Unusual schools: Summerhill

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Unusual schools mini-series, episode 25) is a short documentary about Summerhill, a school in Suffolk, in the east of England, started in 1921 by a Scottish teacher, A. S. Neill. A single narrator explains that lessons are optional there: pupils choose to go to class, or to play, read or make things instead. The school still has rules, and the pupils make them: pupils and teachers meet in a school meeting, talk about problems and vote, and a pupil's vote counts as much as a teacher's. In 1999 the government wanted to close the school because of the optional lessons; the case went to court, and in 2000, after four days, the government gave up, while the pupils held a school meeting in the courtroom to vote yes to the agreement. It is a comprehension episode: the narration uses the present simple for the school today and the past simple for its history, with can and as much as, and no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 8 on facts and 2 on vocabulary (optional, court). The study topic is school life: unusual schools in the English-speaking world.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three photos, the key words and the 10 questions: a pupil pack, and a teacher pack with the answers highlighted. It also has a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. It has no lesson plan. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then use the closing question (Would you go to lessons at Summerhill?) for a short class discussion, with learners giving one reason for their answer. Learners should know the words school, class, teacher and lesson, and be able to read 1921, 1999 and 2000. The pack's key words explain the new words (optional, rule, vote, government, court).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged school-and-leisure (5e, "École et loisirs", Cycle 4). The episode targets CEFR level A2-.