Pioneering Education at Woodline - Foregrounding Children's Emotions (Ep 3)

Pioneering Education at Woodline -  Foregrounding Children's Emotions (Ep 3)

In this episode of "For Your Ears from the Early Years," host Lili-Ann interviews Claire Bartlett, the pioneering first principal of Woodline Primary School. Claire discusses her unique approach to integrating emotional well-being with learning, drawing from the Reggio Emilia philosophy and experiential learning methods. She explores how creating a supportive environment helps children navigate their emotions and become ready to engage in their educational journey. I'd like you to tune in to understand how innovative leadership can transform early childhood education.

Transcript

 Episode 3: Pioneering Education - The Woodline Primary School

Lili-Ann Kriegler: Welcome to For Your Ears from the Early Years, the podcast that brings you inspiring voices from early childhood education. Join me, Lili-Ann Kriegler, your host, for a weekly dive into fresh perspectives, valuable knowledge, and motivation to enrich your earliest journey, brought to you by Crigler Education.

Lili-Ann Kriegler: Our guest today is Claire Bartlett. Claire is the principal of Woodline Primary School, and she'll tell us all about it. Woodline is a pioneering school that works with children's natural rhythms. Welcome, Claire. It's so lovely to have you on this podcast today.

Claire Bartlett: Thank you, Lili-Ann. It's always a pleasure to talk with you.

Lili-Ann Kriegler: Our paths have crossed many times through both our careers, and I want to come and talk about your career in a little while. But I want us to start with Woodline. Every school has an identity, and it's usually reflected in its origin story. Can you share with us how Woodline Primary came to be and what inspired it to come into being?

Claire Bartlett: The origins of Woodline start with our founder, Melanie Austin. She’s a mum of three children. Her oldest child went to the local primary school, and it started off quite okay, but quite quickly it turned into him not wanting to go to school. He felt like he had to armour up for the day. He would go to school, he was told when he could eat, when he should be learning, when he could go to the toilet, and was taking orders all day. He would hold on to his feelings and do everything that was asked of him, and then when his mum would pick him up at the end of the day, he would have a big release of emotions. It wasn’t feeling good for him or for her, and she thought that this can’t be how education should be. Why is it so hard for some children to have to survive rather than thrive?

Melanie chose to homeschool him for a few years, and after doing that for a while, they decided they really wanted to build a school that met their values as a family. They realised their boys really needed social interaction and to learn to be part of a group and navigate those important social skills.

She talked to Lael, who is a director on our board. Lael became a co-creator with Melanie. Melanie was a client of Lael’s, and Melanie really thought that given Lael’s opinion and research on parenting, if we could bring that into the school setting, that would be amazing. Melanie had the resources to do it, and Lael had experience around what children need to thrive rather than survive. Together they brainstormed what their ideal school would be. Lael’s children also struggled at school and felt that they didn’t fit the mould, so together they brainstormed what children need to feel safe so that they can learn and thrive.

Lili-Ann Kriegler: It’s really interesting when parents or initiators are the ones with ideas for education. Many children are school-averse, so this is intriguing. One of the reasons why I was so keen to talk to you, Claire, is that I can elaborate on any partnerships that were instrumental in creating Woodline Primary School and how these shaped the school's development.

Claire Bartlett: I don’t know if I would call it a corporate partnership, but we’ve definitely had partnerships that have added value and been instrumental in guiding, coaching, and mentoring us through our development. The first one would be Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange (REAIE), which is the organisation that I first met you through. We have been really blessed with attending their network symposiums and conferences and having mentors come and guide us along the way.

Another important partnership is Independent Schools Victoria (ISV). They have been an amazing support to us right from the very beginning and continue to be to this day. Given our context and philosophy, we really value our local partnerships as well. We’ve connected with many local businesses that support us and that we support. People from Genuine, Koala Clancy, Story Dogs, Belong, and Mums Feed Me Geelong.

Lili-Ann Kriegler: That’s amazing. I would love you to list those if you would, and then we can add that information in the description of our podcast. I would like to know a little bit more about you, Claire. Your career and background obviously led you to be a person that Melanie would be interested in having as the principal of her school. So tell us a bit about your background and career.

Claire Bartlett: For me, it really started when I was a student at school. I was somebody who flew under the radar. I never really felt seen, heard, or valued by my teachers. I was a bright child. I got good grades and was compliant, but I don’t think anyone really knew who the real me was. When I got to secondary school, I lost my love of learning. Grades and marks really impacted that love of learning. You could put in an amazing effort and still not be good enough. When you’re getting that feedback that your best is not good enough, you end up asking, "Why am I trying?"

I didn’t get a great VCE result, but I was really passionate about teaching from a young age, and I think it comes from my love of supporting others. I see educators as being of service to the children, to each other, and to our communities. I’ve always had a passion for leadership in that time.

I volunteered at a school once I had finished year 12 so that I would be accepted into university, and I loved my experience volunteering. I really knew that’s where my heart was and I wanted to guide and inspire children to be the best they could be. After university, I’ve had a range of teaching experiences in government and independent schools. I’ve taught all years from foundation through to year six, but I’ve always somehow found myself in leadership roles. Whenever they became available, I’d always put up my hand. I was always wanting to help my team as much as I was wanting to help the children and felt that in a leadership role, I could have a greater impact. My husband was devastated when I left the classroom, saying, "Oh, but you’re such an amazing teacher and all those children that won’t have you as their teacher." But my reasoning for him was, "Yes, but the impact I can have is greater in the leadership role."

My role before becoming principal of Woodline was as a deputy principal of the Junior School, where I met you, and you were one of my beautiful mentors during that time. That school was Reggio-inspired, and I absolutely loved that philosophy and approach to education—the idea of respecting children and their rights, really listening to children, bringing in play, and letting the learning be guided by the children’s interests and wonderings. I was lucky enough to be approached for my current role as founding principal of Woodline, which was quite a scary leap to take, but I am so glad that I did and have no regrets.

Lili-Ann Kriegler: I 100% support that request from Melanie because she could see through it, and it comes so clearly through what you’re saying. Your passion for working with children and the emphasis on children’s sense of themselves and their emotions is evident. Learning doesn’t happen if emotions and cognition aren’t communicating. If they aren’t in step. Woodline is a unique school. What makes Woodline Primary School’s model unique compared to traditional schools? How does this focus on emotional well-being distinguish it from other educational settings?

Claire Bartlett: Our uniqueness is that we truly have well-being at the centre. Our whole philosophy is based around nurturing and supporting children first and knowing that if they have strong well-being, the learning will come. I agree that children can’t learn if they don’t feel safe. For us, it’s about creating a beautiful, inviting, nurturing environment so that the children feel safe upon arrival. Things like lamps, rugs, blankets, cushions, and lots of beautiful soft furnishings. We focus on engaging the senses, so there might be nice calm music and essential oils burning. Another big focus is connection. One of our core values is always coming at relationships first.

We focus on allowing children to feel emotions and building their emotional literacy so that they understand what emotions are, how their body reacts when they’re feeling certain emotions, and what they need to move through it and come back into balance. Our team is dedicated to really listening and holding space for feelings so that a child can shift it and be ready to engage with learning and be part of the group.

Another big part for us is our intentionality with language. We call our teachers guides, talk about learning rather than work, and refer to our classrooms as learning spaces, which reflects the idea that learning happens everywhere, not just in the classroom. We call our IT staff team, highlighting that all our educators are part of a team. We’re always inviting the children in rather than making demands. We don’t believe in rewards or consequences, so we aim to develop an intrinsic love of learning and build on the children’s natural curiosities and wonders.

We provide choice and autonomy in their day and learning where possible and focus on our team’s well-being. The board looks after me because they know that if they look after me, I have the space and energy to hold for the team, which benefits the children. Family involvement is also vital. For children to thrive, it needs to be a wrap-around approach. We invite families into learning spaces and experiences and help them on their journey with parenting as well.

Lili-Ann Kriegler: There’s an incredible emphasis on these core values, but they aren’t just terms. I can see that they’re being lived out and they’re fundamental to the practice. It’s inspiring to hear how you’re translating this philosophy into everyday practices at Woodline. 

00:19:31Speaker 2

For us is our connection to place and being respectful custodians of the land. And so, rather than talk about your levels, we have names for our groups. For example, our foundation group ADYEN, which is the font group which the children are involved in. So the Wadawurrung Country names that have been gifted to our groups will follow that group throughout their time at Woodline. So rather than them go up a year level and their name changes or their learning space changes, they have that name and it's that beautiful sense of connection and belonging to that group and that name.

00:20:05Speaker 1

Listening to you, you know it's a very, very child-centred place where the children come in and they feel heard, and they have incredible opportunities. And often, I think when people hear that something is child-centred, they think that the children are entirely their 100% leading the pedagogy, but you sound as though you've done an enormous amount of research in the background. The planning, the combination of ideas, and I use the word structure, but structuring the environment so that children can operate in this particular way takes a lot more thought, perhaps, than a lot of people realise. And it's a very all-encompassing philosophy and you can see how the values are alive in that. So I know that the values that you list on your website are the sense of connection, which you've described beautifully, and environmental responsibility. And it sounds like it's not just environmental responsibility for sustaining the environment but responsibility within the entire school, so being aware of other people, respecting parents in this environment, sustainability is more than just, you know, nature. It seems like there's human interaction.

 It's a different kind of ecology that I'm hearing from you. Then the openness to hearing the children. I love that you mentioned that project about the treehouse, because I think a lot of people think, how do you translate this? How do you do all this? And actually, where the children are learning something. but the treehouse project has really shown how, and people will ask this question,  how the different subject areas are being honoured. And how children are learning some of the traditional things. And I'd love you to list for me the literacy and math things you're doing, because people will be interested in how you integrate that into this very open, beautiful curriculum. Then this sense of wonder and curiosity. I am intrigued. I would love to be a fly on your wall every day to see what the children are doing and how they are being inspired by what's around them. And finally, just being aware, as we are these days,  of the First Nations.  I love the idea that the group, not the space, has the name because I think that's building identity, and it comes very clearly through your culture that children are gaining an incredible sense of identity. It's just music to my ears. And I thank you so much for sharing all of that. 

Now, were there challenges along the way? Did you find that there were things that you grappled with, found hard or thinking ahead? Have you managed to negotiate these challenges fairly well?

00:22:57Speaker 2

There have been many challenges. Building a school is not easy, and it is not for the faint-hearted. We talk a lot about the learning and unlearning that we've all had to do because we've all come from mainstream, traditional schooling backgrounds. But the first challenge was that our local council wouldn’t approve of our land being used as a school. So we were planning to open in 2020, but we could not get it past the council. 

But in the end, that was an absolute blessing because 2020 was the year of COVID. So if we had opened that year, we would not have survived. So we all look back at that, and it was a really lucky thing for us. So we ended up opening in 2021. However, COVID was still around and alive and well in that time. So that was a really tricky time because we were new. We were trying to build trust and relationships with our families, but then we were doing home learning, and then you were trying to do home learning that actually really honours your philosophy and your values and your way of being, which is really tricky. 

You know when connection is one of our core values and the value of play and all of those pieces. So we would put together learning packs for the children that would have clay in it and paints and so still trying to really honour all of the 100 languages as well as all of the literacy and numeracy. 

That was really important as well. And we really felt there's a saying that we felt we were building a plane as we were flying it. So we were open, but we still had so much work and organisation and planning and preparing to do while we were open. So that first year was really challenging too, because we really didn't know where our boundaries were. 

So, while we were all about feelings and welcoming, everyone had bought a lot of feelings because of the time that we were in, and so it was really a case of, well, what's ours to hold, what's ours to support? What's the families to own and how do we navigate this? Because all of our founding families, which we're all grateful for every single one of them. But they all came with their own ideas of what the school should be or should be, and we were also trying to hold true to what the original vision was as well. 

So lots of competing opinions and ideas. But we really navigated it, I believe, with integrity and held true to what this Line is all about. And then something that we've had to navigate over the years is really ensuring that our families and our team members are aligned because I think as you alluded to before, the idea of our school, it's very idealistic. I think educators might think that it would be a really easy place to come and work at because they would be playing, it would be all about emotions and going with the flow. 

But the reality is there is an incredible amount of planning and preparation that goes in behind the scenes. It's very intentional, very purposeful, to deliver what we're delivering, so really making sure that the educators we were getting were understanding that they were going to have to work hard and they were going to have to be really dedicated and that we are still building a school and they are a part of that. And so, everyone has to roll up their sleeves and just jump in wherever it's needed, but then also for our families, we need to really refine our enrollment process as well to ensure that they are aligned. They were willing to do the self-development work and the work that was needed to also support what we were doing with their children and their well-being and their emotions.

00:26:46Speaker 1

It is very important because, as you mentioned earlier, we've all been traditionally educated. So we all imagine we know exactly what school is and what it should be and we judge it according to what inspired us or what made us all of us. So yeah, I imagine all parents would come with lots of different opinions. But you know, the word that I think is probably the most valuable and valid there is the word integrity. So. You can't have integrity to something if you haven't thought it through very, very carefully. It  can't be diffused. It has to be known to have the integrity. You've had you talk about going through these stages. Have some significant milestones and accomplishments have shaped the growth?

00:27:36Speaker 2

Absolutely. I think that really the big major milestone was actually opening. So it was, as I said, a tricky space and time for us to be in. I actually didn't start my role until term 4 before opening. So you can imagine the incredible amount of work that needed to be done in that. Them before we open in January and I was lucky I had an incredible team around me. I certainly haven't done it on my own and it's been a huge team effort, but we really were, I would say, hustling to get it ready in time. And that's also because of VR QA kept coming back with rectifications with our application. So you had to be the priority over getting, you know even the simple things about templates and our documents and all of those things ready. But I think I'm really proud of the growth that we have had. 

So we doubled in our second year and we doubled again in our third year. And have nearly doubled again in our 4th year and next year we'll be adding our 7th and final group. So that will be a beautiful milestone to go. OK, we have completed the primary school and now it's the really great time for consolidation and just ensuring that what we're doing is the best that it can possibly be. 

We have had an incredible amount of interest in our school, as you can imagine because we are doing something different and very needed. So because of the demands that we had and the interest that we had, we've started offering professional development workshops for educators because I just couldn't it. I had so many people reaching out, going. I love your school. I love you. For us, if you can, I come and visit and as much as we'd be able, you know, would love to be able to say yes to everybody. We just don't have the time to do that. So it's been really amazing. To be able to offer professional development for other educators who have come from all over Australia, we even had someone come from New Zealand, which was really exciting. Then a really exciting time for us with our first one of graduates last year. As I mentioned, there were four of our first year sixes, and it was a really special time for us. I really. I talked to the children about that. It was like a plane, like we've built the plane and we've made it. And this is the takeoff. Like you are the takeoff, but you are flying this plane, and we're all so proud of those children and I can't wait to see what they do in the world. 

And then finally, I would just have to say another beautiful milestone that we had recently, and it just happened actually on Monday, was that we received our official registration to be a secondary school. So we are so excited and we will be opening in 2025 as a high school as well. And that's just another dream that I will just look back and go. We did it. 

We've done it. And the more I say that is to keep that philosophy alive and well throughout that high school and all of those values that we have really guiding those young adults into a world and. They're going to be change makers. I have no doubt. And I'm so proud of all the work that we've done as a team to get us to where we are today.

00:29:54 Speaker 1: I talked to the children about that. It was a history-making time and that they will

be forever in our history and we look at our first few years in that way that everything is really a milestone and we'll be hopefully looked on in 100 years' time about the history that's been made in our first founding years. And then for us at the moment, the other milestone is expanding on our facilities. So all of the new buildings and new offerings that we can provide for the children.

00:30:20 Speaker 1: It is very pioneering work and we've used that word, I think, to describe this podcast. And you know, in Reggio Emilia, and you've spoken about it a lot. Children who experience the projects there well, usually from birth through to about maybe six years of age, so to me it's intriguing and I'm not surprised that there's this interest in what you're doing because you're extending it year by year to older children and giving them similar opportunities to integrate their interests, their talents, and their strengths into the learning that's being offered there, and that's rare. If there are very few schools where that philosophy is going up with older children, I am not surprised that you have been asked to and that you are offering the. And of course, they're going to be people listening who would like to know how to access that. So where and how would they get hold of you if they're interested in learning more about Woodline Primary?

00:31:25 Speaker 2: Well, if they jump on our website, they will get a lot of information there. But our big platform is Instagram. So there's three accounts that we run. And one is our Woodline Primary account. I've got an account where I've been documenting my journey as a founding principal, and we've got one called Connecting Woodline, which is our guide. So we try and showcase everything in the life of Woodline, and we share our offerings through that platform.

00:31:53 Speaker 1: That's incredible. Was you speaking about the children making history? And, you know, there's a lot of traditional values, deep values and going back all the way, as you've mentioned, to the First Nations. And then all the way through to the very modern technology of being able to document the journey on these platforms like Instagram, it's an incredible embrace. And I laud you for it. I think it's amazing work that you're doing. What would be your message for educators currently in the early learning sector, what do you want to tell them?

00:32:32 Speaker 2: Oh, so many things. I think the first thing for me would be to really establish a clear philosophy. And be really clear on your values as an educator and then really seek out to find a school that matches your philosophy and values so that it's a right fit for both parties. And I think we can all acknowledge that teaching can be challenging. I think especially as the years go on, it does seem the demands are higher and the expectations are higher. And teachers and educators are holding a lot. So really invite them to lean into the hardness, really focus on their own well-being, but to remember to find the joy and to remember their why. So there will be absolutely hard times where it's feeling overwhelming and too much. But if you come back to your why and your purpose, it really is the most rewarding profession. And I would love to remind educators what a privilege it is to form connections with children and to be able to guide them and to be, you know, a witness to that amazing growth and development that they have when they're such special precious young people.

00:33:41 Speaker 1: What a beautiful message. And what much needed much needed at the moment, because I think a lot of people are experiencing some strain in our sector. So that's why it's fantastic to listen to people who just bring so much passion into it. So future visions, how do you see the school evolving in the next couple of years?

00:34:02 Speaker 2: As I said, I think as of next year, it will be a few years of consolidating, but like with all schools, I think you're constantly evolving and growing. I really just hope we are responding to the needs of the children and our community. And really doing honouring the philosophy, the original vision and staying true to that and not giving in to the pressures from external people or businesses or governments around what they think schooling should be and really holding true to what we know is the best education for our children at Woodline.

00:34:39 Speaker 1: Yes, you're really circling back to the integrity of what you believe and keeping that foremost. Now I ask the interviewees on this podcast for a favourite quote that they think they'd like to share as well with the community. Do you have a favourite quote?

00:34:57 Speaker 2: This is your hardest question yet, Lili-Ann. I have so many favourite quotes, especially quotes from anyone that has anything to do with Reggio Emilia like Loris Malaguzzi. But the one that I decided to share, it's not one from Loris or anyone in the Reggio sphere but it's the quote, "Education is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of the fire." 

So for us at Woodline, that's why we chose the term guide as opposed to teacher. We don't see it as our job to take the knowledge that we have in our heads and impart that on our young people. We really see our job as to be co-constructors of knowledge and to learn alongside the children and to be the adults. Their job is to guide them through the learning and develop those beautiful personal skills needed to be successful, you know, to be collaborative and collegiate and a team player and all of those beautiful personal competencies. I think that also comes back to our focus on a sense of wonder and curiosity. We want to ignite that passion for learning in our children.

00:36:08 Speaker 1: Well, it's been a joy and a pleasure listening to you. We look forward to hearing more about Woodline in the future, and I'm sure you'll hear from a lot of people who'd like to learn more from you. Thank you, Claire Bartlett, the principal of Woodline Primary School.

Thank you, Lili-Ann