· Alternative primary set up by parents in Bremen
· Find highlights concerns over state education

A secret school that was run for almost 30 years by parents disgruntled by the state education system has been discovered in the north German city of Bremen.

Several hundred children are believed to have passed through the unregistered alternative primary school, and the authorities claim not to have been aware of its existence.

The "ghost school" began as a project by leftwing, mainly academic parents, who set it up in a villa in the district of Steintor, wanting to create an alternative to the rigid pedagogical practices of the state system.

Lessons were open-ended, the emphasis was on making learning fun, and children of varying ages were taught in the same classroom in a relaxed atmosphere or in separate classes of boys and girls. The pupils, aged four to 10, were subsequently sent to secondary schools, often with forged documents, and for almost three decades suspicion was apparently never raised.

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