Summerhill School

Summerhill School is an independent boarding school in Leiston, Suffolk, England. It was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around. It is run as a democratic community; the running of the school is conducted in the school meetings, which anyone, staff or pupil, may attend, and at which everyone has an equal vote. These meetings serve as both a legislative and judicial body. Members of the community are free to do as they please, so long as their actions do not cause any harm to others, according to Neill's principle "Freedom, not Licence." This extends to the freedom for pupils to choose which lessons, if any, they attend. It is an example of both democratic education and alternative education.

In 1920, A. S. Neill started to search for premises in which to found a new school which he could run according to his educational principle of giving freedom to the children and staff through democratic governance. On a trip to Europe, which started out as a research visit into progressive schools on behalf of the Theosophical journal New Era, he found the ideal accommodation in Hellerau near Dresden, a village founded on principles based on the Garden City movement in England. By combining with two other projects, the Neue Deutsche Schule , founded by Carl Thiess the previous year and an existing school with many international students dedicated to the teaching of Eurhythmics, a joint venture named the International School or Neue Schule Hellerau was launched. Neill's sector was called the "foreign" school . Jonathan Croall wrote, "This, in essence, was the beginning of Summerhill" although the name Summerhill itself came later.

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