Audio of the Month - Bermondsey Lamp Post School of the 1970s. A Q&A with founder, Loïs Acton
Former school teacher, Loïs Acton, tells the story about how she started the ambitious and radical free school, Bermondsey Lamp Post School in 1972. It is a story about the struggles she and colleagues had to maintain it, the innovative educational style they used and the successes they achieved. This Q&A was recorded with a live audience some of whom were pupils at the school.
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In 1972, former school teacher Lois Acton started an ambitious and radical free school in Bermondsey that was outside of mainstream education. The Bermondsey Lamp Post School was one of the first modern free schools in the London Borough of Southwark started by Lois in 1972. The school started as a result of increasing dissatisfaction among the local Bermondsey community, at the lack of educational opportunity for those who could not access mainstream education, lack of play spaces and lack of educational provision for the under 5’s in the Bermondsey area. Its first premises was a flat above a sub-post office at 102-104 Bermondsey Street, SE1 and it would go on to inhabit other addresses including at Charterhouse in Southwark and a bakery in Long Lane.
Lois Acton was the head of the geography department at Alwyn Secondary Girls School in Bermondsey (now Harris Academy) in the 1970s. She was passionate about teaching and education but disillusioned with the education system at the time. She and other education providers recognised that for some children and for many reasons, the mainstream school system was not working for them and consequently they were not realising their full potential. Bermondsey Lamp Post School offered holistic education that allowed children free reign to discover, learn and work in a way that was conducive to their educational and learning styles. It was a school with no rules.
