Parents start own schools in ‘woke teaching’ backlash

Twenty-two students enrolled in the conservative Hartford College, which opened in Sydney this year. The college is growing – and so is the start-up school movement.

Hartford College students Daniel Gray, Joseph Wong and Ben Mitchell.The college has only 22 students and is part of a movement of tiny schools springing up all over Australia. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian.

Rebel parents worried about “woke teaching’’ are starting up their own small schools, in a renaissance of “classical” education.

Twenty-two students have enrolled in the conservative Hartford College, which opened in Sydney this year as Australia’s “first liberal arts school for boys’’.

As more families drift away from free public schooling, start-up schools are mushrooming across the country, paid for through tuition fees, bank loans and federal government funding for basic running costs.

The Hartford College motto is “Dare to think. Dare to know,’’ and its ethos is to encourage students to “think outside the box, ask difficult questions and have courage in pursuing the truth’’.

Its chairman and founder is father-of-six Tim Mitchell, the solicitor director at Bay Legal in Sydney, who established the school with just 22 students in February after renting a spare building from the Catholic Church in the inner-Sydney suburb of Daceyville.

The school plans to grow to 200 students from Years 5 to 12.

“It was parent-driven – the idea was initiated in 2020 when people came together and thought it would be a much-needed initiative to have a school with a classical, liberal arts education,’’ Mr Mitchell said yesterday.

“It’s a Christian ethos, and an ethos of academic excellence and opening boys’ minds to great literature, philosophy and languages, as well as science and technology.’’

Hartford College employs six teachers, some part-time, specialising in traditional school subjects as well as French and Latin, music and philosophy.

The school complies with the NSW Education Standards Authority curriculum, but customises its own syllabus.

“Each boy has his own mentor who meets every couple of weeks for mentoring and advice,’’ Mr Mitchell said.

“Every term the parents have an hour to talk to the principal.

“Ultimately parents are the most important educators, and the school’s there to assist the parents.’’

Hartford College student Daniel Gray with his teacher Jenny Hoare. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian.

Parents are paying between $10,500 and $13,300 a year in tuition fees for boys in Years 5, 6 and 7, who are taught in small classes.

“We’re confident the school will grow,’’ Mr Mitchell said.

“It will be cash-flow positive in two or three years.’’

Parents Nathan and Tanya Brown chose the school for their 12-year-old son when they noticed a sign outside the new school building close to their home.

“The culture of the school appealed to us, especially the mentoring program for boys,’’ Ms Brown said.

“We liked the liberal arts curriculum and the focus on literacy for boys.

“We get quite a bit of feedback from the school – it’s not just about kids’ marks, it’s about how happy he is and his application to his studies.

“He’s found a good group of friends.’’

Hartford is the second start-up school for principal Frank Monagle, who was founding headmaster of Harkaway Hills College in Melbourne, a girls’ school set up by a dozen Catholic parents in 2016 to teach “traditional values’’ through the Parents for Education movement.

It now has 167 students between pre-Prep and Year 10, paying between $5225 and $9928 in tuition fees this year.

The school received $2.2 million in federal funding and $363,000 in Victorian government funding in 2021, equivalent to $13,000 per student.

Mr Monagle said he aims to integrate subjects, so that English lessons tie in with history or science subjects.

As an example, Year 7 boys studying Aesop’s Fables in English would study ancient Greece in history.

“I’ve found that subject teachers and departments within schools tend to be in their own silos so they haven’t a clue about what’s happening in other (subjects),’’ Mr Monagle said.

“We’re integrating the lessons as much as we can because boy react to the big picture – boys more than girls will ask, ‘Why are we learning this?’’

Principal Frank Monagle with students at the start-up school Hartford College. Photo Jane Dempster/The Australian.

In Brisbane, beer baron James Power is part of a group of six Catholic families planning to set up St John Henry Newman College, an independent school also in the “classic Liberal Arts tradition’’.

The parents hope to begin primary school classes in 2025, before expanding into a secondary school.

Dr Kevin Donnelly, the coordinator of a Classical Education and Liberal Arts seminar held in Sydney yesterday, said many parents resented the “woke ideology’’ taught in many mainstream schools.

“Throughout their schooling, students are indoctrinated with the belief gender and sexuality are fluid and limitless, that males are inherently violent and misogynist and that Western civilisation is oppressive and guilty of white supremacism,’’ Dr Donnelly, who reviewed the national curriculum in 2014, said.

“Unlike the national curriculum taught by existing government and non-government schools, parents are seeking a more rigorous and enriching education for their children.’’

Federal Education department data shows that 76 independent schools – separate from the Catholic education system – have opened since the start of the pandemic in 2020, including six so far this year.

Independent Schools Australia chief executive Graham Catt said enrolments in private schools had risen 3.2 per cent last year, educating one in every six students.

“It is interesting how much growth is occurring in small and low-fee schools,’’ he said.

“(They) are often new or small and offer specialised programs and support.’’