1960:1980: Co-educational Conferences: Schools and People Attending
"Partners in Crime"
Throughout the time of Kilquhanity, the School and John Aitkenhead were of interest to other ‘progressive educators’ who would write and often wish to visit; turning the school into something of a ‘fish-bowl’ which the staff and pupils could resent. This was an experience related by other progressives, particularly Neill at Summerhill.
The relationship between the schools was mutually beneficial as John would enjoy the company and support of like-minded educators.
This mutual support was a group collective in what became known as the Co-educational Conference. A meeting over a few days to share and discuss issues, to socialise and relax amongst kindred spirits. This was a gathering for family members to join in as well.
Schools participating in the Co-ed Conference, as well as Kilquhanity; included:
Frensham Heights 1925 - present.
Wennington 1940 -1975
Monkton Wyld 1940 - 1982
White Lion Street 1972 - 1990
Dartington 1926 - 1987
Bedales 1893 - present.
St Christopher 1915 – present.
Kingsmoor School - 1925 - Glossop
Finchden Manor (George Lyward 1935 – 1973)
New Sherwood School
Sutton Park School, Dublin 1957 – present.
Kirkdale School 1964 – 1980s
Sibford
Pestalozzi Village
St George’s
Dunhurst
Russell School Addington
Sherrardswood
King Alfred
Pendraggon
Summerhill
George Lyward of Finchden Manor
1960 - April 5th - 8th
The ninth Co-Ed Conference was held over four days at Frensham Heights.
81 folk attended from the schools, including John and Morag, Bill and Kate MacKinnon from Kilquhanity, as well as one H.M.I., a couple of University representatives and a visitor from a Friends School in Baltimore USA.
After supper on the first evening the gathering was given: A Talk by A.S. Neill. The following day, in the morning the group discussed: The Implications of the Earlier Physical Maturing of Children: introduced by Kenneth Barnes: Headmaster of Wennington. The late afternoon topic was: The Limits of Freedom: introduced by H.E. Gardiner: Senior English Master, Bedales School. The final full day found the group discussing: The Education of Girls: introduced by M.L. Jacks, late Director, Oxford University Department of Education.
1964 - March 31st – April 3rd
The Eleventh conference was held at Mansfield Hall, University of Reading.
59 folk attended, including John and Morag, Val, Neill and Sheila Aitkenhead, A.S. Neill and H.A.T. Child (Dartington).
After supper the discussion was: Growing Up, introduced by Kenneth Barnes (standing in for Paul Roberts, Frensham Heights). The following days’ topics included: Misfits: introduced by H.A.T. Child; The Comprehensive Idea: introduced by Miss M. M. Miles (Mayfield): Progressive Education: introduced by Professor W.A.C. Stewart (University of Keele): and Going Co-Ed: introduced by F. A. V. Madden (Royal Russell School)
A small bar was made available. Full Residence £5, Bed and Breakfast 18 shillings and 6 pence.
In the mid-1960s, five of the Heads involved with the Co-ed Conference responded to the Newsom Commission (from which I have selected some relevant points):
PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMISSION - TERMS OF REFERENCE
The main function of the Commission will be to advise on the best way of integrating the public schools with the State system of education.
Introduction and recommendations
1. These terms of reference are explosive. No wonder. The "public schools" have long been a storm-centre of political controversy. That is why our terms of reference go beyond those usually given to Commissions. We were not asked simply to conduct an inquiry. We were asked to propose a plan of action. Whatever plan we devise will please neither the independent schools nor their sternest critics, neither the local authorities nor the teachers in the maintained schools with which we are told the independent schools must be integrated.
2. Dr Royston Lambert (later to be appointed Headteacher of Dartington) was given a grant by the Department of Education and Science to study boarding education before our Commission was appointed and has since had further grants on our recommendation. Dr Lambert has told us that he and his colleagues fear that unless there are radical and immediate changes in the ethos of the public schools, they will be unsuitable for working-class boys and girls.
Dr Royston Lambert
There are 52 recommendations in the Report of which I have picked one:
Co-Education
There should be more co-educational boarding schools, in order to meet the wishes and convenience of parents of both boys and girls, and also to extend opportunities of boarding education for girls. Some of the larger boys' schools in particular should be encouraged to adapt themselves for this role.
As we know, Independent Schools continue to exist well into the new century!
The Newsom Commission Report on Integrating Independent Schools into the State Sector is, I think, a fascinating read not only for the Commission’s consideration of the ‘task’ but also as a comment on English society of the 1960s.
In 1965 the five Co-ed Heads wrote to the Secretary of State for the Department of Science and Education with a joint response to the setting up of the Newsom Commission:
‘We, the Governing Bodies of the independent co-educational boarding schools named below, all recognised as efficient by the Department of Education and Science and registered as Charitable Trusts, know that the future of all independent schools is soon to be reviewed and should welcome the opportunity of bringing to the notice of the Secretary of State for Education the contribution made by our schools.
We believe that these schools, and others of similar character, have special qualities and provide a valuable form of education which should be made available to a wider range of children. We therefore wish the Secretary for education to know that we shall welcome a closer association with public education provided it does not adversely affect the essential qualities which are inherent in our schools. The special contribution made by these schools may be summarised as follows:
1. Because they are concerned with education of boys and girls living as members of one community, our schools are, we believe, capable for that reason alone of giving children a more complete life and of preparing them better for the adult world than is possible in a single-sex school.
2. The academic result in the schools is at least comparable with that of other schools of similar size; it has been in some instances outstanding and original. But our concern for this side of education has always been an integral part of our concern for the development of wholeness and depth of personality. Our educational achievement is the result of an experience – personal, intellectual, aesthetic and manual – in which a full range of activities is provided to meet the needs of developing feelings and values.
3. The relative smallness of our schools makes possible an intimacy and directness of relationship between adults and children which can lead to a greater awareness of personal needs. These schools have sought to eliminate those habits and practices, such as those concerning punishment, that are incompatible with this kind of relationship.
4. Our schools accept children with a wide range of ability; their methods of selection have never been purely ‘academic’. The intelligent child can do extremely well academically without becoming one-sided in his or her development. Th less ‘academic’ child is often able to make a valuable contribution to the school, in addition to gaining much from it because of the wide range of activities.
5. As a result of these and other characteristics there is at our schools a notable absence of strain.
. . . Though like all independent schools with small classes we have been forced to charge increasingly high fees, we have been glad to find that we have not become schools exclusively for the wealthy. Partly as a result of our contacts with the L.E.A.’s and partly through our own bursary schemes and other methods of subsidy to parent, we have been able to accept children whose parents could not afford the full fees. We have found that distinctions of wealth have been ignored by children just as naturally as those of religion, race or colour. We cannot believe, therefore, that closer association with public education is likely to cause any difficulties within our schools.
We should welcome the opportunity of elaborating on the points made and of answering any questions.
Signed on behalf of: Bedales, Dartington, Frensham Heights, St Christopher’s, Wennington.
Copies of this document were sent to all schools participating in the Co-ed Conference.
Within the State Sector, both in England and Scotland individuals endeavoured to bring ‘progressive’ practice into the state school. Two notable individuals were Michael Duane of Risinghill School in London and R. F. MacKenzie, Head of schools in Scotland.
1965 - 24th March
John wrote an Editorial in the Broadsheet:
Risinghill: The Space-Age
We had thought this space in the end-of-term Broadsheet would be given over to something of a report of our general position. (numbers are rising; next term we shall have as many pupils as during the war when naively we thought parents were choosing this kind of education when in fact all they were after was an area in Britain safe from bombs!)
However there is a more important matter for comment – a school is threatened, Risinghill in Islington, London is an L.C.C. school with about a thousand pupils in a environment that could hardly be more different from ours . . . . ‘surrounded by some of the worst slums, brothels, and clubs in North London; opposite a market whence a constant stream of rubbish is blown into the school grounds.’ Yet Risinghill (over the past 5 years) and Kilquhanity have this in common – both were inspired by Summerhill and the writings of A. S. Neill. The headmaster at Risinghill refuses to use corporal punishment and pupils are given a real measure of self-government.
Of course the ignorant tongues wagged to good (bad) purpose and despite the tremendous achievements of the school in inter-race relations, despite the reduction in the number of boys and girls on probation, despite an increase in the number taking and passing G.C.E. exams at ‘O’ and ‘A’ level . . . .
Mr Duane, the Headmaster has been constantly criticised by the authorities, and in July the school may be closed, on the pretext that numbers of pupils have fallen (1400 – 800) and that space is wasted. As we see it, even if the number fell to 500, it would be criminal to kill a school community that is facing with imagination, that appalling social and educational problems of a district like Finsbury. Honest head-masters of junior secondary, and secondary modern schools, honest social workers and youth leaders everywhere in Europe – possibly all over the world admit that our schools are failing to contain adolescents.
We don’t know the adolescents. We don’t know the answers to delinquency; but places like Risinghill are vital social laboratories where we might find them. We cannot afford to close such schools. People like Michael Duane can’t be found and appointed at will by committees. A kind of providence provides them at the right time for the children who need them – and to their credit, the kids of Risinghill have marched and asked the L.C.C. not to sack their headmaster. The L.C.C. has offered him a lecturing post in a teacher training college. But he wants to go on teaching.
Our plain duty is to tell the minister of Education what we have found here at Kilquhanity. We have done so.
If nothing else, we can at least state that all these educators had a go and put their energy and passions into practice whether it was for a few years or fifty.
 |
1966 - February
Anthony Crosland, the then Secretary of State for Education and Science acknowledged the ‘statement’ from the 5 Heads representing the Co-Ed Conference of the previous year, and indicated that a deputation should
. . . meet the Public Schools Commission when this is set up.
1969
Thirteenth Co-Educational Conference: Dartington School: April 1969.
87 folk attended, including, John and Morag, Lois, Neill and Val Aitkenhead, John Crallan, Mike and Mhairi Williams, Pete and Mel Rouse from Kilquhanity.
The Conference considered seven discussion papers:
1. Integration between the private and maintained sectors: is it desirable, is it possible? The Public Schools Commission Report and the researches into the demand and need for boarding of Dr Royston Lambert have thrown into relief the question of possible voluntary integration between independent schools (largely boarding) and maintained schools (largely day).
The P.S.C. Report even contained overtones of compulsion. . . . Among the arguments for integration are that progressive schools are now well enough established to be able to risk further experiment and the validity of their philosophy in a wider context has never been attempted. In many cases their isolation in rural areas cuts them off from the realities of life and makes them excessively introspective and exclusive. Their background is narrow in its social range.
. . . On the other hand many progressive schools have never pretended to cater for anything other than the small section of society from which they draw their supportive parents. There is a suspicion that people who talk of social range are somehow trying to work out their own guilt through educational policy at the possible expense of the children. Rural situations are a positive advantage: many parents send their children out of the towns to escape admass pressures. Or some claim that since the children are at home for lengthy holidays they have the best of both worlds; the real world at home and a glimpse of the ideal world at school.
Has your school any ideas on integration? What form ought it to take? What puts you off most? Do you find the social arguments persuasive? Is rural isolation and advantage or disadvantage? Would integration destroy progressive education? Do we believe that progressive education should be available to the largest number of children or do we want exclusive schools?2. Maladjusted Children in Our Schools. The Underwood Report defined maladjusted children as: Nervous disorders – hysteria, compulsions; Habit disorders – physical symptoms, rashes, poor sleep, stammering, toilet problems, twitching, sleep-walking etc.; Behaviour disorders – anti-social, attention seeking, disobedience, aggression, sex problems, stealing; Organic disorder – injury to brain or spinal cord; Psychotic disorder – schizophrenia, autism, withdrawal, purposelessness; Persistent educational failure.
These then are children who are more than just naughty. We have probably seen things of this sort in our schools though none of us has, I think, a policy of admitting them. . . . Can our schools help? We are often offered children with some maladjusted signs by psychiatrists who believe that our relaxed environment will help them. Often we are misled by parents. Are we equipped to take care of maladjustment? Do we rather keep the children unless they are disruptive? A further question is SHOUL we keep such children? Is a boarding school really the right place?
3. The Comprehensive Curriculum in the Small School. The comprehensive curriculum by definition must be comprehensive in intention, content and application. Thus it is more than a collection of subjects. . . . How can a small school with limited plant and capital hope to come up to the scope of what can be offered in the State sector. Indeed, why should we even try to match the resources, but rather concentrate on the personality aspects of the educative process for which small schools are naturally suited.
4. The Problems of the 11 to 15 year old. The problem of the 11 -15 year old used to be simple – though the answers were not always as simple as some people led you to believe. It was a time of growing up, of finding oneself, of re-arranging relationships.
Now it’s not so simple: ‘English and American research over the past 15 years questions adolescent rejection of adult (and particularly parental) values, guidance and authority; the degree of ‘role conflict’ in adolescence (compared with maturity); the lack of realism, and the intolerance of adolescence and the intensity of peer group conformity’. Children are maturing younger. ‘since more knowledge of things is now required to cope with the adult world, the period of growing up to independence takes much longer than it did in a more primitive community.
‘There are four adolescent ‘growth tasks’: four selves to be found: the social self, the sexual self, the vocational or working self, the religious self’. A tightly structured school helps the adolescent: too much freedom makes him insecure and unhappy’. Adolescence is a time when home cramping and school a juvenile bore’. Whatever we make of that selection of conflicting quotations, we all have experience of adolescents who are sulky, withdrawn, obsessional (e.g. about food or sex), unable to concentrate, or anti-social in their behaviour.
5. Today’s sixth Forms and Their Relationship to Younger Children in the School. The last few years have been full of student protest, hippy behaviour, student militants. Now we begin to hear of pupil power and the NUS is canvassing for members among our sixth forms and promising to fight their battles for them. Anti-staff feeling would seem to be least likely in our sort of schools but can we be complacent about the state of our sixth forms?
. . . What has been your experience of pupil-power in your own school? What do you think of the NUS move? Is there any pattern among your leavers who go on to techs (technical colleges)? How are you facing up to more permissive attitudes in society to drink, drugs, and sex? Is expulsion an answer? Do you pretend the problem doesn’t exist? Is this whole concept of ‘sixth form’ ridiculous: as if one changed into a sixth former overnight?
6. Informality, Responsibility, Authority: a discussion on the role of the staff. The progressive schools have maintained as an essential characteristic a degree of informality in inter-personal relationships which is often in refreshing contrast to many other schools in our society.
Yet the very premise underlining our relations with pupils and colleagues may tend to hide the issue which inevitably exists. It is perhaps most obvious in the hesitancy of a new member of staff who, ‘ . . . . has been accustomed to look across at the teacher from the pupil’s side of the table. For many years he has been carrying into the classroom his own built-in attitudes to persons in authority . . . ‘. When an authority problem does arise do we offer enough protection to the staff member within his peer group?
In the end we may come back to the concept of the ‘community’ and its ethos as the means whereby the inter-personal relationships are evolved. ‘common to them all, schools as communities is an inescapable concern with discipline, with the making of and keeping of rules, and common to them all as school communities is that the discipline they adopt is part of an educative process.
This is the peculiar character of school discipline; it is not the discipline of a contract freely entered into, or the discipline of inner necessity or external circumstances, but a framework within which the authority of adults is exercised over the growing personalities of children.’
. . . . Do the progressives mask the authoritarianism by taking decisions and then persuading the children that they are the ones who have made them. Do you think that the informality in your school is supportive to either pupil or staff? Does informality go far enough/too far? Is there a conflict between the responsibility you feel you ought to take and the responsibility you want to take? Where should the boundary between staff and pupil responsibility lie? Has your school adapted over the years to the change in attitude toward authority in the outside world? Do progressive schools attract pupils and staff who tend to avoid an issue of authority?
7. How Can the Progressive Co-Educational School give a Lead? Maurice Ash’s (married to Ruth Elmhirst and later became Chair of the Dartington Trust) book has shown that there exists a clear dichotomy between the independent progressives and the State progressives. Neither understands the language of the other and even the differences between the independent progressives are quite marked.
The State is clear that there is really only one system - its own, and there is in principle nothing which the system cannot absorb. They are as progressive as the independents: they have school councils, parental involvement, mixed ability groups, inter disciplinary teaching, inquiry methods, team teaching, mode three examinations, tutors, counsellors, are abandoning the cane and uniform, involving themselves in social work - and so much more.
What do we mean by progressive education? Many speakers in our conferences have warned us that if we wish to convince people of the value of progressive education liberal-anarchism is no longer enough. But meanwhile we even bicker over the word ‘progressive’ and fail to define it in terms understandable to those outside our schools.
The nearest we have got is saying that in our view education is composed of academic, emotional, social, and aesthetic elements, the relative importance of which varies according to the individual. How can we persuade people that: progressive education exists; progressive education is different; progressive education is good; especially as we talk a different language? . . . Has the time come for us to take more radical stands on the issues of the day and make our corporate (if fragmented) voices heard?
I am indebted to Neill Aitkenhead who had kept hold of these Co-Ed Conference papers. Sadly, A. S. Neill was unable to attend the ’69 Conference and looking at the topics for discussion I suspect he would have been glad not to have been a part.
Separately, Neill (Aitkenhead, that is) related an anecdote concerning A. S. Neill.
Neill was often hilarious, often stirring up the gathering with his comments. At one Conference the discussion had been on How to Deal with Issues of Co-Education. Kenneth Barnes (Wennington School) had related an occasion describing his successful influence on girls. Two former pupils had gone on to university and had come back to visit Barnes. They related a story of getting involved with boys at the University who wanted to sleep with them. Neill piped up, to great laughter: ‘the girls wanted to sleep with you, Kenneth!
Neill Aitkenhead wrote to me in 2021:
Looking at these Co-Ed Conference programmes my own response is that they beg questions less about education and more of social history: what gave rise to the era of these schools and why did they die . . . etc. best addressed over a sherry!
In response, I would say that two world wars played a significant part in the birth of these schools. The turn of the century, the influence of Freud et al., the move from Victorian to Edwardian Britain, the decline of Empire, the writers, the poets who found a questioning voice. As for the decline, one only has to look at the change in subject matter of the discussions at Conference to note the ‘believed’ necessity of the schools to take heed of what was occurring in the State sector and as mentioned elsewhere the rise of Thatcher’s Britain from which neither the Unions or the traditional Labour Party have survived as a force.
I think, both in response to the Newsom Commission Report and the Discussion Topics at the 1969 Co-Ed conference one can see a definite line of separation – maybe blurred at the edges between schools the like of Bedales, Wennington, Dartington, St Christophers and Frensham Heights (signatories of the response to Newsom) and schools like Kilquhanity, Summerhill and Monkton Wyld.
One group openly endeavouring to align themselves with acknowledging the State and Comprehensivisation, the others happy to exist in isolation and preserving, maybe to their cost, the ideals and values arrived at their opening back in the earlier part of the 20th century.
Neill Aitkenhead is of the opinion that Dartington was really the school which broke the pattern in that it was
quite unique, well funded, had good facilities, radical ideas, was extraordinary and broke the pattern of progressive schools up until then; could look Bedales and Wennington in the eye!
As an ex-pupil of both Kilquhanity and Dartington he is entitled to make those statements!
1974 29th July
Letter from the Senior Common Room, City of Leicester College of Education: Author unknown:
. . . Urban education in our society is in a real mess, but then so is urban society. Some of the ‘alternatives’ which some young teachers fall for are suspect, like de-schooling which would mean the underprivileged losing out even more and the middle class taking all, or peddling so-called working class culture which means commercial clap-trap in practice when middle class teachers try it, or some of the so-called community education which is all too often another ploy for fobbing off and making content with their lot. Teachers have got to be ‘subversive agents’ in state schools. But, as you say, radical alternatives must be found and the fascist backlash is a real danger.
I think there are a lot more aware teachers than there were, which is something, and the kids themselves in NUSS are beginning to try in some areas. But it is disturbing how some of the Rank and file militant teachers can be real bastards in the classroom and more concerned about their rights than the kids’, though this is certainly not true of all of them.
Sadly by 1978 conference attendance was dwindling and both the ’78 and ’79 conferences were cancelled. I notice 1979 is the year Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. I wonder if it is coincidental that the ‘heyday’ of the independent progressive schools founded as proponents of peace education were coming to an end.
For the 1978 conference 40 letters were sent out with only 4 positive attendance replies.
Dick Jones (Frensham Heights) wrote to all the Schools:
. . . this negative response is very disappointing and implies a depressing lethargy amongst those schools that at one time represented the only spirited and radical alternative to the uniformity of the traditional state and private sectors. Have we finally accepted the arguments of the doyens of those sectors that, in the light of recent educational trends and developments, there is no place for us any more; that we have been overtaken ideologically and practically and that we are now merely historical curiosities whose only meaningful function was to act as a ginger group to the broad educational movement of the pre-war years?
If this is an articulated feeling within our schools (or if indeed we are facing an apathy reflecting the ideological and spiritual breakdown in society at large) then we must accept that after all these years our schools now stand alone. No longer do we represent a concerted alternative to the traditional system, a body of schools bound by certain common definitions of education; and even united in a paradoxical fashion by our difference in as much within the progressive caucus parents find schools emphasising one priority or another of a broadly child-centred philosophy. Now the question is whether we even share a basic educational consciousness.
The organisers for the 1979 co-ed conference proposed:
The chief topic of concern to us all must be the future for the kind of education we are offering outside the State system. In the face of gloomy prognostications about the decline in the child population in the early to mid-80s, and the co-educational rationalisation currently going on amongst the more traditional independent boys’ schools, not to mention the country’s continued financial problems, our continued emphasis on child-centred, non-competitive education places us in an even more exposed position. How do we see our role in this period of educational change?
A second issue, not unrelated to the first, may be felt to be of relevance to the Conference, too. It concerns the philosophical and social trends that lie behind the creation of many of our schools, and their relation to equivalent trends today, produced by the social conditions that have prevailed since the end of the war. What relationship exists between our individual schools’ manifest ethics and such areas of social philosophy as feminism, the ecology movement, the growth of interest in self-sufficiency and alternative technology, anti-racism?
These are not all issues that have arisen since the pre-war years; several of our schools were, for example, early refuges for those feeling racial persecution in Europe. But to what extent do we embody a practical consciousness of them in our philosophical structure; to what extent are our pupils aware of these issues as being an integral part of the schools’ ethical inclinations? Or do we consider basically political issues are beyond our educational brief?
Sadly the ’79 Conference did not happen.
1977 - 21st July
White Lion Free School
As you signed our petition urging the ILEA to support us, . . . , we wanted to let you know . . . that we have now received or been offered enough funds to be able to continue for at least two terms and almost certainly for a whole year.
You may have read that on Tuesday, the Education Authority voted by 18 votes to 15 not to grant-aid us. This disappointing result actually hides some signs of hope: our local member voted against the whip, and at least five other Labour members did not vote, against the instructions of the whip. So if in fact those who have said that they support what we are doing, and believe it deserves Authority funding, had voted for us, we would have got the grant.
Sutton Park School (Co.Dublin)
Sutton Park School was founded in 1957 by Rosaleen Mills an Irish activist and educator. She served as vice-principal for some years; retiring in 1970. Rosaleen and Douglas Sealy ran the school as joint vice-principals for the first two terms. Ruarc Gahan was appointed Head in September 1957 and started work in December of that year. He left after 15 years in 1972
Sutton Park
Ruarc attended the Co-ed conference in 1969 and later wrote to John:
. . . I became more and more conscious during the conference, of the many important issues I had not even touched on in the New Era article . . . One thing that is happening here (Sutton Park) is that our juniors (except for the boarders) are becoming separated from the secondary school (age 11-18) and though I know all of the juniors (ages 5 -11) by sight, there are many of the 5, 6, and 7 year olds whose names I don’t know.
Not that names I suppose are all that important; they all know me and are familiar and friendly, but we are no longer one community, close-knit as you are. We are bedevilled by this business of ‘viability’ – it all seems to hinge on producing, at the top, a numerically viable 6th Form; perhaps we should decapitate ourselves and concede that a small community of 5 – 15 year olds is better than a bigger one trying to do everything for the 16 -18s as well. But one has got so involved with them by then that one doesn’t want to throw them out.
It was grand to see you all again, in such strength at the Conference, and I feel Kilquhanity must be about the most vital establishment represented there.
In November 1972 Ruarc left Sutton Park writing a detailed 18 page Valedictory Letter to Parents of Pupils Attending Sutton Park School. This letter like other school heads raises similar questions about ‘progressive education/educators’ in the latter part of the 20th Century. I have taken several extracts as follows:
‘Why did I want to be a Headmaster: I didn’t see why schools should have to be places where there is bullying and unhappiness (your tough little extrovert may not suffer these things, but many schools are just hell for sensitive, insecure or less assertive children); why they should be places where children are taught cupidity, subterfuge, self-aggrandisement (yes they are taught these things, by marks, form orders, prizes, privileges, prefect systems etc) where the competitive motive is fostered in a world already mad with greed and status-seeking. . . I didn’t see why schools had to be so full of hypocrisy and pretence – phoney respect for dignified teachers, phoney manners, pretended respect for silly conventions, phoney religion, phoney discipline based on fear.
I didn’t see why schools had to be places of rejection and failure for those who are not strong or clever, or why schools should separate boys from girls, Catholics from protestants, intellectuals from the rest. I didn’t see why schools should be sending out droves of conformist yes-men ready to soak up anybody’s propaganda, or of frightened conservatives opposed to radical changes in a society that badly needs them.
We were a tiny school at first (28 pupils when I arrived) and for a few years we were able to remain a close-knit community where everyone knew everyone else very well and there was little need for a formal structure. . . a school council . . . after a while it began to make rules and decisions . . . in 1964 the weekly whole school meeting began. This was a sort of parliament where every pupil and teacher had a vote.
The question is never ‘what’s your religion?’ but always ‘how are you treating other people?’ Sutton Park acts on the principle that religious instruction is a matter for homes and churches, not for schools.
Compromises, Failure and the Ultimate Criteria: I have not been blind to our failures . . . We have declared (prospectus) that ‘the incentive to work are interest and, in the later years, the desire to pass examinations.’ Well we did try to make classes interesting . . . but we did flirt with other motivators – mainly nagging, browbeating and cajolery, but sometimes detention and the like. For this we blame external pressures (parents, Department of Education), but also a lack of courage and conviction among ourselves.
Too few of the activities at Sutton Park were voluntarily pursued. Classes were compulsory, and so were games, prep. etc..
Too many of us were prudes, easily shocked by young people’s bad language. (I even remember, in early days, someone telling girls it was wrong to hold hands.) (With each other of course.) So some of us reinforced their upside-down sense of what really matters, and maybe, sometimes their sex/guilt hang-ups as well.
What I would like to know, but don’t know, is, how do our past pupils compare with other adults in things that really matter – that is things that affect their happiness and the possible future happiness of humanity? Will a less than average proportion of them need psychiatric help? Are they less than normally dependent on status and possessions? Are they more than normally serene, compassionate, understanding, tolerant, actively concerned for others? Do they care? If the answer to these questions is ‘yes’, then Sutton Park, with all its faults, was worthwhile and should be emulated. These are the ultimate criteria.
Why Sutton Park and I had to Part: I’m deeply dissatisfied. The main reason for this is that, with all its modest liberalism, Sutton Park is now firmly established as a school for the well-to-do only. It’s an exclusive school, and that’s that. . .
So it’s naïve to think that free schools for all will finish social injustice. My ideal of social justice goes far beyond the illusory equality of opportunity that is provided by free schools for rich and poor. I don’t so much want a society with no fee-paying schools as a society in which everybody is equally able to afford to use them. Id far rather see fee-paying schools in a just society than free schools in an unjust society, which is what we have now. (Mind you, I’d rather still see a just society with no fee-paying schools.)
I suppose, therefore, that I did not really leave Sutton Park because it is a flourishing fee-paying school, but because it flourishes as such in a grossly unjust society. In society as we have it, I can’t work any more in a fee-paying school; but that’s only the beginning of my discontent, which is really with the unjust social order that we know.
The Heart of the Matter: So I’m brought back to this sad inescapable fact: as long as the teacher, the engineer, the lawyer, the businessman etc. get a lot more money than the mechanic, the bricklayer, the policeman, the bus conductor and the farm labourer, so long will you people demand schools that will put your boys and girls through all the ‘educational’ hoops.
Sutton Park has had to be such a school. . . So long as your children are reasonably industrious you approve of the freedom Sutton Park gives. . . He can be free to work but not to idle. . . But you don’t want for your children the freedom that is necessary for their individual growth rates, because you’re afraid they might fall behind in the rat-race. . . I don’t want to be a cog in your machine any more. I don’t like your machine. We must as a matter of urgency, ABOLISH THE RAT-RACE!’
A troubled man! Ruarc had seen in Kilquhanity a school that he felt was meeting his criteria for a ‘free-school’. His words and observations about Sutton Park, do, however, raise questions and dilemmas which probably faced many of the progressive schools in the 1970s. Although, the values and principles upon which these schools set out remain valid: allowing children to grow and mature at their own pace, freedom to learn and choose areas of interest, democracy, equality, peace, tolerance, acceptance of the individual and the other – western cultures and society were on the move to develop and promote the rat-race, status, possessions, and competition.
Clive Davidson from Kirkdale School in London wrote to John in 1981.
Enclosed you will find a pamphlet on the 4th World Assembly. We were asked . . . to produce a paper for the education forum. In writing the paper we made some use of a study done by Stephen Powlesland on Progressive Schools. In this folder was a letter from yourself to him . . . from which I would like to quote:
‘There’s a new element today that is forcing people to consider alternative schools and that is the extent to which lads have taken the law into their own hands and refused to go to school. In the poorest parts of big cities the teenagers are refusing in huge numbers to attend. Now the schools they are willing to attend you could call progressive or alternative, and the education authorities are beginning to recognise that
I wish to include it in a section on funding alternatives which is part of our paper entitled ‘models of Alternative Schools.’
Kirkdale School 1972
In a later letter Clive notes:
‘I was particularly intrigued by a statement of yours that you were unsure whether Kilquhanity had been successful or not. You said you could not say but only knew many people had expressed gratitude for their experiences at Kilquhanity. My view is that while schools such as yours, Kirkdale, White Lion etc. are winning (and have won) battles they have not even been allowed to participate in the war. I may be wrong, but there seems to be an assumption in the establishment of the individual free schools that, however modest their own particular aims, free schools would eventually proliferate, that the validity of their ideas and practices would be recognised and taken up.
Since this has not happened, either the ideas and practices are not valid or the ‘enemy’ has been underestimated. I think there is sufficient proof that the ideas and practices are valid but that free schools and liberal educationalists have been naïve in expecting the means for other schools to be established to be provided by the state without a calculated and hard-fought campaign. Free schools can only be judged as ‘successful’ when this campaign has been won. However, you may be right that the kids will win it for themselves in the end.
The ’old-guard’ of Summerhill and Kilquhanity managed, just, to weather the storms; albeit I am of the opinion that Kilquhanity survived for longer than many of the ‘progressives’ established earlier in the 20th century, because it was small, and John Aitkenhead managed to keep to his principles and avoid responding to some of the social and technological trends. The method he had arrived at by the 1960s he retained and hung on to. Unfortunately, he was unable to convince parents and the authorities of this heading towards the 21st century and the school closed in 1997. The jury is out on whether John really, knew between 1990 – 1996 that the school, in its current form, was not meeting the needs of its clients or that he was unable to pass on to others what had been his life’s work for over 50 years.
Not only did they survive, but other’s tried and managed to establish new schools. Some lasted a while, others came and went, often thwarted by local Council legislation or the lack of finances. These include;
Scotland Road Community Trust, The Scottie School, LiverpoolBurley House, Burley in Wharfedale, YorkshireBlackcurrant School, NorthamptonThe Small School, Hartland, Devon 1982 - 2016The New School, Butterstone, 1992 – 2018
It should be remembered that ‘progressive schools’ and ‘alternative education’ was not confined to the UK and Ireland. Around the world in Austria, Canada, Denmark and Japan schools were communicating with John. These included:
The Everdale Place, OntarioSchulerschule, ViennaAbaek Efterskole, DenmarkYukakujo, Japan
Yukakujo is worthy of a special mention. Tomohiro Nishiyana writing in 1989:
Dear John,
. . . I was just there in the hall where you lectured in Osaka last October, being one of the enthusiastic audiences. I agree with your idea that ‘small is beautiful’. And I began a very tiny school with only a boy last July, using my own small house with my wife. Its name is Yukakujo or place of play and study for children. Now we have five boys and a girl, from 9 to 12 years old. Most of them are school refugees.
We welcome such students as are against or not suitable for today’s schools. . . I know it very well that the A. S. Neill society plans to set up a new school near Osaka. I am one of A.S.N. society members too and hope that the new school will be set up near future. One of big differences between the new school and my tiny school is whether it is recognised officially by Board of Education. It is very difficult for free school to get an official recognition in Japan. I think more schools like ours are required eagerly.’
1979
Kenneth Barnes, following closure of Wennington, wrote:
Wennington was a school community in which an apparently hopeless mess or an unexpected situation was not a disaster, but an opportunity that called for insight and action even in those who thought themselves least important, and in which a fearless relationship between pupils and staff generated ideas to put into practice. Wennington was known to relatively few people and its life was brief; it will soon be forgotten. But the need it tried to fill will always be there in society, the need for people who are not daunted by confusion and who have the courage to face situations that are totally unexpected, situations where administrators are bewildered and computers irrelevant. It did not breed the exceptional at the expense of the ordinary, because it saw potential in all.
I’m often asked: ‘didn’t Wennington people get a shock when they got out into the world – a world that is so different?’ I used to answer, Yes, and I’d be sorry if they didn’t; but I hope that they were challenged to action by the difference, not defeated by it.
Pupils using school uniforms at Wennington School (1951)
1980
A letter to John from Dick Jones, Wennington School, (Conference organiser):
. . . I’ll accept that times have changed. Maybe the older schools are tired now, having battled for survival for so long. Maybe our schools really are dinosaurs in an age when increasing reliance on technology and increasing acceptance of the vast, centralised institutions has all but stifled what has always been a rather insecure flame. . .
But I am curious about one thing, relating to your own decision to miss out on the Conference this year. If it took ‘several staff meetings’ to reach a decision as to whether Kilquhanity would attend, what was the nature of the decision-making process? Why did you decide not to?
Aside from the Co-Ed Conferences some of the Schools found survival difficult and other new progressive educational 'experiments' started both in the UK and around the world.
