Despite a ‘damning’ report, the alternative education system still works wonders with students outside the mainstream. What it needs is more money and commitment.
Many young people drop out or are excluded from mainstream schools.
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Fragmentation, inconsistency and a lack of accountability between alternative education providers means not all young people get access to a good education.
Ready to read but playing catch up.
Pupils reading via wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
A recent storm has emerged over reports of secret government memos detailing complaints of bullying and racism at Steiner schools in the UK. Steiner schools, built around the philosophy of Austrian educationalist…
A summer with Mr Drew for all excluded boys?
Channel 4
Mr Drew’s School for Boys, currently showing on Channel Four, illustrates in graphic detail the kinds of behaviour that causes trouble in school. Eleven boys under the age of 12 who have either been excluded…
Increasing boys’ confidence by letting them focus on something they want to do offers a strategy to reengage them with school.
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Garth Stahl, University of South Australia and Pete Dale, Manchester Metropolitan University
Since the 1970s, a panic about “disaffected” boys underachieving in formal schooling has gripped Western society. Despite efforts in Australia like Boys: Getting It Right and the UK Raising Boys Achievement…
Al-Madinah school in Derby: making news for all the wrong reasons.
Rui Vieira/PA Wire
Each new administration tends to try to improve compulsory education by introducing a new and purportedly better type of school. The current government has at least three, and is pushing vocational schools…
Teenage VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning) students Nat (left) and Jordan credit VCE alternative scheme for giving them a future.
AAP/Jane Vashti Ryan
More than 33,000 disenfranchised young Australians are taking part in at least 400 “non-conventional schooling” programs, according to the largest ever national survey of students who have fallen out of…