The specialist schools nurturing passions

For thousands of Victorian students, school isn’t a building with a classroom and whiteboard. It’s a snowfield, the stage, a hospital or even a prison.
Different schools catering for different needs have popped up across the state in the past few decades.

In the past three years alone, campuses have opened specialising in Australian rules football and surfing, and even at a hospital.
Max Lacorcia, 17, knows mainstream schools aren’t always best fit for Victoria’s students.

“I wasn’t really engaged,” the former Assumption College student said. He was “going through motions” , moving towards a stressful Year 12 but not knowing why.

Planning to drop out for a carpentry apprenticeship, a mate told him about a different school that piqued his interest.

Now, the Kilmore teen jumps on an hour-long train each morning with five other boys to The Academy in Essendon — a school set up by Richmond footballer Alex Rance.

Student’s passion for AFL is used to delve into English, Maths, leadership and even ethics lessons.

The study the Essendon supplements saga, look at concussion in sport and read newspaper sports reports alongside classes in diet, body composition, budgeting and money management.

“I actually feel like I’m getting something out of my schooling now,” Max said.

When Liam Conway, 17, was at Christian Brothers College he found “a lot of stress about getting in SACs”

“Here, it’s about being a better person,” said The Academy student, who wants a footy career but also leans to paramedics or firefighting.

“I feel like I understand the world a bit more and understand myself a bit more,” he said. “Not everyone likes the same thing, not everyone’s the same.”

Teacher Sam Magree knows this all too well.

The head teacher at the Mt Buller Annex — a snow school out of Mansfield Secondary — knows the benefit of linking kids’ interests with academics.

“The curriculum is all written to go back to skiing,” he said. “In our physics unit we look at gravity and angular movements

“We just spent two hours in a snow making factory looking at the finances and infrastructure and we’ve going to break that down in a maths component”

During morning ski sessions, they might strap on a monitor and go through speed data in maths class, working out who was the fastest.

“We have no attendance issues, no disruption issues — we’ve got 21 kids gobbling up this information everyday,” Mr.Magree said. “The engagement is just through the roof — I’ve taught kids across Australia and the world and you just don’t see this type of engagement.”

The teacher was so taken aback by his alpine athletes’ interest he decided to set up a surf school using the same model.

“After two years of doing this (teaching at the snow school) I was so encouraged that we designed the Saltwater Institute,” he said.

The Torquay school fits the same design, with surf lessons in the morning and academics in the afternoon, using kids’ love of sport as inspiration for classes across all fields.

Mr.Magree, director of Saltwater Institute, takes 16 kids through the waves during Term 2, and 21 kids through the snow in Term 3.

“I think there’s a bit of a shift in the education landscape, like (Geelong Grammar’s) Timbertop structure.

“I think this is almost the next wave of (Timbertop).”

Victoria’s specialised colleges aren’t all about being physical, though.

At John Monash Science School, students exercise their brains in accelerated classes. There’s electives from pharmaceutical science, astrophysics and microbiology, with the school growing from less than 200 kids when it opened at the turn of the decade to almost 700 now.

“It feels more like a community than a school — it feels like one big family,” Sebastien Monstermurro, 16, said.

He left Camberwell Grammar in Year 9 to enrol at the science school at Monash University in Clayton, with access to all its science labs and facilities.

“It doesn’t really feel like what you’re doing is school work, it feels like what you’re doing is a contribution,” he said.

This year, he chose his own research topic and settled on resonant frequencies.