Thursday 18 February 2010

An historical excursion

Reading what Julie has to say about her tuition group in Hampshire and also what Mrs Anon said about the idea of the home educating community rallying round and providing something like bursaries, has put me in mind of the situation forty years or so ago, before home education became a widely accepted option. In particular, I was remembering the so-called "Free Schools", with one of which I had some dealings in the early seventies. I am wondering whether something of the sort might not suit some home educating parents today.

Around 1970, home education by individual parents was not really seen as a viable alternative to sending your child to the local school. Some parents who wanted a different style of education for their children got together in various places and set up very small groups, often no more than half a dozen children, and then secured premises. These were often crumbling ruins, buildings which were all but derelict. They would then announce that they were a school and take their children from the state schools and set up taking responsibility for their education. One family even registered a bedroom in their house as a school! Of course, it was a bit of a game, because these were not really schools in any real meaning of the word. In effect, it was home education of the autonomous type. The whole point was that the children should have the freedom to choose for themselves what they learned and when. One of these "schools", the New School in West London, defined its educational aims thus;

"To allow the child to make a free choice in its acquisition of knowledge, understanding and skills, in an environment which stimulates imagination, awareness and expression. This implies confidence on the part of teachers and parents in the child's innate drive towards discovery, self-improvement, resourcefulness and fulfilment. It also implies considerable freedom for the child to explore its own capabilities and needs"

This could almost have been written by a modern day autonomous home educator! The LEAs were not at all happy about these places, as they guessed quite correctly that very little teaching went on in them. Never the less, they did seem to fill a gap. Teenagers who had been truanting from state schools started attending, as did a few who had actually been expelled from other schools. The whole point of the Free Schools was that the kids could choose when they came and what they did when they came. Famous Free Schools were White Lion Street Free School in Islington, Freightliners and Parkfield Street Free School in Manchester.

There was a lot of trouble to begin with, with parents being routinely threatened with School Attendance Orders and so on. The turnover of children was very high and there were quite a few unruly kids at some of these places. Never the less, some lasted for a few years. White Lion Street eventually became funded by ILEA and did not close down until the mid eighties. It was groups like this that helped pave the way for the home education movement and the establishment of Education Otherwise in the mid seventies.

I was thinking that this sort of enterprise might be worth trying again. Nobody in the Free Schools had a definite role. One day somebody would be cleaning and the next day running a workshop on painting. As I expect people know, a group of parents in Essex got money from the local authority in order to set themselves up as a school. Perhaps other groups of parents might be able to try a similar move? Those able to teach or instruct the children could do that and those who felt more comfortable doing other stuff could also help. I am aware of some informal arrangements of this sort, but I would be curious to know if any home educators have actually thought about registering themselves as a school? Of course the regulations and paperwork now is a lot more complicated than it was forty years ago. Some of the Free Schools became recognised officially in very unsuitable premises and the whole process only took a couple of months.

14 comments:

  1. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/ukpga_20080025_en_8#pt4-ch1-pb1-l1g92

    consultation on part 4 Education Skills Act 2008 keeps being delayed for some reason.

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  2. Interesting idea, Simon, but more than a tad optimistic. You're not allowed to fart in this country any more without showing the appropriate paperwork conforming to the statutory guidance handed down by the Secretary of State for Flatulence.

    Even where specific draconian regulations don't exist (yet), Nanny has an army of power-crazed clipboard-bearing lackeys to try and make them up on the spot. But of course in this case specific and draconian regulations do already exist.

    On a slightly related note, I recently observed the manager of a local village hall hired out for a regular home-ed get together demanding to know if we had all been CRB-checked. We being parents with their children!?

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  3. Thanks for that, Fiona. Yes, things have changed a lot since 1972, which is the year that I was on the fringes of this. You are of course right, Ciaran. I have heard of other places where parents have been expected to be CRB checked whne with their own children. This will get ten times worse when the Safeguarding authority gets into full swing.

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  4. yes they be to many hoops to jump over to do this ciaranG is right!

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  5. http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6036363

    sorry, obsessing a bit about this, now. Article in TES this morning about small schools.

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  6. Not to worry Fiona, obsession is good too! This is actually very interesting. Obviously, things are very different from what they were forty years ago. The piece from the TES is of course about a conventional school. I wonder if with a smaller group of tenty or thirty children, the process might be more manageable? Probably though, the paperwork would deafeat any such attempt. It was only a thought, I was very enthusiastic about Free Schools when I was a much younger man.

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  7. Have you had any contact with Summerhill School who claim to be the original alternative 'free' school? http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/

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  8. There is so little on the web about free schools. I worked in the (32) Parkfield Street Manchester free school in 1972 or 1973. I started off just filling in for David Graham, taking the kids for trips to the seaside or to other free schools (Major Street, in Liverpool, after they moved from Scotland Road)(and the Leeds free School)
    ***
    I also did a project in the White Lion Free School.
    ***
    I remember some of the kids in each school. Where are they now? Christine Clayton, later Steele died aged 47 I think. I last saw her when she was 31. As for the rest I don't know what became of them. Valerie Parker, Gerard and his sister. Sandra Ashcroft. It's hard to remember. Oh yes, there was a Gary. He had a sister Wendy but I don't think she came to the school. There were various adults. We didn't call ourselves teachers. I remember Jimmy Lennon. think it was started by the Jobson's for their daughter but they had left before I started there. That's all I can remember for now.
    ***
    I remember there was a Richard at the White Lion School, I think he appeared in a TV play called Bloody Kids. Others could write a better history than I can.

    Cheers,

    Bob
    ***

    Robert Howes
    Brynderwen
    Crymlyn Road
    Llansamlet
    Swansea SA7 9XT
    01792 792 442

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  9. The educational aims of the New School could not only have been written by modern-day home educators, but also by many mainstream state schools at the time. Also, local authorities were not always opposed to such schools.

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  10. You are right suzyg, not all local authorities were opposed to the Free Schools. Once they had actually been registered, some local education authorities began referring pupils to them. These were often hard cases that other schools could not cope with. White Lion Street school in Islington was one such. ILEA actually accepted financial responsibility for it and it kept going until ILEA itself was abolished. Islington Council then took over it briefly, before cutting its funding completely round about 1986.

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  11. I am guessing Bob, that your connection with Parkfield Street was in 1973. They got a van in January of that year and then started going further afield for trips. You mention the Grahams, I think they had a ten year old daughter called Pat? You are quite right about not being able to find much about the free schools on the Internet. Or indeed anywhere else! They seem to have sunk with hardly any trace at all.

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  12. Have you seen the West London Free School site? http://www.westlondonfreeschool.co.uk/ They intend to offer a classical curriculum.

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  13. Hi Simon,

    It was around 71 to 73 I was at the free school. Dave and Jane Graham have two daughters, Suzanne and Naomi (I think). And they have three sons but none went to the free school whilst I was there, if I recall correctly. I used my own van but they might have bought a van after I got Tony and the rest back into running it and I left to save the world, and I'm still trying.

    Cheers,

    Bob
    ***

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