

You can't base opinions on the current school on a documentary from over 30 years ago.
I've read the original book written by A S Neill that was published in 1960 and there's an awful lot in there that makes you go "Whaaaaat 😱😱😱".
But it's 2025 now.
I am going to assume the school has changed.
(I remember watching the 90s documentary and wishing I could go there)

This film is 35 years old.

Do you know anything about Neill and Summerhill?

There is so much good in it and so much wrong, but you can't understand without knowing about the philosophy behind it.

There was a lot of things that happened nearly 35 years ago that disturb us now, and I daresay there will be things happening now that will disturb us 35 years into the future.

It's 34 years ago, not 340! These things would have been taken seriously then. Boys chasing and beheading a pet rabbit would have deeply disturbed the other children

@Hfstjsufysyfykdhoxg there actually was some investigations round about the year 2000 which included a court case
(I don't know the full details without Googling. I believe it may have been threatened with closure)
They are inspected just like any other school. Safeguarding is considerably higher now in the year 2025. If there was any issues with the school in it's current form it would be closed down.
It hasn't been closed so I don't see what the issue is you are trying to make.

If I remember correctly it was a wild rabbit not a pet.
I think they caught rabbits for food. Not a common thing to do in the 90s but for many generations that was completely normal.

I don’t think you should judge the school by that one documentary. There are lots of positive testimonials and writings to balance it out.

We were shown this at school in the 90s and we couldn't believe it! I think Courtney Love went there. Is that where the new Cillian Murphy film is set?

My ExH went to a rural school in the 90s.

they had a gcse in “countryside studies” or some such.

apparently that involved studying the best way to kill animals.

I knew a man who went there in 1970s and early 1980s. He was a very screwed up, bitter person. He dated a couple of friends of mine. One day he just confided in me and told me he was pressured by staff into having sex with other pupils at a very young age. That he hadn't felt ready and it completely screwed him up sexually. No idea why he chose to tell me this - we didn't even get on and barely spoke to each other usually. But it made me feel a lot more sympathetic to him afterwards.