Summerhill school beats closure after deal with Blunkett
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Summerhill, Britain's most famous progressive school, was saved yesterday as the Government backed down from its closure threat.
Pupils voted to accept a deal offered by David Blunkett, the Secretary of State for Education, after a three-day hearing at an independent schools tribunal. The hearing was over a notice of complaint issued by Mr Blunkett against the Suffolk boarding school, where lessons are voluntary and nude bathing is allowed. Had the notice been upheld, the school would have been closed.
Last year, Ofsted inspectors reported that pupils were allowed "to mistake idleness for the exercise of personal liberty" and that non-attendance at lessons was the root cause of its educational shortcomings.
Yesterday the Department for Education (DfE) said its complaints had been withdrawn after the school agreed to encourage pupils to attend lessons and improve its teaching and assessment. But Summerhill's pupils and teachers said they had won.
Zoe Readhead, the school's proprietor and daughter of its founder, A S Neill, said: "This is the most wonderful triumph for us; my father always had faith in the law and he would be delighted at how it has brought him victory and vindication over a bureaucracy which could never cope with his ideas. We have lived for a year under the Ofsted falsehood that we have mistaken idleness for liberty. Today's verdict refutes that defamation and shows that liberty and learning go hand in hand at Summerhill."
Carmen Cordwell, who chaired the pupil meeting, said: "This is our charter for freedom. It gives us the space we need to live and breathe and learn into the future."
The decision to accept Mr Blunkett's statement was taken at a meeting of past and present Summerhillians at London's law courts. The school will not be fully inspected until 2004.
The DfE said: "We have said all along that we are not trying to close Summerhill. We have always recognised that, as an independent school, it has a right to its own philosophy."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments