Meet Graham Speight, principal of Rosetta High School in Tasmania.

Graham SpeightQ: How is your high-school developing the Big Picture ideas and what is your involvement?
 
A: I went to a conference in Queensland. I’ve been to visit two of the Big Picture schools in the states and I met one of the people who I’d been to visit in San Francisco at the conference. She said “What have you done since then?”. And on the plane coming back I realised I really needed to move these ideas along.
 
The whole idea of how they’ve been set up in terms of personalising learning appeals, but I didn’t quite know how to introduce it. So I put it to the staff and said “These ideas are a bit loose, but I think they’re in the right space”. And out of that meeting 18 teachers put their hands up and said ,“We’re prepared to have a go”. So I put something in the newsletter inviting parents to come along and be part of a meeting. 187 turned up. We’ve never had a meeting like that here before.
 
And what was extraordinary was that the parents were there before us. The questions they were asking and the things they were talking about, it was almost like “Well obviously!” So that really gave me the confidence to put the thing out there.
 
So we put it in our handbook and said “these are the things kids can opt for” and we can take 107.
 
So far we’ve run a pilot of 6 groups, which is 107 kids, and we’ve got no difficulty finding the kids. We’ve only had 5 kids go out, 3 more come in. Of the 5 that have gone out, a couple of them moved inter-state, but the other three were looking for greater structure.  They acknowledged the fact that the program was not working for them on account of their self-discipline, not the other way around. The 3 that came in... we could have put 300 in from the people making enquiries.
 
It resonates with people. And I’ve taken from the confidence of those people in what we’ve been doing. Fundamentally it’s about kids pursuing their passions and kids finding their interests. It drives the whole thing.
 
 
Q: What’s the structure? How does it work?
 
A: This is a school of about 610. The senior school is about 300. The kids in the “Make It Big” program make up about one third of that total. Essentially it’s a traditional line structure for the other kids. They can opt across and there are obviously many elements of “Make It Big” in the line structure, but that’s how it’s set at the moment. As we are going into next year I anticipate there are more kids that are going to want to be a part of this way of learning. So we have some difficult issues that we have to sort out in between now and then. How do we cater for all the students who want to be in the program and keep the line structure viable? It’s a good problem. Better than the other one!
 
Q: Is it kids with a range of backgrounds?
 
A: Absolutely. You have kids that are going to be doctors and kids that are not necessarily going to pursue things beyond grade 10. It’s about learning. Learning wherever people are. It’s such a clever way of working. I’ve talked with these teachers all through this year and I reckon I’ve got a really good idea about these kids. And when I’m out and about, and I go out and about all the time, these kids are always coming up to me and telling me where they are. Kids in other classes can’t have the same conversations. We have kids that have rehearsed entry to workplace 9 or 10 times this year. That’s quite a big deal. They are confident and they’ve got the story. And even the ones who haven’t, they understand the journey that they’ve been on and they can talk about it. There’s lots of intangibles to this discussion. It’s not just about doing the projects and getting the results its about how they manage themselves and their own work ethic and attitude towards the things they are doing. So it’s a really interesting space. Slowly this school is disaggregating before my eyes. It’s an interesting management issue. But it’s a good problem to have.
 
Q: What are the key ideas that make it work?
 
A: There are three key ideas.
 
One kid at a time. Personalizing learning around passions and interests, but then going to the curriculum and saying to kids “ok you need to draw forward evidence of what you have done from these areas”.
 
The second is in terms of accepting the fact that we can’t do everything. The broader community, the enterprises and business we’ve worked with have been fantastic - once they’ve got the idea. The trouble with the history of what everybody has done with work experience is people are hung up on things. Once they get past that it’s tremendous.
 
The third thing is you have to let go of the things that get in the way. For years at this school we had a war between the line timetable going that way and what kids wanted to do going the other way. And it never fits. You can never organise an employment situation that will drop into a 2 hour line timetable. You can never appease the maths teacher who says “but so and so is out of my class”. Those sorts of things, it’s like a war. So by doing this we’ve sorted that out. And I don’t have the evidence yet but my suspicion is these kids will perform better. Already in terms of engagement, and things like suspensions and attendance, I would say that data is already demonstrating it. But it’s performance; I’d be keen to get that. And I think we’ll get that over the next few years.
 
Q: What are you doing to ensure and monitor there is still rigor there?
 
Rosetta student presenting her workA: The exhibitions give you absolute insight into the rigor. I’ve never seen kids in grade 9 and 10 work so hard. You’ll get that from personal testimony from the kids. Even the kids that aren’t in to it in a big way. They’ll tell you “I’m working so hard”. But obviously there are other results and we’ll have benchmark data across the state over time. I just think it will be obvious. I can do it kid by kid, but I can’t at the moment do the aggregated data. But I know who we’re talking about and I can tell you that they are more engaged, more focussed. Some of the kids I’m talking about realise what is coming.  They know that if you don’t perform, they will be put back into the mainstream.  As a result they have lifted their game. The kids are miles ahead of us. As they always are.
 
Q: What advice would you give to other school leaders?
 
A: You just have to start. The problem as I see it is as soon as you start addressing these structures and addressing teacher workloads you have a ‘mob’ of issues. If you try to solve all the problems you’ll never start. What you need is a bunch of people who are prepared to give it a crack. And then have a go. The fundamental principles? Well, it’s just common humanity. If you give people attention, if you take someone seriously, if you invest in them, you get it back in quids.
 
It’s more natural. In the real world no one says “OK, I want to learn this, so I’ll go out and get another 25 people and somebody else to...”. It doesn’t work like that. I’ve watched one kid here, he does a day of maths at a time. And he can do that. And that’s how he wants to do it. It’s so focussed and so powerful. But you wouldn’t do that to everybody. You couldn’t. It just demonstrates how different they are. There’s another kid I know who is in five different bands, and managing that - it’s extraordinary. But what a rich and diverse set of things he is a part of. It’s all examples. Everybody you walk past I could sit you down and tell you their story. And that would be quite difficult for me to do in the context of running a normal high school. But I just know them because they tell you! They want you to know, and they’re interested and they suck you in to making phone calls and doing things. It’s clever [laughs].
 
Q: I guess if you don’t know them, how can you start teaching them?
 
A: Fundamentally relationships are at the heart of the thing. And if you like, that’s one of the difficulties for teachers, that it’s a full on thing. But it’s an enjoyable thing. People work hard anyway. So you may as well work hard in a useful way and get the jollies that come with real progress. Clearly there are issues, but there are issues anyway. And kids go through phases and times. I can just introduce you to the kids. That would be the only story that you would need to know in terms of how it works and why you’d do it. But you have to sort it out at local level in terms of people.
 
Q: Do you think it was that sheer number of parents turning up so early that helped?
 
A: No. It pushed us over. Over a number of years, 5-6 years, we’ve moved into this stage in different ways. That meeting said to me was “what are we worried about?”. If these people are here asking these questions, they understand this really well. They are in a terrific network. And that’s what it is: A network of people trying things and sorting it out as we go. And some days you come up against a few things but most of the time you can sort it out. Even yesterday, there was some kid who got a school based apprenticeship and there was some issue with it, but everybody I spoke to was determined to sort it out. This is a girl who 2 days a week is a jockey. And she’s off to Hong Kong. I’m not off to Hong Kong. It’s great. It’s literally stories. You invest in the kids and as you do this stuff goes wherever the networks take you. But the issues for the kids are some of them don’t have the networks that we have. I was at a funeral recently and I shouldn’t have been doing so I know, but I thought “this is not a bad network”. Because that’s life and that’s how it works. It’s a part of the community. The school is not separate from the community. Those people and those conversations are part of what happens next. And since that realisation I’ve probably tapped half a dozen of those people on the shoulder. But they are keen to be tapped on the shoulder. Once they understand. People don’t walk away from this program. In fact they are keen to be involved.
 
Q: How has it effected your work?
 
A: It makes my job really different. There’s an invisible part to my work that I think is quite interesting. I tried to get someone in to do it and they said “no it’s got to be you”. And that’s an interesting thing for principals to realise. I think a successful principal is a community leader and I think you have to be a part of those kinds of things. But it’s like having another job. So if you haven’t got your brain sorted out you think it’s a chore.