5. The Malting House School

In March 1924, Susan was attracted to the post of Director of a new school for young children. The advertisement had been placed by a young man, Geoffrey Pyke, then in his late twenties, Geoffrey had been looking around for a suitable school for his own three-year-old son, David but had failed to find one. A man of considerable means, he decided to found his own school, run along the lines he wanted. Geoffrey’s view was that contemporary methods of instruction hampered rather than facilitated children’s natural curiosity. Influenced by psychoanalytic theories of child development, he wanted to see children learning by asking questions rather than by being pumped full of facts. He was put in touch with Susan by his psychoanalyst. Her background in both education and psychoanalysis made her an ideal candidate to run the school Geoffrey had in mind.

After long and intense discussions between Geoffrey, Susan and Nathan, the Malting House School, was established in Cambridge. It opened in October 1924 with ten young children, gradually expanding to twenty. The layout (no classrooms) and timetable (no curriculum) is described.