Summerhill School Example News 1

Welcome to the latest A.S.Neill Summerhill Trust newsletter.
It will be coming to you in very strange and rather frightening times. The virus that is
sweeping the world is having a profound effect upon schools and families everywhere.
At Summerhill we are, as always, trying to keep life as normal as
possible – but having to find early flights for all of our overseas
children was challenging and severely disrupted our end of term. It
was hard to keep the steady, strong, reassuring Summerhill going
when all of the pupils were seeing things on the internet which was
whipping up fear and panic across the world.
They coped with it magnificently and most opted to stay at school
until the very end of the term even though we offered to sign pupils
off as authorised if they wished to leave early.
It was a rather subdued end of term party but the lounge was pretty
and we still partied on!
Now, a week into the Spring break, we are still not sure if school will be open next term or
not. Whatever information is given by the government to schools, there is very little to
boarding schools, so we shall have to wait and plan for whatever is to come. We think it very
unlikely that school will be in session for the summer. We are concerned about the impact
upon our financial situation and it will be very hard on those who are graduating and will
miss the very important and emotional last Summer term. My heart aches for them if this is
so….
But, we are nothing if not resilient and creative – so Summerhill life goes on!
I do so hope that what is happening will not impact upon our 100th birthday next year, and
let us hope that we can still celebrate Neill and Summerhill in the way we feel befits this
grand old lady and her wonderful, forward thinking founder, my dad.
Meanwhile, we are launching the new website, 100 years of Summerhill. The team have
been working very hard to get it finished. Although this is probably not the best time to be
launching anything, it might be just the thing to browse while you are sitting at home in
isolation. It is interactive too, so please spend a bit of time giving us your Summerhill related
or inspired stories – whether you are a reader of Neill’s books, a Summerhill pupil, a parent
of a pupil, a school founder, a teacher …. Or anybody whose life has been touched by
A.S.Neill.