Three Novocastrian educators have set their sights on a 2023 start date for a new progressive primary school in Newcastle’s inner west.
Fig Tree School Ltd is the brainchild of parents and educators Liz Powell, Kiah Robinson and Becky McIntosh, and aims to offer an alternative progressive education with two multi-age classrooms: Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2) and Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4).
Co-founder Becky McIntosh said the organisation would offer families an education centred on individual children’s needs, and the school would seek to “encourage collaboration over competition” while operating in a “play- and nature-based learning environment”.
To gauge community interest, the educators published a survey for local input on current education offerings.
More than half (52 per cent) of respondents were supportive of progressive education ideas, and another 36 per cent were dissatisfied with the mainstream education system and ready to give progressive education a try.
“Around 40 families said that they would fill out an EOI form when it became available,” McIntosh said.
“[The responses] gave us a lot of confidence because we only planned to be small. If all those families signed up in the first year, it would actually be too many. So it is encouraging and it does show that there is a gap in the current education climate in Newcastle.”
She said the establishment of the school, however, was “subject to finding a suitable location and receiving NESA registration”.
The school has embarked on the process of accreditation from the NSW Education Standards Authority. McIntosh said the process of approval would begin in October and, at earliest, be approved by August 2022.
“It all revolves around finding a location. If we can’t find a location and have that place approved to be a school, we’ll have to readjust our start date to 2024,” McIntosh said.
While the school is yet to secure funding for establishment, McIntosh said the women remained optimistic and were accepting expressions of interest.
“We don’t have a wealthy benefactor, so we’re going to rent a space to avoid the big outlay of initial costs. Once the school gets up and running, we’ll have the finance going forward, but unfortunately in that start-up period all the way into the first year of running you have to source your own funding,” she said
“We’re hoping that by starting small and keeping costs low, we’ll be able to get there.”
Private funds would be used to make minor adjustments to buildings once a property was secured, she said, and for the school to be viable, a campus would need to be secured to cater for up to 50 pupils.
The case for progressive education in Newcastle
The frustrating search for a school for her daughter prompted Fig Tree co-founder Liz Powell to start her own educational institution.
“My partner and I had always liked the idea of democratic progressive education – the gentle nurturing approach and the emphasis on child-centred learning in a non-competitive environment fitted with our values,” Powell said.
“When I investigated the options available in and around Newcastle, I was surprised to find that there were no schools within a two-hour radius that fitted that bill.”
She soon found that a lot of parents felt frustrated with the lack of progressive education options in the region.
“There was clearly a need for a progressive school in Newcastle,” she said.
Currently, the only alternative primary education available to Novocastrians is approximately 45 minutes from Newcastle, to the Steiner schools in Glendale and Maitland.
McIntosh said that while there was “a high interest in this type of education”, the founders were encountering difficulties with the “closed market” nature of their target population.
“I think a lot of people who choose progressive education often, although not always, have chosen to be a little bit out of the normal wealth acquisition pathway, so we’ve all got to work together for it to happen,” McIntosh said.
As an independent school, fees would be charged, however the educators were quietly confident Novocastrians would seize the opportunity for alternative schooling.
The area covering Newcastle, Newcastle West and Newcastle East is forecast to experience a growth of 74.18 per cent by 2041.
“While Newcastle’s centre has in recent history not been seen as a family location, it is evident from the growth of Newcastle East Public School and also the change in perceptions around high-density family living that there is a significant need for schools to service inner Newcastle, as these projections come to life,” the educators said.
“Generally, a progressive demographic can be identified through left-leaning voting habits. Newcastle has a traditionally strong Labor vote, with a gently growing Greens vote.”
Inspired by Finnish education model
The vision for an educational institution in the heart of Newcastle will align heavily with the world-renowned Finnish education model of learning.
Becky McIntosh said that Fig Tree School would seek to “engage the community in activities” and encourage greater “family involvement”, in an attempt to eradicate the “huge barrier between home and school”.
While the school seeks to provide an alternative to the “one size fits most model” of more traditional institutions, the founders hold nothing against the current Australian education system.
“It’s worth acknowledging that the current education system does work well for some children, and the teachers there care a lot about the children they’re teaching and they’re putting in effort to move toward emphasising child wellbeing, but often that is an extra activity. What if that experience was an essential part of their education?”
Liz Powell agrees.
“Personally, I’m not out to reform the education system. I’ve worked at a lot of great public schools with brilliant teachers who are doing amazing things,” she said.
“Many children are happy and thriving within that system, but at the same time, it’s not for everyone. Some parents would like a different educational experience for their children.”
This stems from what McIntosh believes is a “general shift in parenting” whereby “people are considering how the child feels in situations”.
Professor Susan Ledger, Head of School and Dean of Education at the University of Newcastle, said it was a model that schools across Australia were increasingly working toward.
“Australia has been comparing itself to Finland for some time,” she said, acknowledging “Finland’s meteoric rise from being a mediocre [education] performer internationally in the 1990s to an exceptional performer more recently”.
Professor Ledger welcomed the opening of a local progressive school, and said it would offer “more choice to an already growing number of schools trying to position themselves as different”.
“Many progressive schools espouse the ideals and ideas of visionary educators, pedagogical approaches and teaching and learning movements from around the globe,” she said.
While Fig Tree School does have an emphasis on Finnish learning values, the school’s total learning will be a combination of Finnish, Montessori teachings from Italy and Germany’s Steiner education values.
The adoption of Finnish education values specifically in Australia was “very critical” for the future of learning, Professor Ledger said. She expects that more “progressive schools will continue to emerge as we move away from test-centred to student-centred approaches”.
“Interestingly, many of our schools are already adopting progressive school principles such as play-based approaches, sustainability, project-based learning, concept- rather than content-based learning, transdisciplinary approaches, student-centred learning and active learning,” she said.
She conceded that schools “tend to focus our energy on only one dimension – the key learning areas – rather than the general capabilities”.
“We learn through doing, through active learning and we learn beyond the classroom.”
A lesson on student autonomy
A core tenet of Fig Tree School will be a greater opportunity for student autonomy, and while it may look different for each respective teacher, McIntosh said many decisions would ultimately lie with students.
“A democratic progressive model of education is about respecting the right of each child to exercise a degree of self-determination in relation to their own education. It means allowing them a say in what they learn and how they learn, and space to discover their own interests and passions without the pressure of constant testing and competition,” Powell said.
Powell said that “the primary role of a teacher in a democratic progressive system is to guide and mentor the child, to encourage and nurture their innate sense of curiosity, and to harness that curiosity as a motivating force to drive learning”.
A call to action
Fig Tree School Ltd is now seeking board members and encouraging interested members of the Hunter community to track the school’s progress on its Facebook page.
McIntosh has encouraged members of the community to get in contact if they have property suitable for the organisation’s future campus.
Maia O’Connor