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To see Quaker values in action in British education, we must look not to the recognised Quaker Schools but to the ‘planned environmental therapy’ movement which Friends and others developed to meet the needs of difficult evacuated children in the 1939–45 War. Their practice recognised each child’s innate worth and capacity for good by creating systems of governance and discipline which embodied Quaker testimonies to peace and equality. They made a lasting impact on the care of difficult and damaged children. This article argues that this forgotten work is one of the great Quaker contributions to education in the last 200 years.

Summary I have suggested that in residential work with adolescents anxiety about controls is sometimes excessive, but given a pseudo-justification by invoking parental models. A clearer understanding of the variety of parental tasks might help to reduce this anxiety. In the residential setting, however, the adults have other tasks, which include removing the obstacles to the emergence of a healthy moral consensus, the explicit and implicit expression of this consensus to which both they and the youngsters can contribute, the embodiment of a caring philosophy with which the youngsters can identify; and the encouragement of eventual independence, self-control, and responsibility for others.