Brockwood Park School is situated in the beautiful Hampshire countryside, 60 miles southwest of London. With a maximum of 60 students, aged 14 and over, it has the feeling of a large family rather than a boarding school. There is an atmosphere of friendly equality and, as in any family, students and adults help with the day-to-day decision making and care of the grounds and buildings. Working together this way nurtures a spirit of responsibility, co-operation and affection.

 

Learning about oneself and others is enhanced at Brockwood by having an international body of students coming from about 20 different countries. This mix generates a distinctive culture in the School, one that is not the result of any particular national or racial perspective. It also provides excellent opportunities for students to learn other languages and make international friends.

 

Brockwood maintains a low student to staff ratio classes (at present 5:1), which helps optimise attention, communication and learning. Students are involved with teachers in planning their individualised study programmes, ensuring that they feel a genuine ownership of their learning. This is furthered by the fact that they often help create their own courses.

 

Educating for a world of unprecedented change  

The young are inheriting a remarkably complex world. It is a world in which rapid technological progress goes hand-in-hand with environmental, social, economic, and political crisis. Must they take the world as it is, merely accepting an education that enables them to "fit in" to society, or can they learn to question deeply what they see and strive for creative solutions and personal integrity so they are ready to meet whatever life may bring?

At Brockwood Park School we are committed to educating young people to meet life fully. We see that academic excellence is absolutely necessary, but give equal importance to an ongoing inquiry into the complex ways of our existence. We recognise that the challenges facing humanity are the outcome of deeply held attitudes, beliefs, and ideals, most of which have gone unexamined and therefore are strengthened in ordinary schooling.

In the secure and friendly surroundings of Brockwood Park, students are encouraged to reflect on their own thinking and actions, and those of others. Brockwood offers a setting where students and staff members can learn a way of living that is integrated, sane and intelligent. This process is liberating, for as we grow in awareness and understanding of our behaviour, we can see the immense potential of life and possibility of changing our conditioning.

Intentions

The philosopher and educator Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), one of whose primary concerns was right education, founded Brockwood Park School in 1969. The intentions of the School, stated in Krishnamurti's many public talks and his books, can be summarised as follows:

 

To educate the whole human being;

To explore what freedom and responsibility are in relationship with others and in modern society;

To see the possibility of being free from self-centred action and inner conflict;

To discover one's own talent and what right livelihood means;

To learn the proper care, use and exercise of the body;

To appreciate the natural world, seeing our place in it and responsibility for it;

To find the clarity that may come from having a sense of order and valuing silence.

 

The Founder

Krishnamurti was a modern philosopher with a passion for inquiry and the pursuit of truth. His numerous books explore the nature of human consciousness and the possibility of its transformation through inquiry and insight. Krishnamurti engaged in dialogue with many modern thinkers, commentators, politicians and scientists, including Aldous Huxley, Iris Murdoch, Ivn Illich, Bernard Levin, Indira Gandhi, and David Bohm. He said that if young people could learn to see their conditioning of race, nationality, religion, tradition, opinion, then they might become fully intelligent human beings for whom right action would follow.

 

Education is not merely the acquisition

of technical knowledge, but the under-

standing with sensitivity and intelligence

of the whole problem of living... the

whole structure of human existence.

 

.......Krishnamurti, on Education.

 

.We are learning together.

That is real co-operation,

that is real community.

That demands natural

affection, care, attention.

Krishnamurti,

on life at Brockwood.