The Family School at
Larkhall
Larkhall ( sco, Larkhauch, gd, Taigh na h-Uiseig) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, around southeast of Glasgow. It is twinned with Seclin in northern France.
Larkhall sits on high ground between the River Clyde to the East and the ...
was a small,
alternative school
An alternative school is an educational establishment with a curriculum and methods that are nontraditional. Such schools offer a wide range of philosophies and teaching methods; some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientati ...
, based in
South London, UK, founded by Polly Griffiths in 2007/8 to offer a
Democratic education
Democratic education is a type of formal education that is organized democratically, so that students can manage their own learning and participate in the governance of their school. Democratic education is often specifically emancipatory, wit ...
model to
primary age children. The school closed in December 2012.
The Family School was in the
Free Schools tradition, with no set
curriculum
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...
, working on the basis that children are natural
learn
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learn ...
ers.
The school was a charity, "reluctantly
fee-paying", to quote its literature.
History
Polly Griffiths and Dil Green, the founders of the school, worked to develop their ideas over two years with two other families and with Colin Hill, a teacher who had worked at Community and Voluntary Education in South London.
The Family School was founded in September 2008. For the first two years of its operation, families were officially
home educators, as the school was not registered with
Ofsted. After registering the school as an Independent School with DfE in September 2010, the school was inspected for the first time by Ofsted in June 2012 and was judged "Good" with "Outstanding" aspects. The small number of pupils attending made the school's financial viability increasingly difficult and therefore the school is currently temporarily closed pending re-opening on its new larger site in West Norwood.
Site
The school was in premises in
Brixton, but the Trustees have acquired a site in West Norwood which will provide its long-term home.
Curriculum
The school had no set curriculum, and offered few formal lessons. Each pupil's journey through the school constituted the curriculum they followed. However, the school considered that certain skills and abilities were important to enable full participation in society, and these were incorporated into the school environment.
References
External links
Family School websiteSustainable EducationBBC , Radio 4 Learning Curve
Ofsted Inspection Report June 2012
Article about purchase of new site - West Norwood newsletter
Article about progress on site: West Norwood newsletter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Family School, The
Defunct schools in the London Borough of Lambeth
Educational institutions established in 2007
2007 establishments in England
2007 in London
Educational institutions disestablished in 2012
2012 disestablishments in England
Democratic free schools