21 minute read
INNOVATION AND CHANGE
A school fit for purpose
Kiwi entrepreneurs and founders of Green School New Zealand, Michael and Rachel Perrett, knew when they opened their daring new campus in Taranaki this year, there would be whispers about them being the ‘hippies on the farm’. But the couple are convinced their innovative take on education is what’s needed to set students up for a brighter, healthier and happier future. They chatted to Chelsea Channing.
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Rachel and Michael Perrett remember their son William as being a happy and confident child befor e he started school. But as a learner with ADHD and dyslexia, William’s experience in a mainstream classroom was filled with frustration.
“We started to see that we were losing him and he simply wasn’t enjoying school,” Rachel recalls.
“I had spent four years as a parent helper in the classroom at his school, and experienced lots of frustrations in that process.
“There were some things that happened that would help, and then there would be huge backflips, and that might be changing from one t eacher to another, or a teacher saying ‘oh, you’re working at the level two years younger than where you should be at’.”
“There were these very standardised comments that they get back, and him knowing full well where he stood in the rankings of the classroom. Through that process he became more and more introverted, from being a very joyful child before going to school.”
The loving parents amassed a fortune follow ing the 2010 sale of the HRV ventilation company they co-founded and were convinced there had to be a better option out there for their son.
“We were looking for what we could find that would suit him, he loves using his hands and being more practical,” Rachel says.
“He’s a great thinker, he just thinks different ly to what might be the standard process of working out an equation. He can work it out in his very unique way, but that wasn’t embraced by the system here.”
That’s when the couple discovered Green School Bali and moved the family overseas, with an initial plan of trying it out for six months just to equip their son with more confidence.
Rachel says they were also keen to see the impact on their twin daughters, who had recently start ed school.
“When they looked at life and the environment through their beautiful Reggio Emilia preschool, they had lots of wonderment for the world.
“Then through the first year at school, they started arguing over reading lists – they’re twins, so they like to compare reading lists, spelling groups and so forth.
“And all this wonderment for the world disap peared. It was all about having to be in the classroom and … have the tidiest writing. We didn’t aspir e to that,” she explains.
“Our experience as parents of children at Green School Bali was quite literally miracles happening immediately,” Michael recalls.
“Within four weeks, we found [William] to be a very different boy,” Rachel adds.
“His chin came up, his confidence came up, he was able to go and do things on his own, and he was happy.
“He was actually the first child in the car with his shoes on, for the first time ever.”
Green School Bali was conceived in 2006 by lifelong entrepreneurs, John and Cynthia Hardy.
The curriculum educates for sustainability through community-integrated, entrepreneuri al learning in a jaw-droppingly beautiful natural environment.
The approach has attracted students and parents from all around the world.
“When the anxiety, the pressure and timed structured tests were removed, when handouts ceased, w hen having to display your work publicly (with shame), was no longer part of their day, miracles happened – joy, growth, opportunity, excitement, love, love for the teachers, love for each other and the environment,” Michael says.
“In Bali, the parent community was amazing, interesting, relevant, diverse, and from all around the globe.
“We met brave, confident, self-aware change mak ers, children who knew that they didn’t have to w ait until they graduate or turn 21 before they can be relevant.”
After finding the proof in the pudding, so to speak, Michael and Rachel were inspired to bring the Green School way back home to New Zealand.
They set their sights on a 121 acre dairy farm nes tled at the base of Mount Taranaki, with the bea utiful Oakura River flowing right through the grounds.
nine months of construction, as being like a ‘bullet train’.
And while there has been plenty of excitement for the couple during the self-funded project, they’ve also experienced disappointment.
“I think it’s important we talk about the some of the downsides,” Michael says.
“So one of the downs for me, personally, is that we’ve encountered a steadfast determination and constant justification of some to hold on to an historic, archaic education system, that’s proven time and time again not to be fit for purpose in our fast-changing world.” “Not leaders in education,” he says.
“We feel that we’re on the same wave as those, whether it’s vice chancellors of international universities, or the largest companies in the world, the changes are happening now and the kind of graduates that we want to create are changing also.
“What got us here won’t be good enough to get us to where we need to go.
“And my question is how can we achieve equali ty, if that’s what we’re going for, when we grade, separ ate, reward and punish children and line them up in rows of desks?”
As experienced entrepreneurs however, Rachel and Michael aren’t afraid of naysayers.
“I believe it’s tremendously sad that our public system refuses to change and the only way to cre ate change is via a private system,” Rachel adds.
“W e’ve started lots of businesses and governments are not risk-takers, and they are not entrepreneurs. They need people like us to show them the way, to prove the model...”
Michael says when the couple began talking about healthy homes and ventilation 12 years ago they felt alone, were condemned and lobbied against.
H owever, their HRV ventilation systems have now been installed in more than a quarter of a million homes across NZ.
“We are changemakers and we operate in several different sectors, from insurance to farming, from nanotechnology to IT, and education is just a con tinuance of our belief that change can occur and does occur.
“And if we could influence change in ancient systems like insurance, we knew we had a chance of makin g a difference in education,” he says.
“However, we’ve surrounded ourselves with people who are much, much better at this than we are.”
One of those people is founding principal Stuart MacAlpine.
MacAlpine worked at Sevenoaks School and Millfield School in the UK before moving to the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore, where he was the director of teaching and learning.
He is also founding director of education and a member of the leadership team for Sky School, a blended high school for refugees which operates in six countries.
“Stuart was highly regarded worldwide for his curriculum development…” Rachel says
“We know our curriculum is very different, it’s unique, and for some people that’s confronting. So we wanted to make sure that we had the best behind it, with all the research and the experience and the skills and the contacts, to be able t o make it a world-leading curriculum, and that’s exactly what we believe we have.”
The couple are constantly staggered by MacAlpine’s encyclopaedic knowledge of pedagogy.
“I ask him questions about homework, he can provide every single research project and results globally from homework and whether or not it’s a valid exercise,” Michael says.
“I ask him about why schools continue to line desks up, and he knows the difference between the experiences of children at the front and the back from a study that was done a decade ago.
“So he helps us keep our feet in science and to make data-driven decisions, not emotive, hyster ical stuff that perhaps some people suspect we’re up to here.”
According to MacAlpine, his motivation to leave a role he loved in Singapore and move his family to New Zealand can be simply summed up by the school’s tagline ‘thrive with purpose’.
“Everything that would make it an attractive place to be is in those three words,” he says.
The principal says students can spend up to half their school day learning outside when the weath er is nice, and certainly appreciate the opportunity to get close to nature.
H e says an average day would normally involve some ‘proficiency learning’, for example literacy and numeracy, “but hopefully done in a joyous way and with a sense of purposefulness,” he adds.
“There would probably be some outdoor ed, or connecting to nature, there might be a swim in the river.”
There would also be learning which is coconstructed between the teachers and learners.
“ And there would be wellbeing time and mindfulness in there as well,” he says.
When they’re not doing maths in the vegetable garden or brushing up on the concept of permaculture, students take classes in learning pods, featuring plenty of curved shapes said to create an atmospher e that supports alternative thinking.
“It was extremely challenging to achieve what we’ve achieved here, but we know that when chil dren stop and look around, they’ll know that someone cared enough to build beauty into their environment,” Michael says.
“And then from an education perspective, research tells us that children who study sustainable con struction, do much better when they study it in an example of sustainable construction.
“Put simply, you can’t think outside of the box when you are studying inside one,” he says.
The chairs and desks are all handmade, from nat ural materials, and Rachel says students have an a ppreciation of what’s gone into producing them.
“When you’re in that environment of working at one with nature and looking at the circular econ omy of everything, then you have to be a better per son for that,” she believes. “You have to as an adult, have a better impact on our world, no matter what industry you go into, you’re going to have a more positive impact than someone that’s sitting at a plastic desk and
a plastic table, unable to have any creativity and sitting and doing worksheets and pumping out test results.”
Exams, like plastic, are not a feature of Green School New Zealand.
Unsurprisingly, MacAlpine is at present writ ing a paper about why exams aren’t fit for a modern education.
Amon g many reasons for excluding them, he says by nature, exams confine students to a set body of knowledge and skills.
“If you’ve already prescribed a set body of knowl edge and skill, there’s no agency for the learner t o do their own learning, take it off in interesting directions, get passionate…” he says.
sic, and reduces intrinsic motivation for learning, curiosity and risk-taking, which are all the things you actually want.”
“If exams were good, adults would use them, and they don’t,” MacAlpine adds.
“Not many job interviews use exams, or not many people when they want to appraise staff, use an exam.
“If exams are so great at evaluating people, why do adults avoid them?” he laughs.
“I think it’s not where the world is going and it’s not where we want to be.”
Michael agrees.
how they learn that’s the most important thing,” he says.
“And when our children achieve purpose, create ownership and from ownership create passion, then from passion comes real authentic learning.
“We’re educating our children for the future, regardless of how uncertain it is.”
they plan to take many more students, parents and educators along for the ride.
“It’s very important that we redefine what a private school is,” he says.
The school has been designed with no gates, because they want it to feel like an open community, and Michael says students and teachers from other schools are welcome on campus all of the time, even if it’s just to have a stickybeak.
“The biggest downer is that this kind of joyous education isn’t available to everybody,” he says.
“The thing that hurts the most is the fact that we have created something very, very special here, and I’m constantly being reminded by New Zealand youth statistics and learning outcomes … we have this beautiful country, this amazing culture, and yet we continue to be devastated by child mental health figures.
“We shouldn’t be topping the world in those areas.
“And not only Green School, but thousands of people nationwide are equally disturbed by those figures, and trying as hard as we are trying here, we just want it to happen immediately.
“By waiting, we’re just losing more and more chil dren all the time.”
Rac hel says the pair, along with their team of dedicated teaching staff are on an important voyage, and they’re not going to shy away from the storm.
Michael and Rachel Perrett
“We’re prepared to push the waka through the waves, knowing full well that there’s a lot of peo ple behind the swell, waiting for us, that our job is merely to launch that difficult phase and then we’ll see droves of people join us.
“We want people to know that … all we’re doing here is providing teachers and parents with the kind of education we all dream of.
“The kind of education that even the public sys tem is talking about.
“ And I don’t know how many excuses, or how long we’re going to take, but I do know that we’re simply doing what everybody else wants to do.”
Are dual shifts what we need?
Staggered starting times and dual shift schooling have long been part of a normal school day in many countries, but here in Australia, only a handful of schools operate this way at present. Should we be considering this optimising of school assets as a COVID-19 counter measure or is it a poor fit for our society and destined to be more trouble than it’s worth?
BY MARGARET RYAN
AS the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the need for social distancing – both within schools and in the general community – becomes critical. And, as more parents tend to drive their children to school rather than let them take crowded buses, city roads are even more gridlocked. There are also plenty of empty classrooms, which was happening before infection clusters shut down schools intermittently.
So, why aren’t Australia’s cheek-by-jowl inner-city schools looking at dual shifts?
That’s when one group of students front up around 7am, finish by about 12.30pm, and the next arrive and finish their shift at roughly 6.30pm. The same school building and resources are used, yet enrolee numbers double.
We’ve decide to delve into the research to bring in the voices of teachers, and an academic, plus this writer brings her own expe rience as a dual-shift educator. Ed ucation departments in NSW, Queensland, and Victoria were also asked about the likelihood of a policy change.
Dual shifts from the grassroots
As a part-time teacher in a European elementary and middle school in the mid-’90s, I w as rostered on anytime from 7am to 7pm. So, I could be teaching two groups of student shifts a day. Having my classes spread over the day suited my holiday mindset to explore the city – Zagreb, Croatia – in my breaks, but ensured I was back for the free hot meal at lunchtime.
Dual-shift schooling has long featured in Croatian cities, due to the high-density and lack of resourc es to build more schools. Traditionally, parents w ould do shift work, so there may be some connection. Importantly, children start school usuall y at age seven – that’s two years later than Australian children.
In disadvantaged areas, such as one satellite sub urb of Zagreb, they had three, or, at times, four shifts of school. But if you looked around, you could find a single-shift school as one local parent there did, saying “there’s nothing good about shift work for schools”.
es to make or heat up a meal and see themselves off to school, particularly if they’re doing the afternoon shift when their parents are at work. Schools don’t coordinate children’s shifts with their siblings or with their parents’ work,” she says.
Mind you, the schools offering more than one shift are usually within walking distance of children’s homes. That’s not the norm in Australia.
Meanwhile, another parent says the Croatian dualshift schooling is a “top system”.
“It takes the pressure off peak hour, and the kids aren’t in for a massive shock when they leave school, and all of a sudden they start a job where they’ve got to get up really early for work or do a late shift. You also build fewer schools as they’re being used almost around the clock.”
diversity in the shifts in Croatia, poorer countries may not have that option.
The World Bank says double-shift high schools can offer an “adequate education”, so are a viable short-to-medium-term solution.
What does that look like, though?
In Jordan, schools have had to increase double shifts to accommodate a huge influx of Syrian ref ugee children. That’s “strained teaching resources, created crowded classrooms and reduced the hour s of actual schooling in some public schools” a UNESCO report says. So, while double shifts have allowed thousands of Syrian children to go to school, it’s also led to a lower quality education.
Teachers Across Borders
Meanwhile, Melbourne high school teacher Stephen Kolber has taught dual shifts in Cambodian schools through his voluntary work with Teachers Across Borders Australia.
The first shift ran from 7.30am to 11am; the after noon from 1pm to 5pm.
H e says ideally separate groups of students attend the morning and afternoon shift, but some children attend both.
“I got the impression they just opt into the two sessions if they’re really studious and want to develop their English language skills,” Kolber says. ly members. There’s a lot more students that hang ar ound the school in that break. It’s much more culturally acceptable than in Australia for them to
stay in classrooms when the teachers aren’t there.
“However, some students’ families might rely on farming, so they’d help there in the morn ing before it gets too hot, then come to school for the afternoon shift. Other students would come to school in the morning and help their families’ businesses in the afternoon,” Kolber, who teach es at Brunswick Secondary College and is the Lit eracy Improvement Teacher there, says.
Different energy levels
Back in Australia, Kolber has also taught double shifts in adult migrant education. He taught four hours straight, then had a break with the students and other teachers in a “big communal space to share food from across the world and some laugh ter”. Then they’d “jump back in” to class.
“I t was very exciting – getting to see the whole range of different students at different points of the day and learning to master the chang es in energy levels. We had to push hard for the
first couple of hours to get them awake, energetic and enthused. Then, in the later shift, it was getting them calmed down, to move them into study mode. These rhythms showed how different times of the day brought out different aspects of people as learners,” Kolber says.
And that’s a key research interest of Dr Michael Nagel, at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He’s an associate professor in child development and learning and vouches for later school starting times for teenagers.
“Their circadian rhythms shift from even as early as 11 or 12 (years of age). Teenagers often don’t feel sleepy until two hours after their parents go to bed,” Nagel says. but many are not getting anywhere near that, so are typically sleep deprived, but still have to get up at the same time to go to school.”
And some schools might be complicit in nudging students to burn the candle at both ends – think the midnight deadline for assignments.
“The current school hours work for some teens, but not others. All you have to do is go to any high school and watch kids arrive – it’s a zombie parade,” Nagel says.
“The more we learn about the brain and how kids develop, the more we should challenge education al sacred cows.”
What about staggered start times?
A handful of schools, mostly in Victoria and in Queensland, have staggered starting times.
One of them, Mountain Creek State High School on the Sunshine Coast, was Queensland’s first school to vary starting times. There’s a 2.5-hour overlap with school starting 7.30am to 12.55pm (Years 10, 11, 12) – they have the schools to themselves until just before 10am. Meanwhile, Year 7, 8, and 9 stu dents attend school from 10.24am to 4.05pm.
M ountain Creek former principal Darrin Edwards has said the shifts were “positive” and work well for staff, students, and the wider community.
This arrangement allowed “more efficient use of scarce or expensive resources. It also allows stu dents to pursue athletics, apprenticeships, or emplo yment outside the dedicated shift.”
Researcher Dr Nagel points out that schools such as Edwards’ had made the shift to give stu dents options rather than children’s health issues.
But , the COVID-19 pandemic shouldn’t prompt Australian schools to go double shift until further research is available, he says.
“I’m not sure how many decisions should be based on COVID-19, as we’re continuing to man age and re-adjust based on bad evidence and bad modelling. I don’t think anyone really understands what it is and its impact on people in the lon g term.
“[Dual shift schooling] is an easier question to revisit six-to-eight months down the track. Let’s look then at statistics around infection rates, illness, death, and herd immunity,” Nagel says.
Workforce planning issues
Schools have a hard enough time planning around one timetable, let alone managing two or three.
So, are the education departments in Australia’s most populous states considering dual-shift schooling?
In 2017, the NSW Auditor General’s office released its report into the issue of planning for school infrastructure. It said changing some operation al policies and practices could cut costs. They
included introducing double-shift and staggered shifts in some schools.
The report said: “These are ultimately decisions for the government and have implications beyond infrastructure provision”.
The Audit Office crunched through 2016 data to find 79 single-sex, specialist, and comprehensive high schools had 714 empty classrooms across Australia.
In response, the NSW Department of Education accepted all the report’s recommendations, but none of them mentioned a move to dual-shift schools.
So, what’s the case now? ed question. They told LeadershipEd that public schools “have the flexibility to change the start and finish times of the school day”. To do that, principals must consult with their local school community and the department.
Meanwhile, in Queensland, it’s up to the principal, but they aren’t “required to centrally report it”, an education department spokesman says.
Time to roll the dice?
Dual-shift schooling isn’t yet a concept waiting in the wings in Australia.
Circling back to Melbourne teacher Kolber, he says he’s aware dual shifts happen “a fair bit around the world”.
“No-one ever talks about it in Australia, so per haps with [the prompt of the pandemic], this is the star t of it. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of it because we’ve been doing the same old thing for a long time.”
However, at his inner-city Melbourne school, he says dual shifts would be a “nonstarter”.
“It wouldn’t happen unless you’re running a fail ing school, which is why some schools have been a ble to get away with changing school starting times.
“You could roll the dice and try it,” he added.
It seems the hurdles of policy, culture and work place planning might just stymie any moves in this area.
