Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
RHIANNON Muddle adopted a poignant life mantra shortly after enrolling at Cooks Hill Campus: ‘‘She turned her can’ts into cans and her dreams into plans’’.
The year 11 student, 16, said the words epitomised her journey over the past five years, which began at a previous high school where she said she didn’t fit in, didn’t excel because she was not interested and felt unsupported.
‘‘I didn’t understand and the teachers could not explain it in a way that I could understand,’’ she said.
‘‘I was just cruising through it, I didn’t care about anything.’’
Rhiannon was one of the pioneer students at the innovative Cooks Hill Campus, which opened at the start of 2014 as the first school in NSW to be established wholly on the Big Picture Education Australia model.
In just its second year of operation, the campus has already reached its capacity of 136 students.
‘‘I took to it like a duck to water,’’ Rhiannon said of the school, which was established in a partnership with the Department of Education and Communities.
The Big Picture model involves identifying students’ interests and then developing an individualised learning plan that helps them tie these interests to the curriculum.
Pupils are placed in advisory groups comprising about 17 students and one teacher and complete interest projects that tap into a range of different subjects, with any outstanding outcomes completed through online tasks.
Rhiannon made a video about Vanuatu that covered subjects including maths, history and geography.
She has also completed the Learning Through Internship program, which included weekly visits to the Riding for the Disabled Association and a veterinarian.
Her dream is to study at Tocal College and work on a horse stud or cattle station.
‘‘I feel so much more confident here, I know what I want to do with my life,’’ she said.
‘‘I’m not a lost soul any more, I have purpose.
‘‘I’ve proven I can do whatever I set my mind to do.’’
Big Picture Education Australia chief executive and co-founder Viv White said the organisation targeted students who were disengaged from their learning, but prepared to re-engage.
On Wednesday, the organisation published findings of a three-year research project into its model, which was funded by the Origin Foundation and conducted by Professor Barry Down, from Murdoch University, and Associate Professor Debra Hayes, from the University of Sydney.
It showed that Big Picture students compared with mainstream students were more likely to have similar or better student outcomes, higher attendance rates, fewer discipline issues and much lower rates of suspension as well as greater parent participation in the school community.
Ms White said though Cooks Hill Campus, as a relative newcomer to the stable, was not one of the research sites, its own data from the past year ‘‘confirms the national findings’’.
Cooks Hill Campus leader Tracey Breese said compared with their attendance at previous schools, all Cooks Hill students throughout 2014 had improved their overall attendance.
