1965: Robert Skidelsky: Author of English Progressive Schools
Kilquhanity
Robert Skidelsyy is an economic historian known for his book on John Maynard Keynes. His observations of Kilquhanity appear in his book: English Progressive Schools published in 1969.
The article below is taken from the Kilquhanity Broadsheet No 76 5th July 1965
Impressions of Kilquhanity
In writing about progressive schools I will be visiting seven schools altogether, spending about four or five days in each one, and possibly paying a return visit, that is, if the headmasters, staff and pupils can bear the thought. so far I have stayed at Bedales and Dartington Hall, in addition to Kilquhanity, and they offer rather interesting points of comparison. For one thing both are much larger - Bedales has 250 pupils, Dartington 150. This obviously makes for much less of a family atmosphere than is possible here and more difficulty in getting staff-pupil contact.
A further problem at Dartington is that all the children have separate rooms, where they sleep, keep their things and do what work they have to do outside the classroom. These rooms are regarded as very private, and although they are divided up into 'houses', each with its' housemother' and one or two staff, the 'housemother's' room is just one room among twenty or thirty. Further Dartington hardly ever meets together as a school, so that there is very little sense of a school 'community', as one finds here.
Bedales, of course, has even more pupils, but there the living arrangements are very much more like those here, with dormitories of seven or eight children, which offer the experience of communal living. They also have the tradition of 'handshaking' every night, whereby the staff shake the hand of every pupil after evening assembly. (Imagine shaking 250 hands!) All this produces a strong sense of community.
Another point of comparison between Kilquhanity and these two schools is the 'estate'. At this school, the estate is much the centre of school life. Much of the teaching, especially for the younger pupils, consists of drawing lessons, practical and theoretical, from the experience of doing things on the estate (building the log cabin, looking after animals and so on.)
At Dartington, too, the school is part of a huge estate, with a farm, a textile mill, shops, a college of arts and so on. There is much expensive equipment and new buildings: great zigzagging hexagonal slabs of glass and concrete. But although everyone talks about the Dartington estate, the school is quite separate from it. The children are not interested in the farm, and the beautiful gardens are much admired by tourists and visitors than by the children. At Bedales, too, the estate is rather marginal to the school, although the children are required to do 'outdoor work' two afternoons a week.
Of course, Bob, the school's anarchist/philosopher/homme du monde, has an explanation of these differences. Kilquhanity and Summerhill are the only true revolutionaries: the others are the 'social democrats' of the educational world, and beneath their radical appearance beats a truly conservative heart. He may be right, but education, however radical, has to enable pupils to cope with society as it is; otherwise it would not be true to its aim of turning out reasonably happy and balanced people - and that seems to be the problem. Thoughts of Bob inevitably leads to Broadsheet, a remarkably lively and entertaining journal, produced in a remarkably tidy and well organised office. I liked especially some of the poems, particularly the one starting 'My love is like a red, red plastic rose', a line of real inspiration and humour. I've decided to take out a subscription.
As for more personal impressions, these will be mainly of people, for schools live or die, or merely exist, depending on the quality of human relationships within them. The school would seem to be extremely fortunate in having a headmaster like John Aitkenhead, for I suspect that, the more I go round, the more I shall find that whether the school is good or bad depends primarily on the personality of the head and not on the theory according to which it is being run. I shall remember Alan with his tadpoles and his 'wee wee grave'. Then of course, who could have failed to notice the remarkable Cuddihy family, destined, surely, for fame (or notoriety). And finally, there will be the memory of the marvellous countryside, with its delicate, differing shades of green, brown and purple.
Lord Skidelsky (2019)
