Category: Articles

“To trust children is to anchor ourselves to a moral foundation, a place from which a freer world can grow, as long as we’re willing to help it along.” – Idzie Desmarais What if we believed that children were born with innate wisdom? What if we believed that we didn’t know best, just different? What […]

When I was five I spent hours scrambling around on a rocky hillside with a group of other kids led by a ten year old girl, with no adult in sight – climbing trees and scraping knees and having a wonderful time. This involved much exciting challenge, decision making and risk assessment. Stick with the […]

A lot of us use inaccurate words when discussing Self-Directed Education. What are more precise words that we can use and why does this matter? And when do we need to make up our own words? I grew up being an “ah, you know what I mean,” kind of a person, using words in the […]

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change.” – Quote commonly attributed to Charles Darwin Let’s start by putting evolution into perspective. The universe has been here for 13.4 billion years, the earth is 4.6 billion-years-old, the human race started roughly 300,000 years […]

Why do so few school improvement initiatives achieve their stated goals? [The first of two posts on this all-important head-scratcher. You’ll be able to read part 2 here.] In my New Year post, we looked at the mind-blowing question that opens in my new book: It’s mind-blowing because a) the figure is really low, b) everyone knows it, […]

My son Benjamin struggled with anxiety and depression in Years 10 and 11, and rarely felt able to attend school. He is one of many young people who experience ‘Emotional Based School Avoidance’ (EBSA) today. In the UK, EBSA affects approximately 1-2% of the school population; although, some researchers suggest it could be as high […]

What if a school were a vibrant hub for change? Change that starts with the inner blossoming of oneself, inspiring further shifts to happen within the community and impacting action locally and beyond. What if our endeavours to develop ourselves within an educational setting were deeply connected to a compassionate movement towards change in society, […]

Life fills us with questions. Each new stage of growing and development changes our thinking from one level to another. Like a character in a video game, we pass one stage, fighting off goblins and bosses and eating energy balls to power up until we feel like a champion, and then we find ourselves diving […]

One of the main things that often strikes me about the young people who learn and play with us at Maverick Learning Community is how much space they take up! Physical space, and also space in our hearts and minds as adult facilitators in co-creation with them. At capacity, we have 3 adults for 18 young people […]

A Meaningful Learning Revolution Is On The Horizon… In the UK, the National Curriculum has driven the evolution of learning towards something that can best be described as a one dimensional plank of wood. Learners follow a narrow path of subjects until a definitive end point is reached, often qualified by a form of standardised […]

Part 2: Progressive Education I [previously] wrote about the Montessori Landscape in the UK and what I’ve learned so far about the scene [since relocating from the US]. Inevitably, my network and understanding have continued to grow since. Here are just a couple of additions: I have met with Dr. Nathan Archer who leads The International […]

Part 1: Montessori in the UK I have so much to talk about. Over the last month [October], I have been involved in so many exciting projects in education, have met so many inspiring educators, and have learnt so much about education in the UK. I have another article on Inquiry-Based Education in the works, […]

This transcript was taken from a presentation entitled ‘School is Very Strange!” by Guy Claxton at the 2023 Rethinking Education conference in London. Guy Claxton is a cognitive scientist, education thought leader and prolific author interested in expanding human intelligence through research, writing and education. You can follow him on Twitter:

In the 2022/23 academic year, 28.3% of secondary school pupils were persistently absent. Huge numbers of children are unable to access full time mainstream school for a multitude of complex reasons. There is growing consensus that this is an issue that is not going away and affected schools, parents and children are under intense pressure […]

About the Poet Michael Rosen is one of the best-known figures in the children’s book world, he is renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. He lectures and teaches in universities on children’s literature, reading and writing, and also visits schools with his one-man show to enthuse children with his passion for […]

What young people need It seems to me that the crucial commodity that young people need in order to find and deepen their interests and identity, and to learn how to live with others is TIME. Time to think, time to wonder, time to question, time to create, time to hang out with their friends, time […]

In this blog (which was first published by JKP), Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist with a PhD in autism, writes about the benefits of self-directed education, from children continuing to explore intense interests to a lack of comparison and judgment, allowing children to develop at their own pace. Her new book, A Different Way to Learn: […]

This letter has been written by Rose Arnold of Suitable Education, at the request of and input from Welsh home educators, following the publication of the Welsh Government’s concerning elective home education guidance in May 2023:                                                                                                                         31st May 2023 Re: Welsh Elective Home Education Guidance May 2023 (288/2023) Parents and carers – not local […]

Why do some children find it more difficult than others to deal with stress? We tend to think of stress as a ‘bad thing’, but all human lives contain some elements of stress, and difficult problems that must be solved. Although people do have different underlying, biologically inherited basic temperaments, the majority of interpersonal difference […]

There is nothing inherent in human-ness that means teenage bowel movements must be policed. Young people are not innately bad actors for whom suspicion equals due diligence. Erecting barricades that block children from accessing toilets is a visible symptom of a failed system. The fact these ‘policies’ exist across many secondary schools demonstrates a catastrophic failure of […]

I moved to Lagos, Nigeria in 2013, having grown up in London in the UK. After a career in Finance spanning more than 10 years, my husband and I decided to start a family in 2016, and I took a career break. This forced me to reflect on my own childhood and life choices, and […]