On the tram with inaugural Adelaide Botanic High principal Alistair Brown
EDUCATOR Alistair Brown admits that as the first principal of the new Adelaide Botanic High School he has been granted a rare opportunity. He tells Dan Jervis-Bardy about why he’s so excited.
Dan Jervis-Bardy: There are now fewer than four months until you’re standing at the first assembly at Adelaide Botanic High. Nervous?
Alistair Brown: I don’t think it’s nerve-racking, it’s just plain exciting. Because I have been involved in this for over a year, the first day is the point that you really want to get to. I’m starting to meet some of the students as they go through enrolments, which is starting to make it all feel real.
D J-B: You must drive or walk past the Frome St construction site quite often. Do you picture what it will be like when the classrooms and laboratories are full of students?
AB: We actually spent a day inside the school earlier this week. You just start to picture what you can do in there. Its design means it will be quite different to how a normal school might exist.
D J-B: How so?
AB: The school is on a postage-stamp space. It’s vertical, it’s on seven learning storeys. It’s different from the vertical schools of the past, where each level was a different year. Over the course of the day the students might move to two or three different levels or precincts. Also, traditionally, teachers are in classrooms that are quite separate from each other. Here, they won’t have a separate space for preparation, it will lead into student spaces.
D J-B: Can you talk to me about enrolments for 2019? What has been the level of interest from prospective students and parents?
AB: It has been significant. We ran some information nights and we had to hire the Bragg Theatre at Adelaide University. We ran that over seven nights and the theatre was full every night.
D J-B: And what was the feedback?
AB: The number one thing was the focus on future-focussed learning, bringing kids up to be part of a world that really is changing significantly.
D J-B: The location of the school is surely one of its biggest assets. What will be the relationship between the school and the nearby universities and other cultural institutions?
AB: It is probably as unique as you’re going to get. We’ve actually created a leadership position purely to develop those relationships. A great example will be having young people actually experience what careers look like. You won’t have to wait to step into universities to see what they might look like. Our kids will have direct access (to the universities), working with some of the mentors and getting real-world experience. We have to somehow shift (from the idea) that what happens in schools stays at school and what happens in the real world is the real world. We have to bring those two together.
D J-B: Do you feel any added pressure being the school’s first principal? How do you deal with that?
AB: One of the things that I have to do is work with our staff to give them the confidence to try things and know that some of them might fail. For me, it’s an opportunity that not that many people get. I’ve been involved in education for more than three decades – if I can’t draw on those experiences and make it work then I shouldn’t be doing it.
D J-B: Have you thought about what you might say at that first assembly?
AB: The key message will be just how fortunate this group of people are to be alive at this point in time, in this particular place and to have this particular opportunity.
D J-B: That’s a nice thought. Thanks, Alistair, and all the best.