“I was born in Lismore Base hospital, one of 8 kids, 4 boys and 4 girls within 10 years. My father was the local GP Surgeon, Mum was heavily involved in Girl Guides and this was our house (The Living School). This was our family home where we all grew up. When my parents retired they closed the door, locked it and left. I went to Lismore Public School and Lismore High School and I love Lismore. I later studied at SCU which used to be the University of New England, Northern Rivers.
I left to travel the world and got caught in London where I married my girlfriend from here who came over and joined me. I stayed in London for 5 years at the Hill House International School run by a 92 year old Colonel. They wore knickerbockers and Cravats. Prince Charles went to that school which was behind Harrods. I got kicked out of the car by my Mother in-law who said they employed Australians and walked in off the street. It was a 5 storey house and as I walked up every level there was another 5,000 flights. I got to the top and there were these elderly ladies sitting there….Yes? I said, I’m looking for casual work. They said, We don’t do supply teaching here, you might try Sussex House which was their rival around the corner. As I was standing there the door behind me opened and I could see in my peripheral vision this very, very old man. He said, Who is this? The ladies said, We are just telling him to go to Sussex House Colonel. He looked at me and said, Do you play games? I said Yep, Yes I do! So he called me into his office and he employed me as a Sports teacher because someone had just resigned that morning. It was just luck. I stayed there for 5 years and went from Sports teacher to English teacher to Head of Section.
In the meantime I wanted to finish my degree I’d started at SCU and it was either Oxford or Cambridge so I went to Cambridge University. Before I started I had to have a job there so I applied for job as head of English at St Johns College School, 100 metres down the road from the Kings College School which is the Choir School you see on TV. St Johns is their rival in Choristers. After working as an English teacher I was promoted to Head of English and then Director of Studies. In the process I went to uni and did my Masters of Education at Cambridge Uni.
I got right into computers and developed an interactive textbook way before the internet had really taken off. I published through a major publisher but I left to come back to Australia. I had 10 years in the UK. The text book was published but I didn’t promote. I came back here in 2002 with 3 children and one in the tum. My fourth child was born here in Lismore Base on New Years Day.
I thought I’d do some casual teaching here but the Dept of Education was taking too long to get me in as a casual teacher so I went to the Catholics who said, Yes, you can start work tomorrow. I was appointed as a teacher down at Barker College in Sydney then I was employed as a head of a primary school at Central Coast Grammar. I was then head hunted to go to Tudor House which is a Prep School in the Southern Highlands and from there to the Green School in Bali which is made from Bamboo. It’s the most amazing school in every way.
The Living School here in Lismore is an amalgamation of everything. Every school I taught in I’ve taken pieces and every piece I’ve learnt I’ve seeded into a thread to try to create a progressive school, not an alternate school. It comes down to the very base understanding of what a school is for. We don’t see ourselves as elitist or exclusive but because we are independent there are fees associated as we have to pay our teachers. The purpose of school is really to improve community so the intention of this school is, we get into the community. We go to the public library for our library lessons, we play in the Quad, we go to the community garden and we bush walk around Rotary Park. We go downtown, we access the Art Gallery and Norpa. We want to be part of the community and that whole idea is…Can you regenerate an essence of being part of a town, a community, through a school?….And drawing people from everywhere into this space.
Currently we have Kindergarten to Year 8 but next year we will have Year 9 and 10. The big vision is to go right up to Year 13, a year beyond Year 12 so that the HSC doesn’t define the end of school. We would then link in with Tafe so we could do an entrepreneurship with a business minded focus, vocational, where you can build up a repertoire of interests through certification, so you could be a Barista, a sky dive instructor…all the things we have here in this area. You can leave school with qualifications and skills so you can be employable while you persue other career paths, or you go to tertiary, linking into university. You could do the HSC and go onto uni or you could stay on and do a bridging course.
We want the kids to have ownership so there’s no uniform. We don’t want everyone to be the same. We want to celebrate independence and individuality. We also want to have a relationship of respect. Teachers aren’t Mr, Mrs or Ms, we are our first names and as a result we are more personable. We want the school to be owned by the students. The students have a say as to which projects they want to do.
We don’t want to grow too quickly but I’m humbled by the support I’ve received by people who are coming. We are looking to grow the school in lots of interesting ways. We don’t want to be locked to a site, a campus, because as soon as you do that you kind of fence yourself off from the community. We are looking at some interesting things, buses that are half classroom, half bus.
When I came back from Bali I wanted to start a school. Finding a DA site that allows for education is incredibly difficult. This was my family home and my fathers practice so when my parents were selling it I said, if you get an offer, tell me and I’ll match it because I’m one of 8. I matched the offer they received and I bought it. It’s taken a lot of work to make it into a learning space.”