Summerhill School is an independent (i.e. fee-charging) day and 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 and is considered a democratic school; 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.
History
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 (New German School), 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 (in contrast to the Thiess's "German School"). Jonathan Croall wrote, "This, in essence, was the beginning of Summerhill" although the name Summerhill itself came later.
Neill was soon dissatisfied with Neue Schule's ethos, and moved his sector of the organisation to Sonntagberg in Austria. Due to the hostility of the local people, it moved again in 1923 to Lyme Regis in England. The house in Lyme Regis was called Summerhill, and this became the name of the school. In 1927, it moved to its present site in Leiston, Suffolk, England. It had to move again temporarily to Ffestiniog, Wales, during the Second World War so that the site could be used as a British Army training camp.
The school had a local impact as several teachers were involved in the formation of the Leiston Communist Party. Several teachers were involved in the Communist Party, some before they were appointed: Vivien Jackson, was the daughter of T. A. Jackson, a leading figure in the Communist Party of Great Britain and his wife Kate Hawkins, one of the founders of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. She married A. L. Morton, a prominent Communist Party historian who also worked at the school. The artist Paxton Chadwick was appointed as a part-time art teacher in the early thirties. At this time, the Communist mathematician and computer pioneer Richard Goodman was also a teacher at the school. Cyril Eyre was also a member of staff. Although Neill himself was sympathetic towards the goal of communism, he was increasingly critical of Stalinism and the contemporary Communist Party. He wrote to David Barton, a former pupil at the time in the communist party, saying: