Articles

The Side Effects of School: A Crisis in Mental Health Can’t Be Solved Through Therapy, by Dr Naomi Fisher

April 9, 2022

We’re facing a crisis in young people’s mental health.  Every day I get emails from several parents, asking if I can help their children.  They […]

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Rebooting Public Education – Part 1, by Richard Fransham

March 9, 2022

Introduction This essay is for people who steadfastly believe that healthy democracies are dependent upon public education being everybody’s first choice. It is written for […]

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A New Educational Paradigm for the 21st century, by Dr Ian Cunningham

February 17, 2022

Just a week before writing this piece, the CEO of a major company and I were discussing what the educational world needs to provide for […]

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Rewilding and Deschooling: a dialogue between Max Hope and Sophie Christophy

January 22, 2022

Authors: Max Hope & Sophie Christophy Max Hope, Director of Rewilding Education and advocate of freedom is passionate about rewilding and is excited about how concepts of […]

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Play, by Sean Bellamy

January 1, 2022

The desire to play is fundamental to the human condition and is impossible to suppress.  Even in the most challenging situations, it will find a way […]

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Educational Rights (for Dummies!), by Katy Zago

December 8, 2021

How can we recover respect for human rights in education? There’s a reason for the ambiguity of my title. Too many people seem to ignore, […]

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Let’s Journey the Wilderness Together, by Dr Jo Sweetland

November 26, 2021

Watching our oldest child’s interest in learning slowly disappear and their curiosity and creativity dwindle became the motivator to us choosing to take all three […]

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Response to UNESCO’s ‘Education in a Post-Covid World’ Report

November 6, 2021

In UNESCO’s Progress Update on the Futures of Education, published in March 2021, UNESCO denied the value of Self-Directed Education and autonomous learning, despite much significant scientific evidence […]

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Why I Started a Small School, by Rosalyn Spencer

November 2, 2021

Dan’s personality had begun to change after he’d started school. He had often been tired and down-hearted when I’d collected him. I had to take […]

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IDECs at Summerhill from 1999 to 2021 – What’s Changed and What Hasn’t? What Needs to Change for United Nations ‘Sustainable Development Goal 4’ to be Realised by 2030?

October 23, 2021

Transcript from Derry Hannam’s talk at the online Summerhill Festival of Childhood, October 3rd 2021: My 1999 IDEC [International Democratic Education Conference] talk was given […]

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Research

Democratic Empowerment: How do Students Feel About Their Student Council? By Hope Wilder

March 12, 2023

What Students Say Matters Most schools do not look like a democratic society at all. Imagine a school where democracy is lived on a daily […]

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Real World Learning: School 21 and XP

May 3, 2022

Here is a report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), commissioned by the Edge Foundation (published June 2019), which presents the findings of […]

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Journal of Pedagogy: Home-Based Education

October 26, 2021

Volume 12 (2021): Issue 1 (June 2021), Special Issue: Home-Based Education Volume 12 of the Journal of Pedagogy ran a special on home education. It […]

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Evidence Base for Self-Directed Education

October 24, 2021

By Rose Arnold, Suitable-Education.uk, first published October 2021 “Self-directed education is a pedagogy grounded in biology, anthropology, cognitive science, psychology and child development. It is not claimed […]

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The Student Experience of Self Managed Learning (SML): Evidence From Research

January 13, 2021

By Nicola Sankey, March 2008 (with Introduction by Dr. Graham Dawes) [At the time what is now Self Managed Learning College was Called ‘South Downs […]

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Home Education Trends, Preliminary Report

January 8, 2021

By Wendy Charles-Warner, EducationOtherwise.org December 2020 This report examines trends in numbers of home educating families in England. The data was obtained by sending freedom […]

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Home-Education: Aims, Practices and Outcomes

January 7, 2021

By Paula Rothermel, University of Durham, 2002 Abstract This research explores the aims and practices of home-educating families from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. The methodology involves […]

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Preventing school exclusion: a case study of a primary aged autistic child with ADHD and a PDA profile

January 6, 2021

By Catrina Lyle and Heather Leatherland Catrina Lyle is an advisory teacher within the Communication and Interaction team and Heather Leatherland is a mainstream primary […]

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A Summary of Research on Self Managed Learning

January 6, 2021

The material in this document is just a small snapshot of the extensive evaluations carried out on Self Managed Learning with young people. It includes […]

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Learning from the COVID-19 home-schooling experience: Listening to pupils, parents/carers and teachers

October 21, 2020

A report by Mari-Ana Jones (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Sara Bubb (University College London Institute of Education): “In Spring 2020, schools in […]

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News

Webinars for Start-Up Schools & Learning Communities

February 27, 2024

Are you thinking about setting up your own school or learning community? Or perhaps you’ve been running for a while but you’re still exploring different […]

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Learn How to Set Up a School

September 6, 2023

If you dream of setting up your own school, to create something outside of the conventional, authoritarian education system, this is your chance to ask […]

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Learn How to Set Up a Learning Community

June 7, 2023

Announcing a New Collaboration… Limitless podcast host, Alex O’Neill and Progressive Education founder, Jo Symes have launched a webinar series for learning community start-ups. This […]

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Happy New Year!

January 7, 2023

Wishing you the best for a happy 2023. May this new year bring much inspiration to us all for reimagining education. 2022 was an exciting […]

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Progressive Education Events Line Up

June 27, 2022

June  15th, 11am BST – How can educators prepare students for adult life? Live webinar in the Progressive Education Group:- Ortal Green will share with […]

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Announcing a series of 5 FREE events by Progressive Education and Omnis Education

March 9, 2022

We are delighted to be collaborating with Omnis Education to bring you a series of five live webinars in our Progressive Education Group on Facebook. […]

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Live Events in the Progressive Education Group

January 9, 2022

We are excited to announce the launch of Progressive Education Facebook Lives which will be taking place in our Progressive Education Group on Facebook. These […]

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Response to UNESCO’s ‘Education in a Post-Covid World’ Report

November 6, 2021

In UNESCO’s Progress Update on the Futures of Education, published in March 2021, UNESCO denied the value of Self-Directed Education and autonomous learning, despite much significant scientific evidence […]

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Right to Education and the French Authoritarian Context

January 28, 2021

Three European organisations advocating human rights and freedom in education – ALLI asbl (Luxemboug), Les Enfants d’Abord (France), and Full Human Rights-Experience Education – as […]

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What Are Your Training Needs?

October 24, 2020

Courses/workshops on progressive education coming soon: Please feed back as to what content and format you require. Progressive Education is collaborating with Holistic Learning and […]

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