Turned the corner

as posted here

TEACHERS and educationalists from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia visited Yule Brook College in Maddington last week to see first-hand the success the school has had as part of the Big Picture program.

The Year 8 to 10 school has undergone a teaching revolution since it was categorised as “hard to staff” when it was founded in 2000.

Deputy principal Eric Radice said numerous strategies were employed to develop a nurturing and caring learning environment.

“Yet high absenteeism and poor behaviour continued to plague the school,” he said.

In 2006 there were almost 300 student suspensions.

But in 2007 attendance was nudging 83 per cent and there were fewer than 50 suspensions. “The figures were so astonishing, it was assumed Yule Brook’s data system had malfunctioned, but they had not,” he said.

It was also the year that the school became inspired by the Big Picture education program that originated in Rhode Island, USA.

“Jaws dropped further last year when the school’s National Assessment Program literacy and numeracy scores reached benchmark or better.”

Two years on, the school is a hotbed of creativity and industry.

Plans to extend studies to Year 12 are well under way and the focus is firmly on higher education and careers.

“We now have students who never used ‘uni’ in a sentence, checking out entrance requirements for tertiary courses,” Mr Radice said.

“We are beginning to see a change of culture, not just among students and staff, but in the whole community.”

He said parental involvement had increased dramatically and the school’s internship program had proved enormously successful


as posted here