Currambena Primary School

I first look at the pictures on a school-website. First impression is always dominant in further reasoning. Spinoza considers intuition being the highest order in thinking, above logic. Spinoza's intuition is somewhat different to our present connotation, but still. Currrambena has an appealing philosophy and makes an effort to offer something different in the educational system. What more evidence do you need?

Village School and Fitzroy Community School

They started in 1982, so The Village School is well established in Melbourne, Australia. Between 55 and 80 children attend the school each year, guided by 5 permanent teachers, a part-time language teacher, an equestrian instructor (riding horses!!) and various coaches, mentors and parents sharing their specialist skills with the students. On of their principles is learning by making mistakes. They 'encourage children to take risks in a non-threatening, caring environment in order to develop realistic, problem-solving skills.' and also ' that some common sense rules are necessary to ensure physical and emotional safety.' Read it all in their philosophy - document on line. Must be in the air down under!! In the same city another alternative school, Fitzroy Community School. Some international connections in Asia too.

The Alternative School

The Alternative School (aka TAS) ' was set up in May 2007 to offer a new and exciting alternative KS4 curriculum (age 14 to 19) for all those young people who are not engaging with main stream education.' It is not clear what status this initiative has or how many young people participate. They all strive to get a Duke of Edingburgh Award, which also gives them discounts on outdoor equipment. They ' strive to engage young people in a wide range of positive activities and to develop them as young adults, at a pace that is suited to that young person and with subjects and experiences that means they are interested and therefore willing to partake.' An interesting and innovative approach. Too early to call it a success, however. They maintain a blog that shows a professional video on the project.

Sudbury Valley School

The SVS was founded in 1968 and at the moment there are 39 schools or initiatives on 2 continents that are listed as Sudbury - education schools. They must do something right.

Students are fully responsible for their own learning. In practice this means that students initiate all their own activities and create their own environments. The physical plant, the staff, and the equipment are there for the students to use as the need arises. The Netherlands hosts 2 Sudbury Schools and there are a number of initiatives that are very similar in approach and pedagogy, but find it difficult to survive. The existence of an international community around this initiative and the solid mission statement might explain its success. And the use of villa's like the one pictured of course.