Cade Lucas
With its booming population, Wyndham has had plenty of new schools built in recent years, but none like the one about to begin construction in Werribee.
On Friday the first sod was turned at the site of the new Hester Hornbrook Special Assistance School which will cater for young people who’ve experience trauma and become disengaged from the mainstream school system.
Established by the Melbourne City Mission, Herster Hornbrook operates a number of free independent schools throughout Melbourne, with 450 students enrolled across its campuses in the CBD, Prahran, Sunshine and South Melbourne.
The Werribee campus, which is due to open in 2025, will provide secondary school education to 210 young people aged 15 to 25.
Incoming principle Sally Lasslet explained why such schools were necessary.
“We’re a special assistance setting and that’s for students who have diagnosed emotional and mental health needs,” Ms Lasslett said.
“So they may have experienced family violence, they may have experienced death or be from refugee communities or might simply be suffering from social anxiety and really struggle to set foot into a big traditional education space.”
With this in mind, Heston Hornbrook campuses bear little resemblance to a normal schools.
There are no corridors, no rows of desks in classrooms and the students wear name tags instead of uniforms.
And rather than just relying on a single teacher, each class is assigned a trio of multidisciplinary professionals.
“We have a teacher and youth worker and an educational intervention specialist in each classroom.” Ms Lasslett said.
“So for example, our teacher teaches the curriculum, our youth worker deals with any barriers or wellbeing issues that prevent a student from coming to a classroom or from functioning properly in the classroom. And then our educational intervention specialists build capacity in literacy and numeracy.”
The school’s curriculum has also been designed to cater for Wyndham’s employment need,s with retail trade, health and community services sector and trade apprenticeships identified as areas students are likely to find job opportunities.
Students can be referred to Hester Horbbrook by other schools or agencies and self-referrals are also accepted.
However, to be eligible, the student must have been disengaged from a formal education or employment setting for a least 10 weeks.
