This is a great school. I know that because it’s the school I wish I had when I was a child. I wish I could have learned here, grown here, and played here. It’s a place where children don’t just grow – they grow authentically. A place where learning is joyful, creative, and challenging in all the right ways from Kindergarten to Year 12.
We are different.
For far too long, education has been driven by the singular focus of teaching kids to know the answers. Since the Industrial Revolution, schools have been designed to train attention and memory, rewarding the ability to recall information. Answers are placed in textbooks, on PowerPoint slides, and eventually, on tests. We call this process learning. And when students get the answers right, they’re considered “smart.” Schools with lots of “smart” kids are deemed “good,” and they’re celebrated in league tables and ranked across websites like MySchool.
But is this what learning is really about?
The truth is, knowing answers is easy. What’s hard – and what’s far more valuable in life – is being committed to know how to ask the right questions.
EDUCATION FOR A LIFE WELL-LIVED
At Living School, we believe education isn’t about filling children with facts to regurgitate on a quiz. Plato didn’t think that either! Education is about helping children navigate life with confidence, empathy, and curiosity.
John Ruskin, an educational philosopher in the 1870s, spoke of the need to promote
“greater happiness and improved health by reconnecting society with the ennobling beauty of nature.”
Over 150 years later, this wisdom remains relevant. Education should be about finding joy in discovery, making sense of mistakes, finding belonging, and discovering one’s voice.
There are no “right answers” to life. There are choices, decisions, and challenges to navigate. Memorising facts might prepare you for a trivia night, but what prepares you for the unpredictable beauty and complexity of living? It’s not rote learning; it’s the ability to reflect, problem-solve, manage emotions, negotiate relationships, and adapt to new situations.
LEARNING FROM ADVERSITY
Russell, our incredible cleaner, summed it up beautifully during our Year 4 Kids Festival: “We learn from adversity.”
Such a simple statement, but within it lies the essence of what we’re striving to do at Living School. Developing strategies via experiences to navigate adversity teaches resilience. Mistakes teach humility. Challenges teach creativity.
I’ve seen the worst and best in people – myself included. Through those experiences, I’ve learned that discernment, the ability to critically evaluate and reflect, is the heart of true learning. Critical thinking isn’t about being negative; it’s about awareness. And awareness comes with responsibility – to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us.
“Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!“
– Carl Jung
TEACHING KINDNESS
At Living School, we believe in teaching our children to think, to reflect, and to regulate their actions through the lens of kindness. As Sophie in Year 1 so eloquently put it: “Kindness.”
Kindness is the filter through which we find goodness, make choices, and create meaningful connections.
It grows with social negotiation – establishing a moral code and strengthening our school culture.
This is why Living School exists: to teach our children not just what to think, but how to think. We aren’t interested in producing a generation of test-takers. We’re raising critical thinkers, problem solvers, and compassionate human beings ready to meet life’s challenges.
Thank you for trusting us with your children’s journey. Together, we’re building something truly special.
A final thought
We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it’s an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.