Setting young minds free

by Chris Bonnor, BPEA Board Member

For most of my career I've been sceptical about schools with special labels, both here and overseas, which are apparently able to levitate student achievement. In Australia we invest considerable energy in debating the merits of single-sex schools or classes, selective-entry schools, private schools, specialist schools and many more.

Each label is backed by enthusiasts who trawl for whatever proof they can find to back their choice. When the evidence goes missing, the advocates often move on to something else, as evidenced in the shift from voucher to charter schools in the US. The English became excitable about specialist schools - now it seems academies are all the rage.

Close scrutiny usually shows that the claimed success of (insert label) schools derives in no small measure from the particular students they are able to entice through the front door - or quietly eject out the back. There aren't many that seriously create a learning experience that will cater for all their students.

So I was both interested and sceptical when Viv White, of National Schools Network fame, told me about schools that rescue kids from the back door and put them on the road to achievement. My subsequent first encounter with what are known as Big Picture schools was in the Bronx in New York.

In a sure sign of confidence, the principal at the Bronx Guild didn't show me around the school - he just pointed me in the general direction of the 300 children and suggested I see it for myself. Each classroom has 15 students, supported - in the same group for four years - by the same teacher/adviser. I saw little conventional teaching; most students toiled on special projects, supported by their adviser and interrupted only when I asked what they were doing. Other students were away serving internships with employers or mentors.

In effect, the school curriculum at these schools is driven by each student's interests. From time to time, students are given tuition in set classes (even these schools can't escape the imposed test mania) but it is their interest-driven studies that get them over the line and graduating at high rates.

By this stage, my self-attributed reputation as a sceptic was receiving a blow, so my next line of defence was: but it couldn't be done in Australia.

Enter Viv White and Big Picture Education Australia (BPEA). A few years ago, White joined others, including the BPEA chairman, architect and educator Andrew Bunting, to form the incorporated company, which is now supported by funding from the philanthropic and corporate sector.

The thought of school innovation being bankrolled in this way proved to be my next personal challenge - almost sending my sceptic meter off the scale. But the companies involved have proven to be very far-sighted and the financial support for Big Picture schooling has been galvanised by Social Ventures Australia, which is better known as the main driving force behind the rescue of the ABC Learning preschools.

In just five years, about three dozen public secondary schools in Australia are at some stage in their conversion to the Big Picture model. The longest established is Yule Brook College in Western Australia and others, especially in Tasmania, are wholly or partially down the track of implementing the model.

To support the process, BPEA provides fee-for-service consultancy support and sustains a growing network of participating schools.

The principals and teacher/advisers in the Australian schools are very positive about the Big Picture model. In a recent survey, principals reported improvements in student attendance, engagement, learning focus, discipline and retention at school.

At the first Big Picture schools national conference in Hobart many students, not teachers, spoke of their personal achievements and renewed commitment to school.

In the words of one student: ''We don't muck around any more because we actually want to focus on what we are doing.'' And from another: ''I like the person who I've become.'' At a recent Big Picture school conference in Rhode Island, home of the founders Elliot Washor and Dennis Littky, student presentations left barely a dry eye in the house.

The Australian Big Picture schools are a diverse group. Yule Brook will soon be able to count university graduates among its former students. The Big Picture schools in Tasmania are strongly supported by the Tasmanian government and include a purpose-built Big Picture campus.

Professor Deborah Hayes at Sydney University is working with keen staff from Sydney Secondary College to support a campus at Glebe - a project supported by the NSW Education Minister, Verity Firth, and her department. St Johns Park High School in south-west Sydney will start its first Big Picture class next year.

So what is the secret of the success of these schools?

We've always implemented some features of Big Picture schooling - such as personalised real-life learning, links with parents and the community, collaborative learning and authentic assessment. What Big Picture schools do is restructure the learning experience (based on one student at a time), the classroom and, in many cases, the whole school around all these features.

While BPEA has ''Australianised'' the distinguishing features of Big Picture schools, it also insists schools implement the lot or none at all.

Like any schools that serve disadvantaged children and communities, many Big Picture schools face quite a struggle, restoring hope for badly bruised young people and their families. By all accounts it is a battle they are winning.

Chris Bonnor is a board member of Big Picture Education Australia.

(original article featured in the Sydney Morning Herald)