Influences

Two key influences shaped Isabel Fry’s path in education. Firstly, the study of economics, which led her to an unease at being a consumer without also being a producer and developed in her the need  to contribute to society. Secondly, she was a self-confessed rebel; her refusal to conform when she believed in something resulted in Fry being fired from her first job and subsequently led her to develop alternative ideas about education.

1891

Not content with the restrictions placed upon her by her wealthy home situation, in a time of great social and political reform, Isabel found an opportunity to start out on her own. Constance Crommelin, a family friend, helped her to get a job at Miss Lawrence’s School in Brighton; consequently, aged 22 and with no formal training in education, Isabel Fry started working as a teacher.

1910s

After a joint venture establishing a school with Constance in London, Isabel then set up her own experimental farmhouse school in 1917 at Mayortorne Manor, Buckinghamshire. She thought education at the time was overly intellectual and becoming cut off from reality. Seeing the value of learning in a real-life context, Isabel set about providing an education which taught children the importance of making a contribution in life.

1925

Believing the teaching of grammar to be dry and mechanical, Isabel devised her own system based on symbols.  She hoped it would help students develop an instinct and feeling for language, as well as an understanding of its structure. Isabel recorded the method in her book, A Key to Language: A Method of Grammatical Analysis By Means of Graphic Symbols.

1934

In later life, running a working farm and school became too much for Isabel so she gave up The Farmhouse School, aged 60. She set up a smaller farm with fewer children, and only those from poor backgrounds or refugee families, at Church Farm in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.