Not sure where to put this but a great write up about the IFS in the Scum Herald..
The International Football School on the Central Coast is kicking goals
Damon Cronshaw
12 Aug 2016, 7:30 p.m.
James Quigley is 16 years old and loves school.
Sounds unusual, doesn’t it? That is, a teenage boy being passionate about school.
Something is happening at the International Football School at Kariong on the Central Coast.
A new way of approaching education has taken hold. Could this be an answer to teenage apathy and frustration?
James, of Eleebana, is among about 30 Hunter students who attend the school, which has been running for 3 ½ years.
Students spend about two hours a day playing soccer or tennis and four hours of regular schoolwork.
“It felt like a dream when I heard we could train for two hours a day at school,” James says.
The school uses a technique known as “project-based learning”.
James says this helps with comprehension.
“I love the school aspect of it – it’s more hands on,” he says.
The school takes a different approach to students sitting at desks and taking notes, while teachers talk.
“The way they teach, the projects you get – it makes more sense than writing lines and that kind of stuff,” James says.
“It helps get into your brain more and it’s more fun and enjoyable.”
James’s father Richard Quigley says it is “a miracle to have a 16-year-old boy who wants to go to school every day”.
“We’re over the moon, to be honest with you,” Quigley says.
“He’s happy.”
Quigley says his son “seems to have a broad knowledge and a deeper interest because things are taught slightly differently”.
“Everything’s intrinsically motivated. If you don’t do your work, you don’t train,” he says.
“They’re more likely to want to try harder because they’ve got a reason to do it.”
Quigley makes the point that many people have “gone through high school” without being engaged at all.
His son wants to be a professional footballer, but is also “looking at plans b and c, as well as trying to achieve plan a”.
“It’s not all about football, although it’s called the International Football School. The preconception is it’s about football, but that’s so far from the truth,” he says.
Quigley says the school is “genuinely working extremely hard not to disadvantage the kids in any way”.
Through that process, they are creating a better model than the old-fashioned way that remains in most high schools.
“This project-based learning model engages the child at a different level, at a problem-solving level.”
The school’s chief executive Paul Chapman says education research is showing project-based learning to be “the best way to engage kids”.
“That’s the focus of our approach at the moment,” Chapman says.
“That’s not to say we’ll necessarily be like that forever.”
The school will continue to reflect on what’s happening in the classroom. If it can do things better, it will change and adapt.
“For me, it’s really about creating an environment where staff and students can be the best they can be,” he says.
The school’s enrolment officer Damien Brown says the school adheres to Board of Studies requirements, while teaching in “an exciting way”.
“You’ve got kids wanting to do their work because they’re excited to learn about something they’re passionate about,” says Brown, a former professional soccer player with Central Coast Mariners and Newcastle United.
Academic work can be linked to football or tennis, under the project-based learning model.
“They can use their imagination and dreams of one day playing for the Socceroos, Man Utd or Barcelona,” he says.
This, for example, can involve being marked on English for a letter to the CEO of Barcelona.
“With the older ones in high school, it’s not just a pretend letter. They might have to send a letter to a company.”
One project involved students building toys from scratch for a charity and delivering them to children at a hospital.
“They had to write letters to proper authorities to get approvals to do that,” Brown says.
Chapman’s efforts in founding the school have earned him the label of “visionary” in some circles.
His experience working at other schools inspired him to follow a different path.
“Those schools didn’t really cater for kids who wanted to pursue an area of specialisation,” he says.
“The initial philosophy was about creating time during the day to allow kids to follow their passion.”
Chapman is a devotee of Stephen Covey’s book,
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
“His philosophy is around getting away from the victim mentality and being proactive,” Chapman says.
“That’s one of my personal beliefs.
“It does my head in when I see kids, adults, parents and staff blaming other people for whatever decision they’ve made.”
He believes individuals are always responsible for their own actions “and the outcomes of those actions, be it positive or negative”.
“I challenge staff and students around that all the time,” he says.
Brown, now 41, was the first player to sign for the Central Coast Mariners for the inaugural season of the A-League in 2005.
He helped establish the link between the school and the football club.
In January, Trent Buhagiar became the first of the school’s students to sign for the Mariners. Brown presented Buhagiar with his first jersey.
It was a watershed moment for the school – a sweet reward for the hard work that went into its creation.
Central Coast Mariners CEO Shaun Mielekamp spoke at the time about the significance of Buhagiar’s signing.
“This is one of the proudest signings we have made since my time at the club,” Mielekamp said.
“This is a testament to the school, which played a crucial role in Trent’s rapid development towards the Hyundai A-League.”
The school’s football coaches include a host of former Mariners. There’s Patrick Zwaanswijk, Andre Gumprecht, Daniel McBreen, Adam Kwasnik and Brad Porter. Newcastle’s Joey Peters, who played 110 internationals with the Matildas, is also a coach at the school.
Brown, a qualified teacher, says many parents are looking for something different for their children’s schooling.
Parents want their children to “come home from school with stories that they’ve had a great day”.
“They know their child has the potential to be happier. In most situations we can provide that,” he says.
Quigley believes the school’s students have a level of maturity that is “different to a lot of high school teenagers”.
“These kids don’t feel the need to rebel because it’s more of a partnership than a dictatorship,” he says.
“It’s a way forward, especially for boys and students who like hands-on work.”
The school sought to move away from outdated notions of education, oppressive rules and institutionalised discipline. Rigid, stern and hardline approaches had been discarded to the dustbin of history.
“That’s good because they’re treating the students like human beings,” Quigley says.
Brown says students need to show they are “making good decisions in their behaviour and attitude towards schoolwork and show that they’re focused”.
“You still have to be respectful,” he says.
But he says the school does things differently.
“If your uniform isn’t tucked in, you can’t get in trouble – we don’t have a uniform here,” he says.
Students aren’t “shut down in negative ways”, but encouraged to take responsibility.
“We have no fences here. We say to the kids, ‘there’s the boundaries, if you go outside those boundaries you’ll get in trouble’. We trust them to make the right decision and most of the time they do.”
Chapman says the school has a fundamental way of thinking about student behaviour.
“It comes down to whether the child wants to be there,” he says.
“Kids and people tend to break rules when their needs aren’t being met.”
If a student is misbehaving, the challenge is “working out what’s going on and what’s missing for them”.
The school includes about 300 soccer players, 50 tennis players and a dozen or so kindergarten pupils who do multi-sports. Years 1 and 2 are expected to be added to the school next year, fulfilling the aim of having grades from kindergarten to year 12.
Fees to attend the non-profit school are $5600 to $6800 a year.
The school is proud to have three full-time chefs. Healthy lunches are prepared for students each day.
“It makes a big difference to families – we see massive results in the classroom,” Chapman says.
“We don’t have issues with kids going to class not being able to think properly because they haven’t eaten properly.”
There’s no vending machines and the kids are encouraged to drink lots of water.
It almost sounds like utopia. Chapman admits he’s proud of what’s been achieved, but believes much more progress is possible.
“We’ll continue to strive to improve.”
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4...o-hours-a-day-of-sport-photos/?cs=305#slide=1