In light of this week’s Symposium, I figured it made sense to reflect on my own experience of school. While I have little experience of being placed in a class inappropriate to the individual’s level, I do have an experience of a school that came close to 100% fitting my needs and one that did quite the opposite.

I started high school at an all girls school with 250-300 students in each year level, where I was desperately bored, under stimulated and ultimately unhappy for four years. I doubt a single teacher I had over those four years would be able to recognise me now, I passed under the radar so thoroughly. I remember sitting in my Year 10 Parent-Teacher-Student Interviews and being told by two separate teachers that I was not at a high enough level for either VCE Specialist Maths or VCE English Literature, much to the disbelief of my father sitting beside me.

A few weeks later, Year 10 ended and the next year I started Year 11 at a different school. My new school was about half the size, co-ed, with a strong focus on the performing arts and located in the heart of St Kilda (as opposed to private school privilege hotspot Kew, where my old school was located). Within a few weeks, my Maths and English teachers had each asked me why I wasn’t enrolled in the two subjects I had been denied at my old school.

While I know that many people would absolutely thrive within the conditions and opportunities we were presented with at such a large school with the amazing facilities we had access to as with my first school, and I also want to acknowledge how privileged I am to have been able to attend the schools I did, I felt entirely stifled and disillusioned by the learning environment presented to me. I can recognise now that for me to thrive, I need teachers and mentors who take the time to learn my name, who take the time to believe in my ability and to demand me to be better when it is due.

At the heart of all of this, I believe strongly in teaching with an individualised approach, treating each student as a person and assessing their particular needs, rather than looking at the wider cohort. As Adrian said, schools that are currently approaching education in this way are often seen as radical, and yet I can’t express how necessary and beneficial this approach is, for students, for parents, and for schools.