The Constitutional School

To define the philosophy of constitutional schooling, it is worth establishing the commonly accepted principles of schools and learning.

Schools exist to foster the growth of children so that they can be given the best possible opportunity to flourish as members of their society. It is commonly accepted that, to minimise failure in this endeavour, schools should deliver a curriculum of knowledge and skills that meet externally imposed standards. Unfortunately, the tool to achieve growth – the curriculum – often gets confused as the goal of education, and the intention behind the growth of the child becomes lost in the pressure to acquire qualifications.

It is also widely accepted that humans are born with a strong sense of curiosity, and that schools should tap into this innate desire to learn by providing engaging lessons. In a sense, British society quietly arrived at this observation over hundreds of years. The elevation of the individual within a stable social framework, which is the defining achievement of British constitutional tradition, rests on exactly the belief that people, given the right conditions, will direct themselves well.

A constitutional school agrees with both of these premises: that a child should attend a structured, social environment to become a flourishing member of their society by utilising the sense of curiosity they are born with. From these premises, a constitutional school is designed to be the most effective form of education possible for the children of Britain.

But what does that mean in practice?

It means a school that creates the conditions in which children can discover what they care about and pursue it seriously, by prioritising individual choice above a curriculum. It means a school governed not by the preferences of its staff, but by institutions – an Assembly, a Court, an Executive – that mirror the constitutional framework of British society itself. It means a school in which freedom is real, and the structure that makes freedom possible is equally real.

Most importantly, it means a school in which children are not prepared for British society from a distance. They inhabit it, from the inside, from the earliest age. The skills, the confidence, and the self-knowledge that flourishing requires are not taught. They are developed – through the daily experience of living and governing within a constitutional community.

That is The Constitutional School.

To see what this looks like in practice, visit The School. To read the founding document that governs the community, visit The Constitution.