The UK’s education system currently focuses on passing standardised tests and a narrow curriculum that doesn’t acknowledge the broader interests of children or a richer concept of human creativity. Importantly, it doesn’t help children develop the skills they need for life, work, community and wellbeing.

The New School believes every young person can fulfil their potential and go on to lead happy lives through the creation of an educational space that enables young people to follow their own passions and interests, develop the will and ability to positively influence their own lives and the world around them, and participate in decision-making structures as equals.

We funded The New School to create a financial and educational blueprint for Local Authorities to scale their successful model with school partners; supporting more children to thrive. 

The blueprint will provide a pathway for Local Authorities to fund new school models based on social return on investment and models which focus on young people being able to develop their learning, wellbeing, agency and identity.

The financial blueprint will enable educators to test out solutions to local problems as part of local learning ecosystems, creating a mechanism for collaborative development with local authority partners, private sector investment, public sector foundations and key stakeholders such as the electively home educated community and local parents.

Our funding is supporting The New School to generate the evidence critical for sharing its practice across the sector and determining how to successfully scale its model of democratic education.

Lucy is the founding Director of The New School. Her experience of teaching, completing degrees in social psychology, nutritional therapy and herbal medicine, working at the Prince’s Trust with marginalised young people, and having her own two children led to focusing her attention on what an alternative democratic model of education could look like.