Summerhill challenges almost everything that people learn about children and childhood. It lets children take emotional and physical risks. It trusts children to make decisions. It gives children the right to talk to adults in the way they want. And that, I'm afraid, is frightening because people know that children should be seen and not heard. There is an expectation that children will follow a certain course, learn a set number of things, and will achieve academically and therefore be happy.
夏山向人们对孩子和童年的理解发起了全面的挑战。它让孩子们承担了情感和生理上的风险。它信任孩子们，并让他们来做出决定。它赋予孩子们权力以他们想要的方式去向大人表达他们所要说的内容。而我想这正是夏山让人们恐惧的原因，因为孩子们历来都是被照看而不是被倾听的对象。人们对孩子的期望总是上一些课程，学一套东西，再获得学位，然后就皆大欢喜了。
Summerhill has been given the perfect opportunity to nail its colours to the mast in an eponymous four-part drama series for the BBC's children's channel. The film is based on the school's courtroom fight to defend its particular ethos against Ofsted, which in 1999 filed a formal "notice of complaint" against Summerhill in an apparent effort to close it down. At dispute was, inevitably, not requiring pupils to attend lessons. That was just too much for an inspectorate with rather more conventional views on children and childhood. The matter ended up before an independent schools'tribunal , which, encouraged by placard-waving current Summerhillians, eventually found in the school's favour.
BBC儿童频道播出了与夏山同名的四集连续剧《夏山》，这给了夏山绝佳的机会来宣扬自己的立场。该片以学校在法庭上与教育标准办公室抗争，维护自己独特风格为背景。后者在1999年正式提交对夏山的“投诉通知书”，旨在让它关门大吉。毫无疑问，令人争论不休的关键就是不要求学生上课。对于对孩子和童年有着传统理解的观察员来说，这简直是忍无可忍。事件后来在独立学校法庭画上了句号，受夏山人的游行潮的鼓舞，法庭最终判夏山获胜。
