Category: Stories
-
Getting There Is Half the Lesson
Our lower primary class went to Manly Beach for a surf safety day. The teachers counted the bus trip as part of the curriculum, and they were right to.
-
Talking to Children About Bushfires Without Frightening Them
Some of our children had seen the fires on the news. Our teachers' account of how they handled that conversation is worth passing on to any Australian parent.
-
Four Students, a Shopping List, and a Balinese Recipe
The shortest story in our newsletter archive is also the most useful one. Four students, working on a project about Bali, organised a trip to the supermarket.
-
The Garden the Children Designed
Our primary students took on the courtyard garden as a project: layout, seed research, a going-out to buy what they needed, then planting. Down at the preschool, a class came back from the holidays to find their garden had become edible.
-
Cortés, a Cardboard Boat, and an Audience of Eight-Year-Olds
Our Year 5 and 6 students had one lesson on the Aztecs. They decided their response would be to write a play, build the props and perform it for the younger class. Nobody asked them to.
-
The Meeting Where the Adults Don’t Speak
Once a week our primary students hold a Community Meeting. One child chairs it, another keeps time, another takes the minutes. The teachers sit at the back.
-
The First Children to Leave
In 2020, thirty-eight years after the school was founded by a group of parents, Farmhouse farewelled its first ever Year 6 graduates. There were two of them.
-
Passports, Bus Timetables and Gyoza
In the Food Safari, students pick a country, research its cuisine, plan the expedition, catch the bus, buy the ingredients and cook for the class. The cooking is the reward. The bus timetable is the lesson.
-
The Night a Bandicoot Joined the Poetry Reading
Our students perform poetry and music on the grass at North Head each year, with the harbour behind them. In 2022 the evening acquired an uninvited guest.
Come and see a classroom in action.
Tours run on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.