It was a unique idea that has stood the test of time and has changed the lives of thousands of students. For a whole term of year nine, a select group of students from across the state live at the Alpine School's Noorat campus and learn so much more than just the three Rs.
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For the students, The Alpine School near Noorat is like a second home and fellow classmates and teachers are like family.
Each term, 45 students from eight different schools across Melbourne and country Victoria converge on the Gnurad-Gundidj campus for what ends up being a life-changing experience.
The students live on the campus for about nine weeks, and while they do activities like bike riding, hiking, surfing and play table tennis, it is definitely not a school camp.
It is a government school with a difference.
Also called the School for Student Leadership, the students study subjects such as self-awareness, metacognition, decision-making and actions.
What about English, maths and science?
They are integrated into the school’s structured curriculum, teacher Phil Dennis said.
For example, the English they do includes writing a reflective piece about what they’ve learnt each day and creating a portfolio of their time at the school.
They also participate in public speaking each day which is videoed, reflected on and assessed by other students.
“The focus isn’t on the ability to public speak….it’s about how to be a quality individual,” teacher Brett Easton said.
“We want the kids to find success.”
Teacher Bronson Valpied said: “The English aspect with the written component is quite huge, but it’s not called English. It’s just part of the holistic approach to everything”.
In simple terms, Mr Dennis said, the school’s focus was on how you could learn better.
“How can you learn better back at school? And how you can understand you better? And how you can function better,” he said.
It’s a different approach to learning that some parents initially struggle with.
Principal Michael Castersen, who worked in mainstream schools for 25 years before coming to the Noorat campus, said there had been parents who had their doubts but soon changed their tune.
Many parents end up sending all their kids, or as many as they can, to The Alpine School.
“If we were taking these kids away for nine weeks and just having a bit of fun, I too would question the validity of it,” Mr Castersen said.
“If I didn’t believe it, I wouldn’t do it.
“It’s a difficult topic when you talk to people about removing their precious young men and women from normal school environments so they’re away from maths and science…people get really scared.
“They think ‘far out’ and they always talk about this catch up concept, ‘how will they ever make it up?’ My point is just wait and see.
“Watch and observe what takes place with your men and women.”
The Noorat campus has been running since 2009 and is one of three across the state – the first to open was Dinner Plain in the Victorian Alps in 2001 and The Snowy River campus near Marlo in 2007.
Mr Easton said the school was created as the state’s version of Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop which was made famous by one of its past students, Prince Charles.
Mr Castersen said the feedback from parents, students and teachers at their home schools has been incredible.
“We’ve had numerous reports done on us from Monash University that highlight the growth in students, and that is tracked after they leave here as well, and the growth is quite stunning,” he said.
“At the end of the day if a student is given the opportunity to feel loved, to feel warm, to feel as though they’re in a safe place, they grow.”
As well as four overnight supervisors, the school’s 11 teachers are rostered to do overnight stays at the campus which helps to create the unique family and community-like atmosphere. “We build pretty meaningful relationships with the kids pretty quickly because of the contact hours,” Mr Dennis said.
And the students feel the same. “Everyone here’s family. Really quickly it becomes like that here,” Isla Hickey, 15, said. “It’s just such a surreal experience.”
Bayden Hill, 15, said he was surprised how quickly he got to know everyone. “I knew everyone’s name in the first five days...that’s how easy it is to make new friendships,” he said.
Harry Vanderzalm, 15, said his time at the campus has taught him how to learn. “For me it gave me a completely new mindset and attitude to learning. When I came here I was in the wrong head space and wasn’t really focused on my normal school learning,” he said. “It’s inspired me more to learn and I can’t wait to implement that.”
Zara Wiseman, 15, Langwarren, said that before coming to Noorat she was disengaged with school. “My mum was really worried about me and I came here and just every class you go to you’re just interested in. You always finish your work. You’re always just 100 per cent in it.”
With the students set to head home at the end of next week, there is mixed emotions. While they’re keen to put in to practice all they have learnt it is tinged with a sadness about leaving behind their ‘second home’ and ‘second family’.
On campus the students have to do their own laundry, help with the meals and share a room with another student – something it takes some students a little while to get used to. “There are disagreements, but because we’re all so close it’s like a disagreement with your brother,” Harry said.
The students are not returning home without a purpose, they will need to complete their community learning project. For some students this will mean working to get the toilet block at their school replaced, for others it is raising awareness about domestic violence in their community, and for another group it is fundraising for a local support program for single mothers.
Mr Dennis said that during their time at the campus, they learnt about the Aboriginal history of the area from indigenous elders, do first-aid courses as well as a safe food handling courses in a bid to get them job ready.
Mr Valpied said the school also ran sessions on how to manage emotions in times of conflict. “It’s a lot of people skills, interpersonal as well as coming to a greater understanding of self, what their strengths are, what their triggers are, what they can work on to help make them a more rounded person,” he said.
“The key component is being removed from their environment and their family and learning to stand on their own two feet, but also gain a sense of who they are.”
During their time at the campus they contact their family via email, phone calls are rare and there is no social media. But their daily blog keeps parents up-to-date on what they’ve been up to, and halfway through the term they do get to spend a weekend with their family, usually holidaying in Warrnambool.
The students are not the only ones changed by their time at the campus, Mr Castersen said it had also changed him.
“I’ve got a number of young kids and my time here at this school in many regards shaped the kind of dad I am as well,” he said.
“I always knew how important it was to spend quality time with kids, but to really take the time out to ask them how they are, to spend time on little things. Not to make them the greatest orator in the world, but to make them really great contributing community members. It’s amazing what happens when you do spend a bit of time with people.
“Here the focus is on not puffing them up and making them better than what they are, it’s about honing in on their personal skills and when they can relate to people and understand people better and...all the world’s an oyster.”
Mr Castersen said he wished that every year nine student in the state could experience what the school had to offer.
He said working at the campus had also changed how he viewed mainstream education. “I get why it’s so busy in mainstream. You’re trying desperately to cover so much in the curriculum. I think it’s fair to say that the individual can get lost,” Mr Castersen said.
“We’re not trying to be arrogant or tell other government schools what to do, because we are partners. We have privileged time with their young men and women.
“I look forward to getting back into mainstream one day and I look forward to putting some of the things I’ve learnt into practice there.
“It is mind-blowing. It’s not complex, that’s the beauty. It’s really simple stuff.”