Each day begins the same way at Mahogany Rise Primary. Three minutes before the morning bell, music plays throughout the school, giving students an aural cue to head to class.
“He [Brunzell] just sort of showed up, like this floating angel. He just rolled in and he said everything was going to be OK. And he was right.”The troubled school Schneider took over in 2019 and the orderly one he heads today are “poles apart”, he said.Simon Schluter Mental health problems among students have driven many schools to look for new solutions, Brunzell said.
The teachers have since changed their language and approach to using strategies to help students engage. The key is creating a consistent expectation that all students will learn and respond to “micro-moments” before a blowout occurs, she said.“It’s pushing our higher-level students to extend themselves more because we’re finding ways for all students to improve, to learn more about themselves and their goals, no matter their background.
Punitive practices such as detention are no longer used because they weren’t working anyway, she said.“There’s still work to do around bullying that happens,” she said. “But certainly in terms of having expectations to learn and that the classroom environment enables them to learn, those things have changed dramatically.”Professor John Hattie, one of Australia’s most influential education academics, said he had seen its use bring focus to a previously disengaged classroom.