63-67 Conway Street, Lismore

phone: (02) 5632 1218

Welcome to Living School – Northern Rivers NSW

a committed co-learning school community.

Phone: (02) 5632 1218 

 Now taking in enrolments for years Kindergarten to Year 8

and, now, Years 9 and 10 for 2021.

(Living School will grow to offer Early Years to Year 13).

Register for Enrolment here

Our Term Times are intentionally different!

Our 2021 term times are purposefully designed to facilitate improved learning and teaching experiences.  Having shorter, sharper blocks of time creates more focus and better retention.

SEMESTER ONE

TERM ONE – IDENTITY – 7 weeks
January 27 – March 12 (then one week holiday)
 
TERM TWO – NATURE – 6 weeks
March 22 – 30 April (then one week holiday)
 
TERM THREE – LIFE & LIVING – 7 weeks
10 May – 25 June (then two weeks holiday)
 

SEMESTER TWO

TERM FOUR – CIVILISATION – 7 weeks
12 July – 27 August (then one week holiday)

TERM FIVE – PHENOMENA – 6 weeks
6 September – 15 October (then one week holiday)

TERM SIX – SERVICE – 7 weeks
25 October – 10 December (then six weeks holiday)

Vision:

Living School cares to teach, challenge and nurture good people for a sustainable future.

We believe that all children have a limitless potential and that the role of every educator and parent/carer is, before all else, to activate and mobilize the potential within a child, rather than see him or her from a point of view based on limitations and flaws.

The Living School is about the power of inspiring places…

* where children learn,

* teaching is untethered,

* parents connect,

* and a community thrives.

More than Content Knowledge

 

Our children need much more than facts and content – they need to develop positive attitudes and responsible social networks! Our children need to find a purpose in this information age. We are committed to drawing out of each student a compelling desire, where interests become passion. And this is the historical origin of education – to evoke and draw out. We connect with our past to improve our future.

 

Inspirational and Engaging

We aim to make schooling inspirational – a time in a person’s life when, years in the future, our children will discuss over a dinner table or social network their time at Living School with pride and humble humour at all they experienced, all they learned.

Nurturing Human Exceptionalism

Living School’s aim is to nurture progressively and purposefully key elements of success (values, attitudes, skills) to foster competence without pressure or expectation alienating and destroying each pupil’s love of learning. And to do so as a kind, mindful, engaging and supportive caring community.

Connectedness

Living School celebrates our connection to nature and each other’s personal uniqueness: the fundamental principles for leading a fulfilled life.  Celebrating our diversity allows us to respect our individuality.

Living School’s foundation is the Living philosophy:

Living Learning

Living Learning is a unique focus on creating a curriculum that grows with the needs of a community.  Every year there is a Festival of Thought: where interested supporters of progressive education come together to learn, adapt and grow the Living School curriculum.  And our commitment is to ensure all our curriculum documentation is freely available online as open-source schooling.

Living Spaces

Aesthetics and green space benefit our health and well-being.  Living School is designed to embrace the environment.  Living architecture is based on structures that grow and are sustainable, allowing the students to design and build their own learning spaces!  Classrooms do not have to be brick and mortar – they can be learning pods, cubbies, open spaces.  The focus is to offer our community a chance to experience good design – building and design should be inspirational. 

Living Food

Our focus is to feed the whole body – not just fill the mind.  Living food is focused on nutrition and well-being by using ingredients that are home-grown and natural. Living School adopts these principles in developing ‘free-range’ kids: offering space, nature-based learning, and the opportunity to garden, play and explore the natural environment. Our focus is not to indoctrinate but to instil conscious understanding to evoke responsibility in the individual’s choices.

Living Well

Learning how to live well is vital. Wellness (also described as mindfulness) is a positive state of being. It is about living in the moment, conscious of our sub-conscious. With awareness we are able to manage our emotions, behaviour and reactions. Living School emphasises wellness by incorporating programs such as meditation, yoga, nutrition and positive psychology. As defined in the Somatic theory: intelligence is not happening in the brain alone.

New Model of Learning and Teaching

Living School is different – we view the future through a progressive lens. We adopt a new vision on how to teach with impact to empower and engage. We focus on the learning process: forming connections to think of the bigger picture; mastering concepts to understand; and learning in context to experience.

Real teaching focuses on what really matters, the bigger picture beyond the subject content knowledge: how do we soulfully, with great care, wholly influence a person’s development positively?

As educators, how do we prepare the seeds for a positive relationship? How do we teach to the personal needs of each learner under our care?

Personal learning means we ‘know’ our students. There is a difference between personalised learning and personal learning: personalised is what we do to them as individuals; personal is what they need to do for themselves.

Living School has purpose – and plans around frameworks to balance interest-based learning with challenges.

The basis of learning is to take a concept, make it resonate so the understanding is amplified. This involves elaboration: exemplifying the importance in real-life contexts.  Within this understanding must be balanced awareness of a learner’s maturity.  Living School adheres to biophilia principles for our younger students, meaning it is vital we teach children to love nature before we start informing (and frightening) them on climate change, pollution, extinctions and other environmental fears for the future, which are coined as ecophobia.
We are organised around the 3 Threads Frame.  The first thread focuses on engaging learners by integrating subjects to address our five KeyStone themes (Connections) in a large block of time.  The second part of the day is our Concepts thread – where the specific subject concepts in English, mathematics, science and technology are targeted to develop mastery. The third thread is the Context frame – where we develop purposefully hands-on activities (on and off site) to contextualise learning.  Our aim is to give all students the ‘aha’ moment – where learning ‘makes sense’ in the real world.
 

If you would like to explore more, navigate through our Pedagogy section on the main menu.

The Five KeyStones for integrated learning.

Our curriculum integrates throughout the schooling years attention to explore five KeyStones.

Understanding these themes provides our students with a broader awareness, a greater consciousness of awakefulness.

Train of Thought

Living School emphasises the belief our environment is the ‘third teacher’.  We converted our 1928 ‘red ratter’ into a science, design, technology centre.

All our spaces have a sense of wonder – we promote learning engagement!

Living School Lismore BaseCamp

The initial startup building.  However, Living School will offer expeditions, harnessing the local area as the broader campus.