Lockdown Learning
As COVID-19 swept the globe from east to west this year, so has home education. Millions of children woke up one morning to find their schools closed and their new teachers are their parents. Learning at home can be a wonderfully liberating and connecting experience for families that choose it but it can also be daunting and exhausting even at the best of times. And let’s face it – this is not the best of times. No one planned for this. And whereas Home Education is usually done more out of the home than in it as families meeting up with others to socialize, play and learn together all that’s off the table right now. East Kent Sudbury School (www.ekss.co.uk) grew from a group of home educators and as passionate advocates for alternative education we’ve teamed up with our friends at Alpine Valley School (www.alpinevalleyschool.com) in Denver, Colorado to bring you a special podcast season to help you not just survive learning in lockdown but get the most out of this out of school experience.
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The Future of Education
07/15/2020
The Future of Education
Our lockdown learning journey has come to an end with our final episode of our podcast this week, we hope that you’ve enjoyed listening as much as we enjoyed making it. We’d like to also say thank you to all our wonderful guests that have given us their time and shared their thoughts with us over the last few months, we couldn’t have done it without you. For our final episode we wanted to look to the future. What will our education systems look like in a post COVID-19 world? As we all rush to get back to ‘normal’ as lockdown measures are eased, many people are questioning what that normal should look like and many teachers, parents and children are voicing their desire to take this opportunity to change the way we learn for the better. We asked a wide variety of guests what they hoped that future had in store, we hope you enjoy hearing their dreams for the future of education. Guests: (Alphabetical by surname) Artemis D. Bear Kezia Cantwell-Wright Sophie Christophy Je’anna Clements Kate Coleman Kimberley Cooper Marc Gallivan Derry Hannam Christel Hartkamp-Bakker Anna Hobbs Harriet Pattison Antoinette Reid Heidi Steel Danny Whitehouse Find out more: Our guests from this week’s episode are involved with a wide variety of wonderful projects, here’s a brief summary of each one and the links to find out more. Artemis D. Bear is the founder of , a self-directed learning community in Bristol, UK, for Home Educated children. Kezia Cantwell-Wright, Kate Coleman and Anna Hobbs are staff members at , a self-directed democratic setting for Home Educated children, aiming to become the UKs first Independent School based on the Sudbury model. They all write regularly on the . Sophie Christophy is the CEO at , a charity which supports both alternative learning spaces and mainstream education providers in providing learning programmes which support student’s voice. Amongst other things, Phoenix prepared an to help school leaders through the COVID-19 pandemic. Sophie also co-founded and works at the self-directed consent based setting and regularly writes and about and runs workshops on consent based education and parenting, . Je’anna Clements is the founder of a self-directed learning community in South Africa, children’s rights campaigner and . Kimberley Cooper is the founder of education consultancy and a teacher at , London. Marc Gallivan, as well as being the co-host of The Lockdown Learning Podcast is a staff member at Sudbury model school in Colorado, USA. Derry Hannam is a retired deputy head teacher who consistently worked to bring democratic practices into the mainstream, which he has documented in his recent book . He has also worked as a school inspector and advisor to the government on citizenship in schools, writing the . Christel Hartkamp-Bakker has founded and worked as part of the staff team at several democratic schools in The Netherlands, most recently , she also have the recent TEDx talk ‘’ Dr. Harriet Pattison is a senior lecturer in Early Childhood Education and researcher at Liverpool Hope University. She is the author of and co-author of . You can also read her recent research . Antoinette Reid is an unschooling parent, her daughter attends EKSS part-time, you can follow her on Twitter . Heidi Steel is a former teacher, now unschooling parent, she writes about unschooling, learning and play on her blog . Danny Whitehouse Chief Executive at the , guardian member and company secretary of and co-founder of . Contact the show at
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What special needs tell us about schools
06/28/2020
What special needs tell us about schools
As alternative educational settings we often hear from parents of children struggling with the mainstream approach to learning. Children who need to move more than the school day allows for, find it hard to focus on work they aren’t interested in or simply learn in different ways than their peers. It’s not surprising that parents look elsewhere for something that suits their child. But yet we can’t help but think that something must be deeply wrong for so many children to find it so hard to thrive in our school system. And that’s the topic of our podcast this week as we talk to clinical psychologist and mum of two, Dr. Naomi Fisher, about her experiences of children with special educational needs and the implications their behaviour has for our schools. Find out more: Troublemakers by Carla Shalaby Articles by Naomi: Guests: Dr. Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist and mother of two who have always been self-directed. Naomi writes about child development, psychology and self-directed education. Look out for Naomi’s forthcoming book Changing Our Minds. Get in touch with the show:
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Play, play and more play
06/19/2020
Play, play and more play
“Play is really the work of children, play is how they understand the world and how they become adults. The importance of play cannot be overstated” remarked Larry Welshon in last week’s episode about Democratic Education. In Lockdown our children have had more time to get bored and figure out how to spend their time than ever before, and hopefully they’ve spent a large part of it playing. This week we dive deeper into the topic of play with Henry Readhead, Deputy Head at Summerhill School, the oldest children’s democracy in the world. Children at Summerhill are free to play as much as they like; a right which has always been central to the philosophy of the school. We asked Henry why play is so important and about the role it has in children’s emotional and social development and why he believes it is so important not to place limits on play. Guests: Henry Readhead, Deputy Head at Summerhill School and Kezia Cantwell-Wright, staff and founder at East Kent Sudbury School. Find out more about and its rich history as the school approaches its centenary year next year with their . Find out more: Many books have been written about Summerhill School and by its founder A.S. Neill over the years here are a selection currently available: by A.S. Neill - Neill’s original book updated and revised. - A new celebratory book with pictures of the school past and present. We also highly recommend by Peter Gray for learning more about the power of play in children’s learning. Get in touch with the show
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Democratic Education: The Power of a Vote
06/12/2020
Democratic Education: The Power of a Vote
If, like Alex O’Neill who we spoke to in , lockdown has caused to you to pause and reconsider what learning looks like for your children you might be wondering what your options are. We’ve talked a lot about home education in this series - as that’s what we’ve all kind of been thrown into - but home education is just one alternative available. This week we delve deeper into one of the alternative school models available - Democratic Education - we asked founders of the schools hosting this podcast Kezia Cantwell Wright and Larry Welshon about their journey to discovering Democratic Education and why it is to empowering to give students a vote on all things that affect them and their community. Guests: Larry Welshon, founder and staff member at and Kezia Cantwell-Wright, founder and staff member at . Find out more: Larry discussed his experience of watching students grow up freely in a democratic school in his post on the Alpine Valley School blog. Kezia explores what self-directed democratic education looks like in practice in the video . Find out more about the Sudbury model: List of Self-Directed Democratic Schools world-wide: Find out more about Self-Directed Education at: Other democratic schools in the UK include: and
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Moving Forwards not Backwards
06/04/2020
Moving Forwards not Backwards
Millions of children around the world will have had a completely different learning experience over the past 12 weeks. For many it will have been a difficult experience missing the company of their friends, unable to play outside and still others may have been living with the virus and helping to care for loved ones. But for many the break from school has been a relief, and has provided the opportunity, perhaps for the first time, to explore their own interests and learn at their own pace. As we heard from , there are so many ways to home educate and styles even vary within families from child to child and over time. For many families the lockdown has offered the opportunity to personalise their child’s learning experience in ways they probably never previously imagined. So, as we all prepare to take our first tentative steps out of lockdown, what will you be taking away from this experience? Some families are using this moment as the time to break from conventional schooling and to find a way for their children to continue to have a more personalised learning journey. This week we talked to Alex O’Neill, a parent who having long since dreamt about home educating her daughter is seizing this opportunity and will be continuing when schools go back. We asked her about her journey and what the reality of finally home educating has been like. Whilst home education for many families is the easiest and simplest way to give their children the freedom to direct their own education it doesn’t work for all. We asked alternative education advocate and campaigner Danny Whitehouse what other options are available for families wanting to follow an alternative path and what he hopes schools, teachers and parents will take away from their lockdown learning experience. Guests: Alex O’Neill, parent, IT manager and long-time advocate of freedom in education and Danny Whitehouse Chief Executive at the , guardian member and company secretary of and co-founder of . Read more about Alex’s first forays into Home Education in lockdown and Danny’s thoughts on why now is the time to rethink education for our children on the . Find out more: If you’re considering making a change to your families educational journey following lockdown and want to find out more about the educational choices available to you here are some good places to start: Advice on Home Education in the UK: Network of alternative educational settings in the UK: Directory of alternative schools and settings: More about Self-Directed Education: European Democratic Education Community: International Democratic Education Community: Alternative Education Resource Organization: List of Self-Directed Democratic Schools world-wide:
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Deschooling: The Art of Letting Go
05/27/2020
Deschooling: The Art of Letting Go
Finding yourself suddenly without the structure of school you are used to can be liberating for some and scary for others. We all remember the moment we realised we were leaving formal education behind and wondered “what now?” Learning to learn without school is a journey and children will all react to the experience differently, so will their parents. This week we talked to Je’anna Clements founder and staff member of a self-directed learning community in South Africa and asked her about this process of letting go and relearning often referred to as deschooling. What can we expect as parents and what can we do afterwards as we emerge from lockdown? Can this experience lead us towards a new way of being and learning? Guest: , founder of a self-directed learning community in South Africa and children’s rights campaigner. Learn more about this podcast's sponsors and
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From Teacher to Home Educator
05/20/2020
From Teacher to Home Educator
Becoming your child’s teacher overnight can be a daunting challenge, but as your child’s parent you know them better than anyone - you might just have all the qualifications you need after all. Many teachers decide when they have children of their own not to send them to school but to help them learn at home instead. This week we talk to two teachers that chose to leave the mainstream system and ask them how supporting a child at home is different to teaching in a school. If you’d like to know more about the playful life of an unschooler you can read Heidi’s blog . Joe also wrote about his journey from mainstream education to child-led learning on our blog in and you can find out more about his unique style of home tutoring at . Guests: Heidi Steel, was a primary teacher now long term home educator / unschooler. Joe Atkinson, trained as a teacher but left after 3 years and now tutors children struggling with school or that have been removed to home educate. Learn more about and .
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Mind the gap - How children learn at home
05/15/2020
Mind the gap - How children learn at home
Just how do children learn when not in a classroom? We all know what learning looks like in school - we’ve all been there it’s familiar to us. But not so many grew up home educated or in self-directed schools and the unknown makes us nervous. This week we were incredibly lucky to speak to Harriet Pattison, who has carried out extensive research into how children learn when not in traditional schools. What methods do parents use, what learning styles do children have? Do they all learn at the same pace? And what happens when schooling stops - does a school gap mean a learning gap? Guests: Harriet Pattison Phd. Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood, Liverpool Hope University. Author of & Co-Author of . Learn more about and
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Managing Mental Health & Wellbeing in Lockdown
05/06/2020
Managing Mental Health & Wellbeing in Lockdown
Stuck in the house - or maybe a tiny flat - together, day after day, week after week. Lockdown is starting to feel rather like groundhog day isn’t it. Add to that the anxiety created by a global pandemic and the pressures of working from home and home learning everyone’s mental health is struggling right now. We talked to Dr. Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist about what we can do to protect our children’s mental health and well being as well as our own.
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Home Education 101
04/28/2020
Home Education 101
So, you’re suddenly homeschooling – what now?
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