During an interview recently with a young student who attended a flexi-school in South East Queensland it emerged her daily trip to the school took 90 minutes (when the buses were on time). It also emerged that on the way to school she passed several other 'mainstream' schools - the closest of which was just a 5 minute walk from her home. So why does she do that - why put up with a long trip on an unreliable public transport system every day to get to her 'flexi-school', when she could stroll just a few minutes down the road to the local high school?

These are some of the questions that YANQ and researchers from the University of Queensland (UQ) and Griffith University (GU) hope to answer in a research project that began at the start of the year. The research is being supported and guided by an advisory group that includes youth workers, educators and researchers from youth services, flexi-schools, non-government schools as well as UQ, GU, and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

The aim of the research is to:

1. Identify the factors that allow 'flexi' schools and learning centres (which we'll call flexi-schools for now) to retain and re-engage young people who would otherwise not be engaged in education; and

2. To identify which of these factors are transferable to traditional schooling (and how).

Staff and students from five flexi-schools in South East Queensland have been involved in the research. Students and staff of those centres were recently invited to a workshop in which they could see and give feedback on the initial findings.

Initial Findings

Some common themes have already started to emerge from the research after just a brief analysis of the interviews with students. Keeping in mind that these are just initial impressions emerging from the data, here are some comments on what we've found so far.

First, we can say that the profile of a flexi-school student is a very diverse one, and that the reasons they maintain connections to flexi-schools related to the schools environment, the programs it offers and the style of teaching. Students who attend flexi-schools might be parents or they might be homeless or they may just prefer the way that flexi-schools teach them. They often have clear goals of what they want to achieve and might be looking for specific qualifications. Some students are returning to education after a long absence. Many prefer the smaller schools/classes and many did not like some aspect of their previous school. The age range of students is very diverse too - ranging from early teens through to early 20s.

While the backgrounds of the students was very diverse, one common element was the high ambitions and strong work ethic that many of them had. Many students were able articulate very clear strategies for achieving their goals. Many of the students also put a great deal of effort into attending school - some juggled work and/or caring responsibilities while others travelled significant distances to maintain their connection to learning.

Another common factor amongst the students was their identification of what they liked about flexi-schools and the factors that attracted them to flexi-schools in the first place. One such factor was the environment that flexi-schools created - in particular the following aspects of the environment:

• Flexibility. In terms of attendance and assessment deadline. one young person summed this up saying:

"Cause you get flexible hours here and stuff so if you're working then you can pick a day like you need to do subjects on, kind of thing. So if you working like on Wednesday or Tuesday's or whatever, just work the other days that you're not doing work here

• Supportive. A young parent for instance found that her flexi school accepted the fact she was a young mother, saying:

"The support, the fact that it has free childcare and I can actually do my schooling as well as be a parent."

• Respectful. The respect that students felt was also a big factor, both between staff and students and amongst students as well. For example:

"... I know that if my friends weren't here I could just go up to someone and say, ‘hi' and you know they'd like come back at you with respect."

• Positive. The positive focus of schools was also important, both in terms of young people feeling 'celebrated' (not just accepted), as well as a focus on educational outcomes and the sense of achievement that comes with that. For example:

"Mum's happy for me because she knew I wasn't the person who liked school and she thought I was going to become a failure and then I told her ‘Mum, I'm doing a course now and it's a lot better than school' and she's happy as for me yeah."

• Community. A sense of common purpose and belonging to a community was the other common factor that students identified. One student's comments on this were:

"The [school] does well, I think how they do the community group meetings and stuff, bringing everyone together and sorting out conflicts and everyone having their say. And these little meetings [are] a really good thing they do because it lowers the chances of anyone having any sort of fights or arguments so everyone has their own opinion - so it brings people together as a one community."

The other two areas that have been identified in the research so far as factors of success are the learning programs that the flexi-schools/learning centres offer, along with the method of teaching.

The variety of learning programs is clearly important. This includes the short term practical courses, longer term vocational courses as well as academic subjects offered as part of year 10 through to year 12. Students also enjoyed doing the other learning programs many of the sites offered, such as music, art, photography and life-skills courses among others.

The method of teaching is another key factor that students discussed. In particular students talked about enjoying more conversational (two-way) modes of teaching and the opportunities this opened to build relationships with teachers and other staff. Students also valued the hands-on, practical methods of teaching, as well as the opportunities they had to get one-to-one support from staff.

Analysis of the interviews will continue between now and the end of the year. The final report on the research will be published in 2010, it will include recommendations on how the factors of success that we identify can be incorporated by traditional schools so that all young people can benefit from a supportive, respectful educational environment.

For more information about tis project please contact David at YANQ on 07 3844 7713 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

This article was written by David Powell, based on a presentation by Prof. Martin Mills (UQ), Dr. Glenda McGregor (GU) and Dr Sandra Taylor in July 2009.