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Concept
Alternative school
Summary
An alternative school is an educational establishment with a curriculum and methods that are nontraditional. Such schools offer a wide range of philosophies and teaching methods; some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, while others are more ad hoc assemblies of teachers and students dissatisfied with some aspect of mainstream or traditional education.
Some schools are based on pedagogical approaches differing from that of the mainstream pedagogy employed in a culture, while other schools are for gifted students, children with special needs, children who have fallen off the track educationally or expelled from their base school, children who wish to explore unstructured or less rigid system of learning, etc.
There are many models of alternative schools but the features of promising alternative programs seem to converge more or less on the following characteristics:
the approach is more individualized;
integration of children of different socio-economic status and mixed abilities;
experiential learning which is applicable to life outside school;
integrated approach to various disciplines;
instructional staff is certified in their academic field and are creative;
low student-teacher ratios;
collective ownership of the institute as teachers, students, support staff, administrators, parents all are involved in decision making;
an array of non-traditional evaluation methods.
In the United Kingdom, 'alternative school' refers to a school that provides a learner centered informal education as an alternative to the regimen of traditional education in the United Kingdom. There's a long tradition of such schools in the United Kingdom, going back to Summerhill, whose founder, A. S. Neill, greatly influenced the spread of similar democratic type schools such as the famous Dartington Hall School, and Kilquhanity School, both now closed. Currently there are one democratic primary school Small Acres, and two democratic secondary schools, Summerhill and Sands School.
Official source
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