History of Sands School

History of Sands
The school began in September 1987 after a year of design and planning by its founding pupils and staff

Sands is the only school within the British education system that has had such a high level of input from its students, and as such its values reflect a spirit of co-operation and mutual respect between people of all ages. Those early meetings established fundamental parameters for the school’s constitution and approach to education which still lie at the heart of Sands.

There is no uniform, everyone is on first name terms, discussion takes the place of petty punishments like detention, but there is still room for serious consequences if rules are broken. Lessons are not compulsory but having a serious approach to learning, in the broadest sense, is a necessary prerequisite of being offered a place [see The Learning Ethos]. Everyone is expected to clean the school on a daily basis and common sense ideas drive the underlying philosophy, for example, if you eat school lunch you help wash up: if you break something you repair or pay for its repair.

The school continues to evolve but interestingly most of the things that we do naturally have been introduced by successive governments as prerequisites of good education, e.g.
• Allowing children to go at their own pace in the classroom;
• Allowing students to sit exams when they, as individuals, are ready;
• Re-introducing practical life skills in the school day such as cooking, debating, cleaning and building;
• Encouraging children to be aware of their role as ‘citizens’ within society;
• Helping children design their own learning programmes;
• Valuing the child as physical and emotional beings not just as exam candidates;
• Keeping class sizes small;
• Good food and eating together as a central part of the day.

As you read through the website I hope you will see that listening to children and trying to create a happy learning environment has led to a successful alternative to conventional schooling which has embraced in its 20 years much that ‘educators’ would dearly love to see in all schools in the 21st century.