The worst attender in high school…

Nobel Laureate and President of the Royal Society Sir Venki Ramakrishnan was being interviewed on BBC radio recently. Here is someone who is about as respectable as you can get. Yet being questioned about his education he was happy to say that he was a poor attender at school and at university. One trick he explained at university was to sit in lectures by the window so that after the register had been called, and the lecturer had turned his back to write on the board, he could climb out of the window and go off for a coffee. It reminded me […]

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SML COLLEGE – a safe space

Along with 31 other students (aged 9-16) I attend SML College.  I think as there are only a few people, bullying is non-existent. Everybody may not be your best friend, however you still know and respect everyone. Bullying is surprisingly common in regular schools, personally I find that fairly appalling. I think as there are hundreds of students in even the smaller schools, and you don’t really know 90% of everybody, and they will accept everybody, you are bound to have some bullies. As in SMLC, everybody that wants to join has to go through a trial week, and if anyone […]

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A few words about my final Silver Arts Award project

By Ryan White (age 16) I conducted a portrait workshop in late June last term. The main purpose of it was for the final project of my Arts Award, in which I had to conduct and review my own leadership event. The focus of my Arts Award was portraits and so the workshop naturally involved them; personally I really enjoy drawing portraits and trying to create the likeness of a person. Through the workshop I aimed to share that passion with my peers. The workshop included two activities, the main one and a warm up. In the warm up I […]

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Adur and Worthing council visit

Adur and Worthing council visit

Review by SML College student, Luka Last week (the end of June), two council members from Adur and Worthing visited. They were seeking to improve their website for young people and to learn how to better contact them about the many activities they have to offer. First off, they did a quiz, to how much we knew about the council’s responsibilities. They ranged from checking restaurants food is safe to stocking up the ice cream in Worthing theatre. After that, we went onto their website and tried to find different bits of information to see how easy it is to […]

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Published in the newspaper this week

Published in the newspaper this week

I’m glad that your correspondent Pauline Hunter (Japan can teach us a lesson, i, 22 June) is in favour of school children cleaning their classrooms. Our students do that and more. Every day they vacuum all areas, dust, mop the floors in the toilets, wash up in the kitchen and so on. They do this because we have a joint resources committee of students and adults that decides on finances for the building. The students understood that cleaning would cost money so they agreed to do it provided that money saved was then available for extra learning resources and for […]

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Learning without classrooms

Learning without classrooms

200 people gathered at the Freedom to Learn conference at Summerhill School on 6th, 7th and 8th of May. I ran a workshop on different ways of learning particularly focused on learning without using classrooms. I generally find when talking with many people about learning that they have a bit of a blank in thinking of alternative ways of learning which don’t require the classroom. Somehow an approach which doesn’t need any classrooms can seem aberrant. The reality is that the classroom is a rather odd alternative that has been relatively recently created in human history. For most of the […]

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Shakespeare would have been proud

On the evening of 27 April, a full house was treated to the SML College production of Romeo and Juliet.   Looking at the programme, all of the students of the College were involved in some way, and,  It was evident that a lot of work had gone into bringing the play to the audience. In many ways, it was a typical production, with several last-minute substitutions and understudies being vaulted onto the stage at short notice. In other ways, this was not your typical Romeo & Juliet, a play that is known for being a tragedy.  However, Shakespeare was also […]

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The SML College Production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

The SML College Production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Review by Lee Turnbull Arrival of the parents was the most terrifying part of the whole production, student excitement turned to anxiety within the first five seconds of everyone assembling. Our production was chaos turned to comedy, Monty Python would have been proud. Notable performances as follows: Everyone forgetting lines and putting their own words in, students mixing up their scenes and arriving early or late. A useless prompt who couldn’t help me ( Benvolio) resulting in my having to run backstage to get my script! Ochre as Juliet on her knees to Mayan (Lord Capulet) begging forgiveness, lost her […]

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Spring term review by SML College student, Ro Frederick

Spring term review by SML College student, Ro Frederick

This term has been very busy for us and lots of interesting things have happened over the last few weeks.   At the beginning of term James held a rhetoric speech workshop where we learnt about how to use different types of language features and we wrote our own speeches. Taanu’s speech on donating organs was even read out at the opening ceremony.   Over the spring term we did a lot of baking. We made multiple batches of cookies and Lars taught us all how to make bread. From this we learnt about organisms and what makes a living […]

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Rhetoric workshop speech by student Taanu Donne, aged 15

Rhetoric workshop speech by student Taanu Donne, aged 15

How do you feel about organ donation? Kidneys. Lungs. A heart. Vital organs that we would be dead without. Many are needed, but few are donated. At this moment in the UK, 6.5 thousand people are waiting for an organ. 6.5 thousand people who are inevitably going to die without a transplant. 6.5 thousand people whose lives could b saved – by your actions. How does it feel to know that, when you pass on, have ceased to be, have kicked the bucket, you could save 8 other lives? To know that a family member or a  close friend is […]

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