Category: Alex Bloom

Alex Bloom was headteacher at St George’s-in-the-East school (Stepney, London) for 10 years in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In that time, he created a beacon of progressive education in the state sector, insisting that “a child can’t grow up in an atmosphere of fear.” As the Daily Mirror reported in 1951, the school did not have “formal lessons in the accepted sense, tests or competitions, prizes for achievement, penalties for failure, imposed punishment, division of children into ‘bright’ or ‘dull’ classes.” Continue reading “Alex Bloom’s progressive school community”