Specialized

Free / Democratic School

Free and democratic schools take the child's own initiative as the starting point. There is no fixed year-by-year curriculum and usually no grades or examinations: pupils decide what to work on, and adults act as companions rather than instructors. Many are run as a community in which pupils share in the decisions about how the school is organised. In Switzerland these schools are tolerated under cantonal private-school rules and fulfil the compulsory-schooling obligation, but they award no leaving certificate — pupils moving into a Gymnasium, a Fachmittelschule or an apprenticeship sit the ordinary entrance procedures. Families choose them for the pedagogy, so it is worth asking each school directly how it supports that transition.