A school breaking all the rules

One reason might be that Summerhill stands unchallenged as the most progressive school in Britain. Situated in the quaint village of Leiston, near the Suffolk coast, this co-educational boarding school was founded in 1921 by A S Neill, a Scottish educational philosopher who believed in empowering children (see panel, right). It is run as a self-governing democracy, where the pupils police themselves.

The entire community holds a meeting every day at which everyone from the youngest pupil to the principal has an equal vote. These meetings set all the regulations and carry out all the discipline. For example, pupils have voted in a rule that bullies be sent to the back of queues and banned from social events.

Despite the fact Summerhill achieves exam results above the national average, its liberal regime is anathema to many. In 1999, the schools inspectorate Ofsted issued it with a notice of complaint, demanding that it abandon many of the freedoms it offered its pupils or face closure. The school - now run by Neill's daughter, a feisty woman called Zoe Readhead - refused to comply. It raised £120,000 from parents to fight Ofsted in court and won.

To complete this feel-good story, the school has recently been given a glowing Ofsted report, which called the pupils' personal development "outstanding" and praised them as "well-rounded, confident and mature".

The BBC has now turned the legal battle into a gripping four-part drama, simply called Summerhill, scheduled to begin on Monday January 21. It throws up all kinds of topical issues: what is education for? To cram our children with facts, or to teach them how to take responsibility for themselves? Should we be corralling all children into one rigid curriculum? Although defiantly unstructured, does Summerhill's approach allow children's imagination to flourish? The world premiere of the drama last month, at the tiny cinema in Leiston, seemed a good place to look for answers to these - and many other - questions.

I am greeted at the school beforehand by Readhead. Done up in a fleece, blue jeans and - neat touch, this - hot-pink wellies, she is a tall and unconventional woman who radiates raw charisma. It is easy to see how the school could be powered by her force of will alone.

"People feel threatened by this school because they don't take the trouble to understand it," she tells me as we walk to the screening. "We're constantly being misrepresented by the media, and it's absolutely infuriating.

"A newspaper recently called us the school with no rules', but in fact we have about 200 rules. The popular perception is that we have no rules because the children have personal freedom and they do what they want to do. People assume that means it's anarchy and that everyone runs around hitting each other with sticks, but that's a complete misconception."

In a tone that brooks no contradiction, Readhead asserts that the pupils' freedom entails the right to take responsibility for their own lives. "Summerhill is all about your individual rights, your rights to make your own decisions and to develop into the person you want to be. Those are fundamental rights, but children are never normally offered them. Because of traditional child-rearing expectations, people make the assumption that children can't be in control of their own lives, but at Summerhill we see that they can be. They can take decisions and they can run the school."

A S Neill's philosophy is predicated on the belief that children bloom when they are permitted to take control of their destiny. That is clearly not going to be for every parent; many will refuse to trust children to that degree and will see it as too huge a risk to hand over so much power to youngsters.

But Jon East, who directed and produced the series, is a convert to the liberation theory on which the school is run. He says he would happily send his nine-year-old daughter to Summerhill if it were closer to his home in London. However, he admits it would take a lot of courage to enrol your child at the school. "It's a massive act of faith for parents: am I going to be brave enough to allow my child to find his or her own course?"

He argues that the evidence is that they almost always do. "When they first go to Summerhill, a lot of children abandon classes entirely and go and build tree-houses. But they soon find that boring and return to lessons.

"One character in the drama doesn't go to any lessons till he's 13. He can't even read or write at 14. But then he suddenly becomes inspired and soon reaches A-level standard in chemistry. It's as if he's saying, You know what? I've finished playing. Now I'm ready for the next stage.'"

East contends that one of the benefits of Summerhill is that it is not continually trying to hot-house its pupils, who are aged between five and 17. "A lot of kids nowadays are bombarded with constant activity, whether it's the PlayStation or endless after-school clubs. The dominant culture implies that we're at fault if we're not constantly filling up our children's lives.

"But at Summerhill there is not a lot to do, and the school is not frightened of its pupils being bored. In boredom, the children find out exactly what they want to do. Once all the other lights are extinguished, you see the personal spark much more clearly."

The parents of the children at Summerhill certainly feel it allows their children to blossom. Steve Fawdry, a therapist, says that for two years he and his partner, Kate Simpson, also a therapist, had been home-schooling their son Freddie, who was finding it hard to cope with mainstream schools. They despaired of ever finding a suitable institution to educate him, until they heard about Summerhill. Now they are positively evangelical about it, despite the fact boarding fees are about £10,000 a year.

Fawdry confesses that he and Simpson were worried before Freddie, who is now 10, went to Summerhill. But after two years, Fawdry reckons the school has given his son a new lease of life. "More than ever, the kind of education Summerhill offers is so important," he says. "Childhood is being eroded. In education these days, there's so much testing. That puts undue pressure on children, and as a result young people are suffering from a lot of mental-health problems.

"Summerhill offers a whole different way of being educated. It doesn't just look at the National Curriculum, but at how you lead your life. It teaches children how to live and work together and resolve conflicts. Freddie feels he has ownership of the school, and the more ownership you have, the more responsibility you take. If you take responsibility at school, you will take responsibility in life."

The children certainly seem to thrive in the liberal atmosphere. Although they have no restrictions on hair or clothing, and are allowed to swear and even sunbathe nude, they appear very well-behaved. They have nothing to rebel against and realise courtesy is the best way of getting on in life.

East hopes the drama will help dispel some of the myths that have attached themselves to the school, which boasts such alumni as the author John Burningham, the actress Rebecca De Mornay and Michael Boulton, the lead dancer at Sadler's Wells.

East says the series will show that Summerhill is not Lord of the Flies revisited. "I think 87 years of history demonstrates that Summerhill pupils do not descend into savagery," he says with a smile. "It's no longer an experimental school - it's a demonstration school. The impact of Neill's methodology has been huge. He is taught as part of the teacher-training course, and school councils throughout the UK only exist because Summerhill has shown how valuable they are. At Summerhill, the daily meetings are not a box-ticking exercise - they forge the pupils' destiny."

Freddie's mother is equally upbeat. "This school has helped him find his feet," she says. "The daily meetings are magnificent. When he was just eight, he was already speaking at the meetings. To get your voice so early gives you terrific confidence.

"For the sake of children, I wish there were more schools like Summerhill. I know it's hard for parents to stick it out - they can't trust that their children will get through their exams. But I can assure them that the academic side is fine, although that isn't the point of the school. Because they can choose which lessons they go to, Summerhill gives children room to expand.

"Of course, you need bottle to send your child here in the first place. But once you've seen the proof - which is these great kids - you'll be won over. Freddie used to be quite ill at mainstream schools, but Summerhill has completely turned things round for him."

For his part, Freddie admits he does not go to many formal lessons, but he is progressing with his reading and is clearly exceedingly happy at Summerhill. During the premiere, I sit next to him. At one point during the first episode, against the specific advice of her uptight mother, the leading character, a formerly neurotic young girl called Maddy, skips lessons in favour of some seriously daring tree-climbing. "Look at that," Freddie beams. "She's learning how to be free!"

• Summerhill begins on CBBC on Monday January 21 at 6pm. The first episode will be repeated on BBC1 on Wednesday January 23 at 4.30pm. A film version will be shown later on BBC4.