Overseas trips and high country hikes: How schools manage students’ most difficult year

Felix Hessel knew his year at Albert Park College’s dedicated year 9 campus was going to be good. But he didn’t know it was going to be this good.

“This year I’ve gone snorkelling in the bay with Australian fur seals and stingrays, I’ve seen beautiful things overseas in Borneo, and next week I’ll have a chance to work at the school cafe,” the 15-year-old said.

With an emphasis on the environment, humanities and community, Albert Park College’s pioneering Da Vinci Program is designed to keep its year 9 students engaged and connected at a time when they’re most at risk of drifting away.

“We deliberately shake it up and create a different environment which is a really important process if you want them to succeed in senior years,” principal Steve Cook said.

Instead of being given rules to run the school’s cafe, students are given the reins. Each of the 280 students work six days a year sourcing, preparing and serving meals and coffee.

Ditya Chaudhary, 14, said the cafe experience was timely given many students were looking for their first job.

“We get an insight into what a workplace feels like with all the pressure of cooking, cleaning and serving,” she said.

Under the program, predictability and routine is broken by trips to places as far away as Borneo and Cambodia during term three.

And once a week students head to Princes Pier where the historic Gatehouse building serves as their classroom.

“It’s a magical place,” Hessel said of the pier his grandparents landed at as Croatian migrants.

“I sit in the classroom listening to my teacher and outside there’s just this beautiful colour blue. And then at lunchtime we play cricket on the pier.”

The pier is one of Salome Umbach’s favourite places because it doesn’t feel like school.

“It feels like we’re just hanging out, and then we go back to the classroom and learn,” the 15-year-old said.

Known as the lost year, year 9 is the time when students are most at risk of becoming disengaged or falling into an academic slump.

Attendance rates for Victorian students in years 7, 8 and 9 are yet to return to pre-pandemic levels and are at the lowest levels among year 9 students.

Productivity Commission data shows the attendance rate for Victorian year 9 students dropped from 90 per cent in 2019 to just over 85 per cent in 2024.

It’s why schools design specialised programs for 14- and 15-year-olds. Tintern Grammar piloted part of its new year 9 program this year, ahead of a full rollout in 2027.

Principal Brad Fry said the program will see academic learning become intertwined with practical experiences such as city excursions and multi-day hikes.

Scotch College will open a new year 9 outdoor education campus near Mallacoota in 2028, while St Leonard’s College has just relaunched its year 9 experience following a review of its experiential education programs.

Among the changes made was extending students’ time away from 12 days to three weeks.

Principal Peter Clague, a trained outdoor education instructor, said students needed to be away for a minimum of three weeks for the experience to have lasting impact.

“We want to teach our young people about independence and being more co-operative and a bit more courageous,” he said.

“And it’s much more likely that those approaches to life and attitudinal changes will cement if they’re doing it over a longer period of time, especially given this is a seminal moment in their lives.”

Year 9 tuition fees at the college this year are $41,113, with the three-week interstate trip adding another $5500 to $11,500 depending on the destination.

David Loader set up Wesley College’s year 9 residential program, which opened in Clunes in 2000.

A former principal and now chair of the Institute for Educational Reform, Loader said while disengagement in the middle years of schooling was recognised, it remained an unresolved problem.

“Years 7, 8 and 9 is a really bad time in schools. Students may go, but they’re not really there intellectually,” he said.

However, he said programs which focused on social interaction, a strength of residential programs, worked best.

One of the state’s oldest residential campuses, Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop Campus, originally served year 10 students but became a base for year 9 students in the mid-70s.

About 120 students live together for the full academic year without television, the internet or mobile phones. Outdoor challenges, including a 33-kilometre “Timbertop marathon”, and chores such as chopping firewood are also undertaken.

Head of campus Ross Hopkins said the unique experience, which this year cost families $99,756, served students well.

“Otherwise, year 9 can just be a filler between those early high school years and then the important senior years,” he said.

Federation University’s Dr Josh Ambrosy said offering experiences at a formative stage of development were among the best ways to keep students engaged in their middle years of schooling.

“There’s long-standing recognition that year 9 is the year level where kids need a different structure. They need something that is going to engage them because of the life stages that they’re at,” Ambrosy said.

Outdoors Victoria chief executive Andrew Knight said the benefits of an outdoor experience didn’t require multimillion-dollar facilities, extended periods away or overseas travel.

“The outdoors is always great for students’ academic performance because of the resilience and teamwork skills that they have to gather to be able to work together,” he said.

“Nature really is the best classroom.”

– With Alex Crowe

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