For 100 years, the controversial Suffolk school has let its pupils run free. And one remarkable woman has played a huge part in that
Summerhill school has been in the news this month while celebrating its 100 years as an idiosyncratic, self-governing school. It started life in 1921 with the idea that children thrive when they are given maximum freedom to do what they want and be who they will.
Nobody thought it would survive once its head and founder AS Neill died in 1973, but they reckoned without his daughter, the charismatic Zoe Redhead, who took over as head and continues to keep her father’s dreams alive with ferocious dedication. Nobody could be more pleased than I am that Summerhill lives on, but there is one big gap in the history of the school, and that is my grandmother. Neill did not found the school alone.
