Three residential blocks in Berkeley are set to be developed into an alternative learning high school for disadvantaged and disengaged youth.
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The Wollongong Flexible Learning Centre (WFLC) currently located in Towradgi wants to expand south of Wollongong, with development plans currently before Wollongong City Council and on public display until Wednesday.
The site will cover 15 Middlesex Street and 28-30 Southampton Street. The architect's design shows they’ve taken into account the suburban location by providing visual and acoustic buffering like screening, fencing and planting.
If all goes smoothly the new WFLC is expected to be finished by the end of next year and ready for classes in 2017. It’s also hoped to expand from years 7 to 10 to include years 11 and 12 in the future.
Head of campus Kate Burrett said it’s great to see how the centre has grown from half a dozen students on the books when the school first opened in 2013, to three years later having 85 students enrolled and a relocation to come.
“I love the way we are able to develop relationships with young people,” she said. “There’s certainly a growing need for alternative education.”
The WLFC, run by the Edmund Rice Education Youth+ charity, opened to provide young people who have disengaged from mainstream education to continue their studies in a flexible environment. The new property will be rented to the school via the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong.
“[Our students] might come through their own enrollment, a member of their family might support them, their previous school or sometimes a worker from various community agencies or government departments might support them in their enrollment,” said Network Principal Chloe Hand.
The high school is operated on recurrent grants while pupils are not charged fees. They’re also picked up and dropped off by private buses to ensure they don’t miss out on education because of a poor or dysfunctional home life.
Ms Hand said they use various types of alternative education to empower, including the use of four principles to establish common ground - respect, participation, safe and legal, and honesty.
“We work with young people to support them and walk alongside them to make choices in line with those principles,” she said. “It’s a privilege to work in the way that we do … we’re not imposing decisions on our young people.”
Several schools in the Illawarra have specialist “support units” to assist students in similar situations, while there are a handful of stand-alone centres.