In his new book The Children We Leave Behind: How School Could Be Done Differently, former Australian Council for Educational Research CEO and Teacher columnist, Professor Geoff Masters AO discusses how we can unlock every child’s potential, what it would take for every student to learn successfully at school and be well prepared for their future, and how schooling itself leaves some students behind. He invites readers to consider a different way of organising learning that instead meets individual learners where they are and is built on an understanding of learning as long-term growth. This exclusive extract for Teacher readers is taken from the Chapter ‘What Every Child Needs to Flourish’, which includes insights from practice. Here, Professor Masters shares details of the Fremantle Fast Track Program – an alternative, senior secondary education program that’s part of North Lake Senior Campus in Western Australia.
On the ground floor of a multistorey parking garage in central Fremantle Western Australia is a learning space for teenagers who have given up on mainstream schooling. Most of the sixty-plus young people enrolled here have a long history of underperformance and increasing disengagement from school. This off-site campus, and others like it around the world, is an eleventh-hour bid to connect and work with at-risk teenagers to build the capabilities and dispositions they will require for employment and adult life.
Known as Fremantle Fast Track, the program is coordinated by Antoinette Morris, who has spent three decades assisting disengaged teenagers to reconnect with learning and discover their potential. In parallel, she has completed a doctorate on the subject.
Morris explains that students applying to the program – usually in the year they turn sixteen – did not decide overnight to drop out of school. Most struggled for years to stay engaged but found themselves ‘slowly slipping out of the mainstream system.’ (Morris, 2024)
‘If they’ve been out of school for some time or had disrupted or interrupted schooling, their experiences have predominantly been about always being left behind, always struggling to keep up with the teacher and their peers, about trying to make sense of what the teacher is explaining because they’ve missed chunks of their learning (Morris, n.d.).’
The starting point, Morris says, is to create a safe and welcoming learning environment. Students’ previous schools were often large and impersonal, leaving many feeling lost. Here, classes are smaller, there are no school bells or school uniforms, everybody is addressed by their first name, and students remain in one room with one teacher most of the day, being taught by specialist teachers when required. ‘I want this to be their sanctuary, their safe place physically and emotionally, and a place where they can be themselves and be happy.’
Essential to this safe place are nurturing and supportive relationships with teachers. Many beginning students, Morris notes, have not experienced adult relationships of this kind in the past. When they join the program, they are often emotionally ‘adrift’ and experiencing other health and wellbeing issues and varying levels of anxiety. A goal of the program is to build confidence and trust through dependable relationships and honest interactions.
The program begins with an initial interview that Morris conducts with students and their parents or carers. The purpose is to understand individuals’ past experiences of school and to identify strengths and interests that the program can ‘hook into’. It is also an opportunity to explore students’ personal goals, such as securing a part-time job, although Morris says that when she asks teenagers about their goals, they often just shrug. ‘They sometimes don’t know their own strengths or what they’re capable of and so dare not dream about what is possible.’
Negative past experiences have left most with low levels of confidence in their ability to learn and succeed at school. By contrast, teachers in the program share a conviction that every young person is capable of learning successfully and has something valuable to offer. Morris is convinced that this collective mindset is a key to the program’s success but adds, ‘We just have to find a way to ensure that young people come to believe in themselves as well.’
A distinctive feature of Fremantle Fast Track is its strong emphasis on personalisation. The program is focused on individuals and their needs rather than the delivery of a standard curriculum. Beginning with students’ strengths and interests, ‘individual pathway plans’ are created that can include learning in different types of education, training, and employment settings. These plans not only differ from student to student but also change over time as individuals progress and develop. Each student is closely involved in the development of their plan and is encouraged to take increasing responsibility for managing themselves and their learning.
Personalisation is also a feature of teaching in the program. Although there is a core curriculum that all students study, teaching is tailored to ‘where the student is at’. According to Morris, students entering the program are at widely different stages in their learning with different gaps in their knowledge and skills. ‘Students are taught at the point of need, meaning that seldom will you find a teacher in front of a whole group of students directing the learning.’ Personalised teaching of this kind is enabled by the relatively low student/teacher ratio.
And the program adopts an unusually flexible approach to time. In students’ previous schools, learning was tightly governed by school bells and timetables, and students were given predetermined amounts of time to learn. Those who failed to master what they were taught in the allotted time usually moved on regardless, resulting in many falling behind. The priority here is for students to reach their goals however long it takes.
An implication of all these features is that the program defines success differently. In their previous schools, success was measured by how well students demonstrated the curriculum expectations for their grade. This was conveyed in A to E grades which often served only to confirm what a student could not do. Here, success is interpreted as the progress that individuals make. This may be academic progress; Morris speaks proudly of past students who have progressed from disengagement to become lawyers, members of the navy and air force, plumbers, electricians, and nurses. But she sees success in the many ways in which students grow. ‘Success for me is when that young person actually walks taller and straighter and looks you in the eye… success is young people losing the comfort of their hoodie.’
On her desk, Morris keeps a poem by Digby Wolfe entitled Kids Who Are Different. The poem is a celebration of children and young people who ‘don’t always get A’s’ and who ‘dance to a different drum’. For these students, Wolfe observes, it is their difference that makes them unique. The poem reminds Morris daily that her job as an educator is to recognise the uniqueness of every young person and to endeavour to meet each student’s needs.
In reality, all children are different, and the conditions that Morris and her colleagues have created provide clues to what it might take to engage every learner and see every child flourish.
The Children We Leave Behind: How School Could Be Done Differently, by Professor Geoff Masters AO, is published by Routledge. It is released on 30 April and available to pre-order now. Teacher readers can get 20% off at checkout with the code 26AFLY2, valid at the link until 30 September.
References
Morris, A. (n.d.) Ed Talks WA Podcast Series. Episode 15 Dr Antoinette Morris [Interview]. Department of Education. https://www.education.wa.edu.au/episode-15-dr-antoinette-morris
Morris, A. (2024, March 19). Teacher recognised for re-engaging kids with school (Interview) [Radio Broadcast]. WA Mornings; ABC Listen. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/perth-mornings/dr-antoinette-morris/103605944
Wolfe, D. (1982). Kids Who are Different. https://didliterature.wordpress.com/poetry/poem-beautiful-soup
