READY FORA WORLD YETTO BE IMAGINED

Liverpool Boys High SchoolAll choices should be based on what you’re interested in, what you’re passionate about, and school should be that exploration of passion.1

Program name: Year 7 Passion Project

Program owner: Liverpool Boys High

Location: Liverpool, NSW

Month/year initiated: January 2018

Funding: Australian Schools Plus, The Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation

About Liverpool Boys High SchoolLiverpool Boys High School is a comprehensive 7-12 school serving a multicultural community. The school includes many students from a background of socio-economic disadvantage.

In 2018, Liverpool Boys High School in NSW, trialled passion-based learning within the Year 7 curriculum, with students participating in a Passion Project, structured around a Passion Profile completed by students and their parents. This trial was implemented as part of the Fair Education program, an initiative in partnership with Australian Schools Plus and the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation. It was intended that by exploring their passions and trialling project-based work around those, students would become further engaged in their learning and better able to consider their future transition into further education, training and the world of work.

About Passion-Based LearningIn the face of challenges to Australia’s education outcomes, many schools are looking to trial new approaches to education and learning. With declining trends internationally, and widening achievement gaps between schools nationally, approaches that explore different ways of helping students and educators

1 Quote from Michael Saxon, Principal of Liverpool Boys High School, NSW

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engage in learning are on the rise. For example, inquiry-based, project-based, design-based and problem-based learning.

Passion-based or passion-led learning is “the practice that emerges when students know their passions and teachers know their students. Passion-led learning occurs when teachers are able to personalise learning in line with a student’s passion and can ignite and develop better student engagement with deep learning.”2

Year 7 student Hassan and his mother Sonia showcasing his passion project (photo supplied by Liverpool Boys High School)

How has the Year 7 Passion Project been implemented?While learning through cross-curriculum projects has been a feature of the Liverpool Boys High for several years, the school trialled Year 7 passion-based learning in 2018 after discovering the Passion Toolkit, developed by Australian Learning Lecture (ALL). The ALL Passion Index Trial was piloted in a small number of Victorian schools during 2018, and Liverpool Boys High School was able to be involved in that process.

A targeted Year 7 class was selected for the trial, and these students commenced by completing a ‘Passion Profile’. The profile aims to support students to identify and express their personal passions, strengths and enjoyment of learning. It is completed by students with facilitated support from teachers as required.

Parents and families are seen as integral to the process of passion projects. Previously, the school had noticed that students considering their HSC subjects and future pathways in Year 10 often struggled with this journey, with parents who were disengaged from the process, or alternatively, had traditional concepts and views around what their son should be doing.

2 Australian Learning Lecture. (2018). The ALL Passion Index Trial: 2018 Schools Pilot, Passion Toolkit. Page 4.

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Year 7 students were encouraged to complete a passion profile, helping families to engage in conversations with their sons about their respective passions, with the intention of inspiring students to determine the focus of their passion project for the year, and ignite their passion for learning generally.

The school dedicated three teachers under the load of a normal teaching allowance for a year – to mentor the students, make contact with parents, and complete the passion projects. The Year 7 curriculum was also adjusted by 5-6 weeks to allow students to work on their passion projects.

An important element of the trial was the investment in time taken for the teaching team to follow-up with each family, by contacting parents to ask if they had discussed with their son what his passion was and what his project was about. A booklet was created for the students to plan, record and reflect on their passion project. The team were timetabled to mentor and provide training for the students on what passion looked like.

Materials provided included items from the woodwork and art rooms, including electric and hand tools. The students, depending on their product, supplied most materials.

Every week the students were required to reflect on their project and make any adjustments for the next week. The teaching team also met weekly to discuss the progress of the project and make any adjustments to the program.

Hear from the school principal about how passion projects aim to engage students more fully in their own learning and why including parents and families is important. Supporting Video 1.

How does it engage students and their families in career education?

Preparing students for the real world

One of the main elements of project-based learning is real-world learning and making a connection between what’s happening in the classroom and what’s happening beyond the classroom – helping students see how their learning is relevant.

Families were encouraged to visit classrooms to work on the projects and share their expertise – e.g. working side by side with students, however this opportunity was seldom taken up. It was noted that time taken by families to attend activities at school during the school day is not always convenient, particularly when parents are juggling work and other commitments.

Parents and families were invited to attend an exhibition at the end of the project. The exhibition is an opportunity for students to showcase their work to their families and is a highlight of the program. Having this audience makes students accountable to others beyond their class and teachers, and shows their learning and ideas are of value to a broader audience.

Promoting conversations at home

The value of families is recognised and harnessed across the passion-project model, with parents being encouraged to consider their own passions and to share and discuss these with their sons, to help inspire a project. The school recognised that parents and families were integral to helping the students identify their passion and develop this over time.

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Emerging outcomes and lessons learntAccording to the school, the impact of the passion project trial was ‘overwhelming’ and ‘unexpected’. Student participation was lifted as a result, and the engagement of students was impressive. This is evidenced by both the high quality of the projects, but also the strong completion rate. Additionally, the high attendance of parents and families at the exhibition of projects was a demonstration of the positive relationships built during the passion profile project. Some students had previously not completed a project during the year but made every effort to complete their passion project, as it was based on a self-identified interest and a final product of their own choice.

Throughout the year, in each term, the students were asked to complete a passion survey, and through this process staff observed the students to be increasingly articulate about their passions and more engaged in their learning overall.

While it was intended that the passion projects would encourage and increase parent and family engagement in learning, the level of emotion on display at the exhibition was not anticipated. Teachers observed happiness, pride and excitement shared by both parents and students.

“The kids achieved a lot from the passion project. They had the opportunity to create some really fabulous artwork and really fabulous ideas, and to learn also about their friends and what they’re passionate about, which was really important. And yeah, just to have them show off their work as well, in front of their parents and any friends and their teachers was really interesting to see. The kids were really proud of what they achieved. And so were we, we were really proud of what they achieved as well. It was really, really good.”

Sonia, Parent

Hear from a parent (Sonia) about her son and his peers’ experiences with the passion project. Supporting Video 2.

One of the key outcomes of the trial was the high level of activity observed among students as they delved into their projects. Parents and families noted the difference in their child’s interest in school, and one proudly shared with the teachers that her child who never bothered with homework was energised to work on his project at home, on the weekend. This is an important finding for schools experiencing high levels of student disengagement – not only among less academic or disconnected students, but also among more abled students, the ‘bright kids’ – those who are bored by a traditional delivery of curriculum which can be highly teacher-centred.

Importantly, students expressed that they had been exposed to new ways of learning, gaining valuable insights and opportunities into future possibilities.

“When the boys produced their project it demonstrated that, yes, they can produce high-quality products, they are able to use inquiry learning, project-based learning, and the success of it was, is, that it was based on their passion. I know our curriculum can be not so inspiring, or is not the passion of our boys, but the evidence is there that our boys can produce high quality work – we just have to develop our curriculum to be more passion-based learning.”

Belinda Stanton, Head Teacher, Community Engagement

“It helps me develop my future job, and the skills I need later on in life.”

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Chantejo, Student

“[I learnt] …to manage time as well, and to also use critiquing as well. Cos I wouldn’t have made a really good shirt without my teachers help and my mum’s critiquing, same as my teacher. And I also learned how to use different materials and stuff like that.”

Saman, Student

Critical enablers Based on the Liverpool Boys High School experience, the feasibility and practicality of implementing or replicating an initiative such as a passion project-based learning within schools appears contingent on several critical factors:

Open-minded approach: Leadership is vital in setting the culture in a school, and in the case of trialling the Year 7 passion project that was no different. Staff described that having a principal who gave staff the flexibility to ‘try and fail if that be the case’ was vital for the trial.

Flexible teaching options: The project was delivered by removing 5-6 weeks of the normal Year 7 program. This was seen as a successful decision as the Year 7 teaching team were open to change (“having a ‘yes’ mentality”) and were supportive of the proposed benefits of such a project. There was no change-over time, however this might be completed differently going forward, based on the resources and teaching program.

Measuring success from the start: A self-determination questionnaire was employed to motivate and support the boys in developing their passion. A key benefit of this was the data it provided for evaluating the success of the project.

Making adjustments to ensure the right resources are in place: The school has restructured personnel to create a head teacher position based around community engagement. This has been part of wider shifts within the whole school, restructuring staffing arrangements to bring about greater cross-discipline collaboration for project-based learning.

Challenges to overcome and future directions Several challenges arose from the Year 7 passion project trial. Firstly, teachers noted that motivating students to identify, articulate and develop their passion was challenging, and that additional mentoring from the teaching staff was required to support students who struggled with the journey of self-discovery. This links to a concern raised by the school in relation to the low proportion of students having conversations at home about their learning journey. The value that parents and families bring to this area is significant, but the capacity of families to harness the value they can bring to those conversations, is clearly an opportunity for development.

“One of the compelling bits of data that really spurred us on was when we looked at the percentage of our boys who had somebody they talked to about their learning and their learning journey, and … we were at about half the national average for that kind of thing. So our boys typically didn’t talk about school with anybody. Now that meant they were not getting guidance, they were not getting support. It wasn’t that education wasn’t valued – parents value education highly – they just don’t know how to have these conversations.”

Michael Saxon, Principal

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The school is now dedicating resources and focus to this aspect of parent and family engagement, to ensure that the students are able to harness the rich resource that their families can provide when they have the skills to engage in ‘mentoring conversations’ with their sons about their future.

Secondly, it was also observed that while the quality of the final products for exhibition was high, vital skills in researching and product design among the students at the beginning of the journey was limited. Learnings from the trial suggest that students would benefit from explicit teaching in conducting research for their projects. In terms of the final products, it was apparent that there is also a need to be overt about standards for posters, videos, models, etc being produced, to ensure that expectations of students, parents, and staff are aligned.

“What we want to do with parent engagement is have parents having the skills to have deep conversations with their kids, we call them mentoring conversations … but those deep conversations in the family around what do you love doing, where do you want to go, how do you want to explore, how can we help you do that? So we want to set up environments where we’re not ‘teaching’ parents how to do it as in parenting courses, but structures where parents can come in and this is an opportunity to have those conversations.”

Michael Saxon, Principal

Further information Liverpool Boys High School website: https://liverpoolb-h.schools.nsw.gov.au/ . Liverpool Boys High School trials passion-based learning for Year 7 students: This video was created as

part of the ‘Future Focused Learning’ film series, as part of the Fair Education program, an initiative in partnership with Australian Schools Plus and the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation: https://www.filmpond.com/ponds/doensw-future-focused-learning/films/fpxrun3uvhkt .

If you would like to know more about Future Ready, visit www.schooltowork.education.gov.au.