How Year 11 and 12 changed my life: New Norfolk student shares her inspiring learning experience

BRITNEY NELSON is a 17-year-old Year 12 student at New Norfolk High School. In her own words, she describes what extending her local high school to year 11 and 12 has meant to her life, and her future.

NEW HORIZONS: Britney Nelson is relishing the challenge of Year 12 this year at New Norfolk High School and plans to move onto UTAS next year. Picture: MATHEW FARRELL

I LIVE in New Norfolk and completed Years 7 to 10 at New Norfolk High school.

During those years I was a typical teenager, interested in many things but not especially interested in school.

I made my fair share of bad decisions and didn’t particularly plan, with a general lack of ambition for my future.

I didn’t go that well at school and I wasn’t sure if I’d go to college.

In the time before Year 12 started, I looked for full-time work.

My hope was to get a job as a dental assistant.

But it’s hard to get a job and I had no luck in finding work.

I decided, and it was a bit of a last option, to enrol in the new extension of New Norfolk High School, into Year 11 and 12.

In February last year, 16 other students and myself started as the first group of Year 11 students at the school.

It was hard to get used to at first; everyone had a clear, preconceived idea at what Year 11 at college would be like — no uniform, free lines and so on.

So to be doing Year 11 without any of that felt strange, unexpected.

And my attitude towards education stayed the same.

I continued to look for jobs. To be honest, I didn’t participate that much at school and made a limited effort in my classes.

Education after Year 10 was scary for me but New Norfolk High School having Year 11 and 12 made continuing on seemed doable, within my range. I only live a few blocks from school and going there wasn’t a big deal.

Sometime during Term One, I began to feel good at school. I started to enjoy the work, and started doing OK. I was encouraged to study at a high level and took on some Level 3 pre-tertiary classes.

It felt right for me. The class sizes were small and the teachers were caring. The classrooms were excellent. There were few distractions. My teachers not only extended my knowledge they, most importantly, helped me through my personal struggles.

School was a support system. It was always there: always warm, always supportive ... and even interesting.

The teachers saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. They believed in me, they helped me convince myself that I could do more and have a future that I never considered.

My attitude changed. Perhaps I was growing up. I started to think about finishing Year 12 and going to uni.

While I was still at school, I liked this version of school.

This year, I’m studying Level 3 psychology, sociology and philosophy.

The expansion of New Norfolk has met my individual needs and, thanks to the dedication of my teachers, it has changed how I perceive myself. It has greatly increased my opportunities for success.

I am thankful to say that I am on track to attend the University of Tasmania next year to study psychology. For me, growing up in New Norfolk, I feel that I have grown up in a rural community that can feel isolated. Most people I know resign to find career opportunities within the town.

I’m not sure what comes first; the lack of belief or the lack of opportunity. Either way, the cycle of disadvantage has gone round and round, on and on.

Close-knit community often creates a belief that can make broadening horizons appear negative.

The senior secondary expansion at New Norfolk High School has, for me, provided more than just hope.

It has provided the actual things I need to get from where I’ve been, and where I’d always thought I’d be, to where I’m going.

I recognise that there’s more than one way to complete Year 11 and 12, and there probably isn’t a right or wrong education environment.

There are different options for different careers and how an individual prefers to learn is subjective.

Having Year 11 and 12 at New Norfolk is an extra option, and a good option.

The learning environment is safe, comfortable and close to home. It’s supportive, it removes the hassle and is the type of school that works for me. Actually, I think it’s the type of school that just works.

I’m convinced that the things in place in the Year 11 and 12 at New Norfolk are good things for everyone.

I would like to see not only expansion programs, but education in general, to be more like this; to have environments that allow for individual needs to be embraced and to encourage young people to fulfil their potential.

Over the last 18 months I have discovered some of my talents. Before this, I didn’t know that I could think deeply and make connections between ideas and that these are valued skills.

During teenage years, young people’s talents are sometimes hidden or not valued by schools. All students need to be recognised for their individual strengths and encouraged, praised and made to feel confident.

Schools can learn from Einstein’s quote, where he said: “If you judge a fish on how well it can climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.”

This is a quote I believe in as it inspires me to be my personal best, not someone else’s idea of the best.

This was the keynote address provided at Education Transforms 2017 symposium dinner, held at Mona.