The Sudbury Valley School:

Origin of the Sudbury model

Strictly speaking, “Sudbury” is not an educational concept. The roughly 45 democratic schools modeled on the original Sudbury School often call themselves Sudbury schools, but there are no guidelines and no organization one must follow to be recognized as a Sudbury school.

The first Sudbury School:

The democratic school model emerged with the founding of the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, USA, which was founded in 1968 by, among others, Daniel Greenberg and Mimsy Sadofsky. The founders' aim was to establish a school model that is not shaped by coercion, pressure to perform, and conformity, but that gives students full freedom to develop individually.

Summerhill as a role model:

The Sudbury School was not the first democratic school. As early as the 1920s, educator A. S. Neill founded the world-famous Summerhill School in the United Kingdom, which to this day is one of the best-known democratic schools.

Slow spread:

When the Sudbury founders started the Sudbury Valley School, they were convinced that many more democratic schools would open very quickly. But it took almost three decades for further schools based on the Sudbury model to appear. Today there are around 45 such schools worldwide, in Germany for example in Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Nuremberg and Munich.

Free learning under the Sudbury school model

The founding year of the Sudbury Valley School seems programmatic for its educational orientation: 1968 is regarded as THE year of social and cultural upheaval and even named an entire generation. No wonder Sudbury schools pursue a revolutionary model: in everyday school life children should be able to learn completely free from coercion, individually and autonomously. In practice it looks like this:

No fixed times:

Depending on the school, children may be required to spend a certain number of hours per day at school. When they arrive and when they leave is largely up to them.

No grade-level classes:

At Sudbury schools, children do not learn in class groups and are not organized by age. Children between 5 and 19 mix in daily school life. The goal is that in this way they learn with and from one another.

No curriculum:

There are no mandatory instructional contents. Students decide what they want to learn, when, and with whom. It is up to them whether they play, learn together with others, or attend one of the courses.

Democratically agreed school rules:

Students and teachers agree as equals on the school rules, which are recorded in a kind of school constitution. If a student violates the school rules, this is handled by a democratically elected judicial committee organized according to the principles of the rule of law.

According to founder Daniel Greenberg, the secret of Sudbury schools' success lies in the age mixing of the students: in this way students not only learn, they also teach the younger ones. In doing so they deepen their own knowledge, strengthen their self-confidence and acquire important social skills.

Learning without rules — can that work?

As with the model Summerhill and many other progressive educational concepts, the Sudbury School also faces sometimes strong criticism. Many parents and educators fear that children without rules and obligations will not develop motivation to learn or will simply be overwhelmed by the freedom of choice. Another criticism is the lack of comparability of learning achievement with that in conventional schools: since Sudbury schools teach without a curriculum, lesson structure and exams, learning progress can hardly be evaluated objectively.

From the Sudbury school's point of view, a state-approved curriculum is more of a hindrance, because school success alone does not determine whether a pupil will be successful as an adult. The school has, however, conducted studies of its graduates which show that around 80% of graduates attended a college or university after leaving the Sudbury School. It is very likely — and this applies to most alternative schools — that the Sudbury model does not work for every child. But for those who have problems in regular schools, it may be the path to a more satisfying adult life.

Image credits

Children raise their hands in class © insta_photos - stock.adobe.com

Students sit in a circle and clap © JenkoAtaman - stock.adobe.com