Senior Secondary School Years.
After completing their first thousand days of foundational growth and consolidation under the supportive eyes of a Mentor the Early Childhood or Pre-School phase readies all children for the following two learning blocks, approximately of three years each, Junior Primary and Senior Primary. During these "Childhood Days of Active Learning and Participation" all care must be taken to ensure that basic skills for literacy and numeracy and creativity and all things that can be added to make "Childhood" for every child challenging, exciting and rewarding are achieved. The child should never be heard to say "School is boring." Only through the strategies we developed to ensure those goals are achieved can they be met in a non-graded Multiaged learning Model. The very best term when you are ready is to call it "Family Grouping."
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Having all of that achieved every young learner is ready to embark upon the most exciting and confusing and frightening phase of their lives since their first thousand days on planet earth. It is their adolescent years, "Set for Life Curriculum" where we see all participants "Learning then following then Leading in a Family Group of 12, 13 and 14 year olds, where all Flourish to then be able to make the best choice for the time as to the direction they will choose to follow to round out their days at school for it is time for every adolescent young learner to transition to their "Senior Secondary School Years,"
Senior Secondary Education.
Years 10 to 12.
The final three, even four years in this phase is where all students choose the path they hope their lives will take. Through their “Set for Life Curriculum” they have each had three years of interviewing and listening to a wide variety of professions and trades and careers, some presented personally by visitors to their school, some from school video links across the nation, some through personal research and workplace visits. In coming to the decision as to the pathway they will choose they have also written to various bodies and employing agencies to delve deeply into what 'being a dentist' or a 'bricklayer' or a 'social worker' or a 'banker' and so on will entail. Many have had their career path set almost from birth when one takes into account the parent whose profession they are almost obliged to follow.
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Given that as the starting point of Senior Secondary School the role of the school would take on an entirely different role. Not as it is at present, subject orientated, data driven for its own reputations as much as for the good of the student, ATAR constricted for some magical number that apparently sorts the dross from the worthy, no longer a model fit for this century. I can reveal that one of the world's leading nations in education, Finland, ceased subject driven learning in 2019, choosing instead 'Phenomenons' as their base teaching and learning framework.
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To fulfill the needs of our emerging leaders schools would adopt a model more akin to the health system, take the pharmacist as a brief example. We have a sore eye so are prescribed some eye drops, a cut finger so an antiseptic dressing, a scalp irritation so some anti-dandruff shampoo. Imagine if no matter what our problem the pharmacist always gave everyone the same prescription or remedy, this week eye drops, next week dandruff shampoo, and so on. How much are subject driven secondary schools like the pharmacy down the road that just lost all of its customers. The needs of every child are different yet a National Curriculum has legislated that difference to conformity, to adherence, to acquiescence; but for so many flouting the rules and disengaging from learning has become the norm..​
Senior secondary schools are the most at risk of being overtaken by technology, the internet and Artificial Intelligence. In many parts of the USA it is already taking place at a rapid pace. The role of the senior secondary school teacher and the way in which he/she works must rapidly change as the "Set for Life Curriculum" will ensure that all students' hopes and dreams and aspirations are properly catered for and met in a supportive school environment. Our schools must fulfil their task in educating our young for the world in which we all now live. Like me did you spend many hours learning how to solve quadratic equations? In all of my life I have never had the need to use that knowledge. How much more have we pushed down learners throats, into their brains even, that is never addressed again, after the exam is over?
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It is essential to note that a number of our teenagers in their final years of schooling will have opted for career based learning, into TAFEs, into trades, into service industries, into the many careers that don’t require a university degree. Whilst it may seem that a year twelve exit report or ATAR which may lead to a university degree is the preferred pathway to the ‘good life’ it has never been a realistic expectation for all. It is far more important that during the three years immersed in the “Set for Life Curriculum” that all career options are laid bare for everyone to investigate fully. Also during those three intense years of personal development all participants will have gained the basic life skills to be able to function as a contributing member of society. This would ensure that the current waste and cost in forcing all students to remain at school for twelve years be minimised. Many schools are already a long way down this pathway with vocational programs embedded as part of school life. Industry would be empowered to intervene positively in promoting its many career options as would the university sector.
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How can we be sure our seniors are learning and ready for the world ahead if we don't test and examine and grade and threaten? Surely a bit of hard work, more homework, more exams never hurt anyone? I think we now know that the stresses and anguish that drive the mental health and wellness agendas are directly attributable to how we currently do school. Cry "Social Media Platforms" as the villain, the blame, the cause, but there’s a lot at stake that can’t be passed off so easily. Whilst Bullying is seen as one of the major causes of mental health concerns schools are reluctant to address the stresses that chronologically age based graded classrooms contribute to the problem through emphasising competition and winning at any cost, schools themselves promoting it for their own perceived success.
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A portfolio approach to assessment is by far more effective than an examination based approach, and AI is having plenty to say in that regard. “When do you know you have really learnt something? When you can teach it to another”. Multiage classrooms afford that opportunity every day and assessment is an ongoing daily activity. In Senior Secondary Schools the hard slog of attaining the highest degree of understanding in any chosen discipline should also be accompanied by a practical project that would show understanding of the subject was complete. This would mean that subject choice would be more finely tuned to the longer term career outlook. Whilst for some the study of Shakespeare is a gratifying pursuit for others it may not be of any interest at all, preferring marine science. Subject constrained secondary school teachers must urgently come to terms with the fact that their students can and do learn from many sources other than in their classrooms, listening but not partaking.
The Gratten Institute’s findings on Disengaged Learners is damning. This is their report: https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Engaging-students-creating-classrooms-that-improve-learning.pdf
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Size matters and the late Thomas Sergiovanni, when addressing a gathering of two hundred primary and secondary teachers and leaders in Brisbane in 1998, described the social isolation and loneliness epidemic in the USA. The greatest problem the nation was facing was not drugs or gangs or many of the other suggestions the audience provided. It was the growing epidemic of student disengagement from learning, from school, from society. He was adamant that subject driven, data reliant and big school mentality played a major role in its creation. His suggestion that no school should be larger than two to three hundred students and that non-graded learning classrooms should be the norm was scoffed at by his audience. We have many schools now the size of small towns, Marsden High in Brisbane with over four thousand students and almost three hundred staff and we drive subject based learning with data driven outcomes, yet claim the kids are still not ready for the world they live in.
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Mentors would continue to be an important aspect of these vital years, assisting with real life knowledge, acting more as life coaches to offer sage advice. It is envisaged that retirees would make up a large proportion of the Mentors.