SUMMERHILL: the early days

Summerhill was founded in 1921 in Hellerau, a suburb of Dresden. It was part of an International school called the Neue Schule. There were wonderful facilities there and a lot of enthusiasm, but over the following months Neill became progressively less happy with the school. He felt it was run by idealists - they disapproved of tobacco, foxtrots and cinemas - while he wanted the children to live their own lives. He said:

“I am only just realising the absolute freedom of my scheme of Education. I see that all outside compulsion is wrong, that inner compulsion is the only value. And if Mary or David wants to laze about, lazing about is the one thing necessary for their personalities at the moment. Every moment of a healthy child’s life is a working moment. A child has no time to sit down and laze. Lazing is abnormal, it is a recovery, and therefore it is necessary when it exists.”

Together with Frau Neustatter (afterwards his first wife), Neill moved his school to Austria. The setting was idyllic - on top of a mountain - but the local people, a Catholic community, were hostile.

By 1923 Neill had moved to the town of Lyme Regis in the south of England, to a house called Summerhill. The school continued there until 1927, when it moved to the present site at Leiston in the county of Suffolk.

Neill continued to run the school - later with the help of his second wife, Ena - until he died in 1973. Ena then ran it until her retirement in 1985 when their daughter Zoe, the current headteacher, took over.

Summerhill today

Summerhill today has not changed fundamentally since it was first started. Its aims could be described as the following:

• To allow children freedom to grow emotionally;

• To give children power over their own lives;

• To give children the time to develop naturally;

• To create a happier childhood by removing fear and coercion by adults.

Summerhill has now been running continuously for seventy-five years. Its success in providing a happy environment for the kids, and in producing happy, well-balanced men and women, stands as a continuing proof of the Neill's notion that “The absence of fear is the finest thing that can happen to a child.”

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Discussion	\|	A typical Summerhill day.

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