Unusual Schools

[manicinsomniac]

Has anybody heard or or have experience of these? Some sound unbelievably cool.

Think Global School: thinkglobalschool.org/
A travelling school - three years, four terms a year, a new country each term! I would love my daughter to go here for her last 3 years at school but it would never suit her or what she wants to do (she's at a stage school). I can't get over what an incredible opportunity this would be for teenagers though. Probably the best idea for a school I've ever heard of.

Egalia pre school (Sweden)
Gender neutral school (I'm less keen on this one - just sounds odd!)
This bit - "Egalia's core mission is to treat gender like most schools treat race or religion — as a trait that stands outside students' actual character and, therefore, isn't something that needs to be discussed at school." I get.
But this bit - "the preschool and kindergarten located in Stockholm, Sweden, doesn't use traditionally gendered language like he, she, boy, or, girl. Instead, children are called by their name, or the gender-neutral pronoun formally introduced in Sweden in 2014: hen." is ridiculous, imo.

Brightworks School, San Francisco - www.sfbrightworks.org/
Hands on, project based, experiential education. "Everything is interesting. We can create anything". School based in a giant warehouse. Absolutely love the sound of this one.

Witch School - www.classes.witchschool.com/default.asp
Real life Hogwarts! - no longer exists physically. Campuses both closed a few years ago so just an online school now. Very odd and don't really see the point but kind of cool in a quirky way too?!

Orestad Gymnasium - oerestadgym.dk/in-english/about-oerestad-gymnasium/
School in Denmark where the whole school is in one giant transparent room with learning pods connected by staircases. Supposed to be relaxing but just the thought of it gives me a panic attack!

Burgess Hill, Hampstead - liberalengland.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/beat-school-1961.html
Hilariously liberal free school (think smoking and motorbiking 11 year olds) that appears to have closed down in the 1960s.
It may be no more but Summer Hill is pretty similar and still thriving: www.summerhillschool.co.uk/
Not sure what I think of that one.

Any other weird schools out there?

Ooo interesting I'm googling them all.

The Global School I became aware of a few years ago... it's amazing. Very small cohort though so I wonder whose children they are that actually attend. It ain't gonna be cheap!!

They all sound pretty awful, TBH.

Doesn't Summerhill have some serious safeguarding concerns?

twer - I don't know how much it really works in practice but they say they charge fees proprotionate to the wealth of each applicant's country and individual family. I put in my income information into a calculator and it suggested I'd have to pay between $0 and $5000 whereas the maximum was $79000 - whether that's termly or yearly I didn't check because I was only looking hypotetically out of curiosity.

Kokeshi - why do you think the world school sounds awful? I'd have thought the experience would be incredible and unmatchable. I don't know about safeguarding at Summerhill but I doubt it - safeguarding concerns are taken really seriously so I doubt the school would still be open if there were valid and significant worries.

Fascinating!

What about Steiner schools or are they not weird enough?

OK, I'm probably being a bit unfair. I can imagine schools with these slightly off-the-wall practices being OK for a very specific and limited minority of kids who are naturally unusually bright and self-motivated, and are quirky enough that conventional schooling systems might not work for them.

Provided these kinds of practices stay in the private sector I guess there is little harm done (since hardly anyone can afford them and they remain limited to a very self-selected group of people). They tend to be disastrous when scaled-up to regular state schools which have to cater for all kinds of children (most of whom are unlikely to have the unusually high levels of maturity and motivation required for a kid or teenager to actually study in such free-range, teach-yourself environments).

I'm thinking of things like the "schools of the future" program and stuff like that.

There are quite a few languages that don't have gendered pronouns: Finnish, for example. Apparently, kids who grow up speaking ungendered languages differentiate between people of different sexes 1-2 years later than people growing up speaking languages which differentiate grammatically.

There is Atlantic College - a sixth form college in Wales. It's part of the United World College and the idea is to have a mix of nationalities to foster world unity. Teaches IB and a lot of practical stuff - until 2013 the school ran its own lifeboat station.

global school sounds interesting, but at 40k a year fees, id bloody hope so

Saw a documentary about Summerhill, the bullying was terrible, but the staff hands were tied as they didn’t interfere with what the children did. It looked terrifying. This was the 80 s or early 90 s. Hopefully the kids are a bit more looked after now.
It’s probably on you tube somewhere.

I found this article really interesting about the school Tilda Swinton helped found: www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/13/education-school-tilda-swinton-scotland

n0ne - that school does sound fabulous in many ways - but I would worry about not being able to get any formal qualifications. I know they're not the be all and end all and they're not even necessarily a positive thing for all children - but I would say they are necessary for getting what you need/want out of the adult world.

Kokeshi - I agree with you about most of these only suiting a minority of children - but they could suit the very children that mainstream schools often fail, perhaps? They're not all private either (the Swedish and Danish schools are state, I think)

Yes--I don't know about Denmark but I think that "true" private schools (ie. fee-charging ones) are rare or non-existent in Sweden. The schooling model there has moved towards one of privately-run, publicly-funded schools, like "charter schools" as the Americans call them. This has led to the proliferation of all kinds of school types, some of them fairly wacky. Doesn't seem to have done Sweden's international educational performance much good.

I can see thatsaya young machine geek kid who is obsessed with tech and robotics and what have you might learn those subjects very well at a school which had no structure and relied on the kids to be self-motivated and direct their own studies. Even in their cases, though, I would be concerned that the lack of a well-rounded curriculum and not being made to do things that they don't enjoy as much and are not as good at would lead to kids having very lopsided knowledge/skill sets and huge gaps in what they know about. When people are left to their own devices they are unlikely to plug away at improving their weak areas--they tend to just keep going back to the things they enjoy and are already quite good at.

Not at the same level of unusual, but a friend's dd went at 14 to Brockwood Park school in Hampshire.

They don't do GCSEs, and the curriculum is very broad for the 14-16 age group though students do then go on to do conventional A levels in preparation for university / further study. I also know a couple of adults who went there & it sounds like a pretty cool place - a lot of flexibility in the curriculum (obviously it's not cheap & has very high staff/student ratios . . .) but more structure than places like Summerhill!

www.classafloat.com

This is a school aboard a boat. It isn't cheap though.

Actually, it looks as though there are a few of them.

Global school sounds amazing

A state school (preschool -16) - plymouth school of creative arts. This is an architects video but whizz through the first bit and you get a flavour of the place

vimeo.com/198714257

My kid is desperate to complete high school with Class Afloat. I told her to stand behind me in the line for an extended sailing holiday.

I used to work at Summerhill.

It doesn’t feel weird when you’ve been there a few months!

Love the sound of the Plymouth school but don't think I could cope with being on a boat for school like those afloat links. Very interesting concept though.

Caulk - really? Wow. I have an unhealthy fascination with that school. Did you find that children generally attended your lessons? What happened to graduates (did any get to university if they wanted to?) Can you take formal qualifications at summerhill if you want to?

Here’s more on the plymouth school plymouthschoolofcreativearts.co.uk

It works well for non-arty kids as well. IME anyway.

If you get a chance to watch most likely to succeed do www.mltsfilm.org
The plymouth school is sort of based on the same philosophy as the School featured in that film.

Hi,

I noticed we were getting some traffic from this site (I'm the marketing director), so just wanted to pop in and say hi on behalf of our unusual school, THINK Global School.

Happy to answer any questions anyone might have, and we're definitely appreciative of the enthusiasm shown in the thread for our program!

-Lee

OP have you read the book Summerhill, by the founder, A S Neill? It is a wonderful book, which I first read when I was in my teens, and it opened my eyes to a whole new world. I guess it is pretty dated now, and there are probably a lot of things which I would disagree with at this point, but it is a wonderful, inspiring book.

Sorry, not on MN that much.

Some choose to do exams and go to university, some do college equivalent and then also do. It varies.

I was also fascinated and really enjoyed my time there. I left because i want to foster and it’s not possible with that lifestyle.

Generally, children attend lessons because they want to learn and they like the teacher. If they just have an interest in the area they tend to teach themselves.