Enrolments skyrocket at Aussie school going device-free
Updated . First published
Children and tech go hand-in-hand nowadays, not just at home, but also at school.
iPads and laptops are being used in the classroom more than ever before, but one school in Brisbane’s south is going back to basics, with traditional pens, pencils and paper more than enough to get the job done.
Krystal Cotterell teaches at St John Henry Newman College, where students learn without the use of devices. Today
It may seem like a step backward but in a world growing more comfortable with AI and screen time, families are lining up for a spot at St John Henry Newman College, in Tarragindi.
“We’re not anti-tech, we are just making sure that technology is used as a tool in the future and when they are this little in primary school, they don’t need it yet,” St John Henry Newman College teacher, Krystal Cotterell, told Today.
“We want children to be able to succeed and thrive after school, but we want them to always be lifelong learners and so you can’t be a lifelong learner if you don’t enjoy education and that is the goal, first and foremost is that they love learning.”
Dr Kenneth Crowther is principal at the new independent Catholic school and he explained to Today’s Mia Glover why his faculty members are specialising in classical education and low-tech environments.
“We really think that training attention is one of the first and most important things that schools need to do,” he told Glover.
“The distinction we make is that we learn about tech, we don’t learn with tech, so tech in its right place - there’s no reason that you have to use a laptop in a year three grammar classroom.”
St John Henry Newman College in Brisbane has seen enrolments soar since implementing device-free learning. Today
Crowther explained it took five years of gaining accreditation, finding the right teachers and putting the feelers out to see if anybody was even interested in this form of education.
And it turns out plenty of people are.
Interest from parents in Queensland’s south-east has gone through the roof, with some families commuting over an hour to attend the school and prep enrolments already booking out until 2031.
“I receive interest and emails from people wanting to start schools like this all over Australia,” Crowther said.
“Every year we add a year level, so we’ll have year four, then five the year after and those classes will get a little bit bigger as they go on.
“We’ve got interest from people who want to join those classes in the future years, but then next year’s prep will be 20 to 22 and it’ll stay like that - so we just go all the way up and we’re looking for a secondary campus... we would like to go to year 12.”
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