The unique partnership between the Australian Science and Mathematics School (ASMS) and Flinders University has been included among world-leading models in innovative education by the Organisation for Economic Co-operative and Development (OECD).
The Year 10 to 12 specialist secondary school is located on the Flinders University campus, and staff from both institutions have collaborated in the development of curriculum, teaching and materials since the School’s inception in 2003.
Flinders University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Professor Andrew Parkin, has congratulated the ASMS on the OECD’s recognition of its innovative model of education.
“The co-location of ASMS with the University has helped to produce some excellent outcomes for ASMS students. The University looks forward to continuing with the ASMS on its pathway of innovation,” Professor Parkin said.
Mr Graeme Oliver, ASMS Deputy Principal, said the recent OECD report Innovative Learning Environments paid special attention to the fact that the ASMS is a whole school innovation, not just a project within a school.
“That is something special because it comes from the way the partnership with Flinders drove the development of the School in the first instance,” he said.
Mr Oliver said that from the beginning, the University had taken a “big view” of the School’s development.
“The ASMS was not developed simply as a feeder school, but as a means to achieving a greater benefit and greater good in science and maths education for the community.
“The ASMS has demonstrated that this can indeed come about.”
Mr Oliver said elements of the relationship with Flinders include a strong partnership with the University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, which connects ASMS with leading-edge thinking in areas of science.
“This is then incorporated into the curriculum to make it interesting and engaging for students,” he said.
“And our involvement with the University’s School of Education helps us work with our teachers on approaches to teaching. In return we have a significant impact back in the School of Education in developing programs.
”The aim is to make science interesting and attractive to a broad range of students, not just to be narrowly academically focused and selective.”
With a curriculum that involves the new sciences such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and sustainable futures, and learning approaches that favour “learning commons” over classrooms, the School has been at capacity enrolment for the past five years, with a current waiting list of around 100 students.
Students at the School travel daily from all over the Adelaide metropolitan area and several have relocated to Adelaide from rural areas and from Victoria and New South Wales to attend.
Mr Oliver said the School and its underlying partnership with Flinders are being used as a model for similarly innovative schools interstate and overseas.
“Over time, we have been getting very successful outcomes for students, raising the students to higher level of engagement in the schoolwork, in their learning, and in their pathways,” he said.
