The school continued there until 1927 when it moved to its present location in the village of Leiston in Suffolk, taking with it the name of Summerhill. Originally part of an International School called Neue Schule in Hellerau (a suburb of Dresden), Neill moved the school to Lyme Regis in the south of England in 1923 to a house called Summerhill. In conversation with Zoë, I discover more about the driving force of this pioneering school and the philosophy that underpins its ethos. It is run as a charitable trust, is fee paying, relying on donations in order to provide bursaries or other forms of financial assistance to pupils ( It is probably the first educational institution to embed the core values of self-government and freedom that are implied by the 'free school' movement in the UK today. This principle extends beyond a notion of self-governance, to that in which the community is wholly democratic, where children learn to be self-confident, tolerant and considerate and are given the space to be themselves ( Not government-funded, Summerhill is an Independent British boarding school founded in 1921 by Alexander Neill. Whilst the term 'free school' today implies a model that is 'state-funded… set up in response to what people say they want and need in their community to improve education for local children' ( Summerhill is grounded on Alexander Neill's principle of 'freedom not licence'. By Gill Clifton, Clifton Associates, PeterboroughĪs the UK battles with an ever-changing education landscape in which growth can be seen in the introduction of academies, trust schools, federations, chains of schools and 'free schools', I talk to Zoë Readhead, Principal of what is often called the first democratic, self-governing 'free' school.

Zoe readhead summerhill