Tom teaches at The New School, one of the few democratic schools in the UK. He hopes more schools can be influenced by the morals and values of the New School in an effort to improve the education system. 

 

When the topic of the UK school system comes up in conversation, it usually generates mixed opinions. For parents who dislike the system, and for students who mainstream teaching styles don’t work well for, unconventional schools might just be their best option. 

In recent years, non-traditional schools have popped up all over the country as an alternative for parents who wish to let their children explore a slightly different style of education from the average school. 

Tom, 30, teaches at The New School in West Norwood which is one of the few democratic schools that gives young people a choice in how their institution operates. 

Tom is an advocate for change when it comes to the education system. He hopes that schools will be influenced by The New School’s different values and make drastic changes to their set up and the ways schools are run.  

After doing his teacher training in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Classics at King College London in 2013, Tom taught at a voluntary aided Catholic school in Camden for a few years before working at an academy school in Ealing. 

“I was pretty frustrated with both of those schools and that sort of general system, so I decided to leave teaching for a bit, I went to work at a bar,” said Tom. “One day I saw an advert for The New School. It had a lot of the values that appealed to me at that time.” 

In Tom’s opinion, schools like The New School are a necessary component to the British education system. 

For Tom, the traditional schools he worked in only filled him with disappointment, he could only imagine how unhappy his students were. 

“You received detention for everything that didn’t conform to what the school wanted you to do, and I hated it. I don’t think it works and is very manipulative and nasty, it was probably quite an unhappy place for a lot of kids”, said Tom. 

Tom is a strong believer that institutional racism and classism plays a huge part in why the education system tends to mistreat and be less beneficial for students. 

“In many inner-city schools, most teachers are white and middle-classed, but the young people they teach are not, and this creates a weird power dynamic. I was frustrated with this and when I tried to raise it with the school, they didn’t want to hear it.” he said. 

There are three important issues that these institutions need to consider: avoiding harsh punishment, implementing more of an element of choice and looking after the mental health of their students. 

“I was more interested in education that was not focused on behaviourism, as I don’t think that’s how humans work. I think you need to encourage people to have intrinsic motivation and to act in a certain way, I don’t think you can punish people out of that.”, Tom said. “Also, children should have a meaningful choice about what they study, not just choosing between History and Geography, but what topics you choose and how you explore them.” 

Instead of traditional punishments, The New School has a relational approach to education that uses transformative justice to deal with harm. 

“We don’t believe that punishing people is an effective way of preventing harm. Instead, we should talk with young people to teach them better methods and make them feel valued in the community,” said Tom. “We focus more on making sure the children are happy and supporting their mental health and creating people who want to learn throughout their life.” 

Tom understands that this model of education does not necessarily work well for every student, but to at least have the option there is important. For students who don’t work well with mainstream learning, day-to-day life can be miserable. 

“We should just be trying to exist and be happy and do as good as we can without breaking ourselves,” said Tom. 

Hopefully this is an outlook we can all start to embrace. School is supposed to be a place where we form great life-long memories and a space for growth and development. But this can’t happen unless all student’s needs are being met.