The "Big Picture" of learning at Cooks Hill Campus

BY JESSICA ROUSE

In what many would call an unconventional way of learning, there's a high school campus in Newcastle guiding students through their year 12 studies with project-based learning.

Rather than one exam at the end of their schooling year determining what they’re going to get and what pathway they will take, students at the Cooks Hill Campus instead finish high school with a portfolio of their best work from year 9 through to year 12 about their ideal career path.

It’s all a part of Big Picture Learning, and really is all about the big picture.

Cooks Hill Campus is linked to Newcastle High School and classed as a public government school. The Big Picture design is used in 20 campuses throughout Australia and encompasses project based learning combined with a living to learn idea where students go out once a week into the workplace and experience real world learning.

“In a mainstream school you might have a student who has a clear idea – yes I’m in year 10 and I want to become a plumber, and then that student will finish school, go and do a TAFE course and then realise they don’t like it and they’ve wasted their time,” said advisory teacher Brendt Evenden.

There's only 136 students at the campus at any one time and for every 17 students there’s one advisory teacher.

Brendt Evenden is one of the advisors who sees the same 17 students throughout their whole schooling career.

The advisors ensure students meet the outcomes of the high school curriculum through their project and work together with students to work out how they can do it through their chosen projects across multiple subjects.

“Advisers know their students really well with one advisor for 17 students so that’s very different to one teacher for 30 students in a classroom and seeing five different lessons a day (in mainstream schools),” said Brendt.

At a time when students are becoming increasing disengaged from learning, the Cooks Hill Campus aims to re-engage students who can’t connect with the curriculum of mainstream high school.

“Often in mainstream school students don’t get to really follow at a great depth what they’re really passionate about,” said Brendt, and often that’s how they become disengaged.

Once students finish year 12, they can use their portfolio to go onto TAFE, or even move onto university to study a degree based on their work.

Brendt says the campus is getting a lot of interest with students, and they’re currently inviting year 8 students to put forward their interest for enrollment into the 2018 intake of year 9.

“If they’ve (parents) got a child sitting in a classroom in a mainstream school and they’re just not doing what they love or feeling bored or disengaged in some way – we’re not about the students who are mucking up, we’re about the student who really finds education isn’t working for them so we give them the chance to find their passion and get education that way.”

For more information head to www.cookshill-s.schools.nsw.edu.au