About
Red Sunday School is a space for children and young people to think for themselves, play with freedom, question the world around them, and change it. Organised on the principles of socialism and solidarity, the School provides tools and resources for the creative exploration of nature, culture and society from a radical perspective, and encourages active participation in the great struggles of our day: anti-racism, the climate crisis, feminism, and the revolutionary transformation of capitalism. Red Sunday School sets out to be an antidote to current mainstream education focused on producing workers ready to compete in the marketplace, regardless of the mental and physical costs to young people.
Our history
We are a group of activists, educators, parents, carers and cultural workers who, inspired by the history of the Socialist Sunday School movement, aim to reestablish a similar network of schools. From 1890–1980 Glasgow was one of the heartlands of the Socialist Sunday School movement, which aimed to ‘teach children to think for themselves, feel themselves part of the great community of workers, and supply the Socialist movement with fearless, capable and conscientious thinkers.’ Children took part in the running of the schools, contributed to the curriculum, chaired meetings and recorded minutes and decisions. The Socialist Sunday Schools were a central part of the city’s flourishing socialist culture and trained some of its greatest organisers.
Our organisation
Red Sunday School is a secular, non-party affiliated organisation. A committee exists to run a monthly socialist school for children, a community meal, a lending library of radical children’s literature, and trips to the countryside. The committee will eventually help form a children’s committee that is able to advise the school.