TV

[00:00:07] Kylie Speer: Hello and welcome to The Educator TV. I'm Kylie Speer and joining me today is Jeff Davis, Executive Head of Hillcrest Christian College. Hillcrest has been named as one of the winners of The Educator 5 Star Innovative Schools for 2025. Welcome to you Jeff, huge congratulations and thank you so much for joining us today. 

[00:00:32] Jeff Davis: Thank you, Kylie. It's wonderful to be here. We're certainly very proud to achieve this award and looking forward to sharing with people about the reasons why we were able to gain it. It's just a fantastic award and thank you for introducing us. 

[00:00:45] Kylie Speer: Well, firstly, Jeff, Hillcrest is recognised globally for innovation. What core principles guide your approach to reshaping traditional schooling models and how have you applied these within Hillcrest's learning frameworks? 

[00:01:01] Jeff Davis: Kylie, that's a really good question. And we've got people from all around Australia and globally coming to take a look at the different and innovative approach we have to learning. One of the things we identified 10 years ago was that education needed to change. The world was changing so quick. And so we started to do a lot of research on what was the most important outcome students would need in 15 years time. That was at the start of the AI race. That was the start of where we began to see the whole world changing in terms of what people would be doing in the world of work in the future. And so we took a look at that and we started to focus our research on emotional intelligence. And one of the big things we learned is the holistic view of teaching just for an academic outcome was pretty old fashioned. And what we needed to do is take a more holistic view of what education could look like from a child. So emotional intelligence, how they responded to different situations, well-being, so how they looked after themselves and cared for themselves. Things like, you know, we identified very quickly that social media was a real problem. And also getting a set of values. Establishing values within a child gives them a framework where they can make great decisions. And so we looked at that triangle, if you like, where we had students who knew how to respond to different situations, who could look after themselves and make great decisions. When that foundation was built, we started work on the academics. So we saw this incredible shift in how our students performed because they were stable, they were confident, they were capable, and that changed the whole school. And that led to a whole series of innovations, which has been the exciting part of our development over the last 10 years. 

[00:02:39] Kylie Speer: You've championed several forward-thinking initiatives across the college. Which innovation has had the most transformative impact on student learning? and what made it so powerful? 

[00:02:53] Jeff Davis: That's a great question Kylie. There's many innovations we have here but the Year 9 Rice Project is perhaps the most important and that's because we know that students in Year 9 really don't learn a lot and so we can take the curriculum from one year, we can put that into a beachside location, we can do marine biology, we can do surf life-saving, we can do all the contextual things that we need within that environment. And so like the run project is a beautiful project where the kids actually learn to run five kilometres in 30 minutes. Now, that was the standard 15 years ago, but our students these days, they can work with their fingers, but they can't work with their legs. And so the mathematics, the physical education that comes out of that, that all of the different things that comes out of that single project make a difference. One of the things that I always talk about is that our students, we take them up to the fourth floor of the Strand Shopping Centre where we have our classrooms. And then we say to them, we'll meet you down on the beach in 10 minutes. And they're left to their own devices to get down there. And so what happens is you've got 160 kids who are actually now got to move from the fourth floor down to the ground floor. They head off to the elevators. And of course, when they get there, all of a sudden, they're the slowest elevators known to mankind. And so they have to then reassess their thinking. So they race over to the stairs and the escalators, and then they run into the little old ladies who have got their shopping trolleys who were not interested in 160 kids being in the road or the mum who's pushing the pram with three toddlers and they're not interested in 160 kids. And then even the concept of crossing the road, you know, no truck driver who's doing delivery wants to wait for 160 kids to door in front of him. And so all of a sudden the decision making is having to change. These students who are 15 years old have got to realise that they're part of the world. They are part of everything that goes on, not the sole focus of it. And so we're seeing this incredible growth in their emotional intelligence because they're responding to different situations. You know, I always look at the fact that, you know, I've got 2,000 plus students who come here on a daily basis. Everyone who works here creates a learning environment so our kids can thrive. Put them into a shopping centre, it's totally different. Nobody wants them there. And so their response, their emotional response to that needs to be, so how do I fit into this? This changes their grades. And in doing so, as they become more responsive and more responsible, they're able to actually get a firmer idea of where they're heading in the future, what their future aspirations and goals are. This changes them. And that's the exciting part about the RISE program. They come back to school ready for years 10, 11 and 12 like never before. Matter of fact, the person who's the head of our Pathways program took me aside and said, I have never met students like this. They're so determined. They're so focused. They're so committed to what they're doing. Everybody needs to do this program. So we're very proud of our RISE program. 

[00:05:47] Kylie Speer: Jeff, modern education demands adaptability. How do you ensure Hillcrest stays ahead of emerging trends, particularly in digital learning, personalised pathways and future-ready skill development? 

[00:06:04] Jeff Davis: Another great question, Kyle. I don't know where you're pulling these from, but this is fantastic. Look, if you take a look at AI and you follow the AI trend, we'll know that three days is a long time in AI. And so what we've got to do is we've got to start looking at the future and start trying to extrapolate what we know now. And so we've got people, and I'm commissioning a lot of my staff to follow ideas that we've built and so that they can actually bring back AI and other emerging technologies into our classroom. You know, one of the things that we're taking a look at now is role marking is, okay, so we do that by hand and it takes five minutes a day or each class takes five minutes. How can we do that better using AI? And then we take a look at correcting. Now, the most important role of a teacher is actually to teach. correction, preparation, all those sorts of things are important, but they can be augmented really well using AI. And so what we're able to do is maximize the amount of time that our teachers can spend with the students, which maximizes learning outcomes. Being able to augment what we do through AI means that we're able to access a lot of resources that teachers haven't ever thought of. And so the quality of the lessons, the quality of the corrections and so forth are actually becoming a lot more accurate than they were in the past. This is really evolutionizing how our students learn. It's a student learning experience, which is the most important. So if you focus on that and you start bringing in all these other technologies, you can really change the way that our students succeed. 

[00:07:39] Kylie Speer: Shifting educational culture can be challenging. What barriers have you had to overcome when implementing change and how have you brought staff, students and families on the journey? 

[00:07:52] Jeff Davis: It's one of the great anomalies that, you know, the actual education system was formed back in the 1700s. The reason why we still have classrooms with 25 kids lined up in rows and the teacher at the front is because the majority of teachers actually sat in the front row of their class in year 12. And so if you go back and you think about your experience in year 12 and you think about the students who sat in the front row of your classes, you'll probably say that about 75% of teachers sat in that front row. And so they've got this view about what schooling could be like. So changing how we actually view education, changing the way in which we develop it, means that we've got to really work hard with our teachers to get them to see the advantages of moving to a different format. That's not easy. Building a culture, building the expertise, building the quality understanding of this has taken a long time. And it's a continual process. So we invest very heavily in teacher development so that they can get access to the latest AI and they can play with it and they get expert help. And so then we encourage them to fail. One of the biggest things in education is that everybody just wants success. And the only way you can actually get success is to drop the bar to a point that every time you get there, you can jump over it. If you think of a high jump, the higher up you go, the more chance you've got of failing. And we talk about, we want people to fail. When they've failed, they've reached their limit and we can help them. And so we call it learning, learning through FADJA, and we encourage our teachers to actually be really different. Try something that actually enhances that learning experience for our students. Takes a long time to get there, but we're really pleased with the culture we've developed at our college. 

[00:09:32] Kylie Speer: And finally, Jeff, looking ahead, what bold changes do you believe the education sector must embrace in the next decade? And how is Hillcrest positioning itself to lead that shift? 

[00:09:46] Jeff Davis: That's another great question, Carly. We are at Hillcrest trying to make a significant difference in the landscape. So we've just announced our plans to open the Village Art Christian School, which will be in Munterabah. The advantage of our school is it's a dual strength, so it has a morning class and a late morning class. In doing that, we're able to offer an independent school with virtually free education to parents. The compromise is that we have, you know, 7.30 to 12 o'clock and 11 to 3.30. In doing that, what we're able to do is we utilise our facilities. We can build brilliant facilities, but we utilise them twice. So in terms of an economic perspective, that gives us a 31% EBITDA, which means from a financial point of view, it's the most economic school that's running in Australia at the moment. From a facility point of view, we're maximising the use of our facilities. From an educational point of view, we've got teachers who are now getting paid close to $200,000 a year. Teachers are always up to more money. They've got to do a little bit more work, but this is a fantastic boom for teachers as they can actually earn the money that they've been desiring and deserve for some period of time. And so this innovative approach allows our parents to have a different work environment. Many parents can choose private education without having to compromise their family situation or their financial situation. We're also able to then create a whole different learning environment. So the learning environment we're trying to create is very Montessori abridged. We're going to have three teachers in larger classrooms and see how that goes. And we've got this whole innovative approach to what that looks like. We've also just announced in the media that we're building a $140 million sports stadium with some of the most elite sporting codes in the world being partners. The opportunity there for our students to actually develop career pathways from as early as year seven towards professional sport, not just a sportsman, but there's so many jobs, there's marketing, there's allied health, all these different other jobs. So we can tailor programs for them to move that way, which is really important. And finally, we run one of Australia's largest virtual learning environments. So we have a virtual learning community, which is absolutely unbelievable. Our kids are incredible. They're learning at rates we've never seen. And so we believe that that virtual learning environment combined with the school environment, so maybe a hybrid model, will be something in the future, I think, that particularly senior kids are going to move towards. So, we've got a foundation for that to occur where we can have students maybe on site for three days a week, maybe off site for two days a week, and allowing our students to have flexibility in what they're doing so that they can pursue their other passions, dance, drama, sport, you name it. We're trying to create that flexibility. The concept that one size of schooling fits all for everybody, it's fairly integrated. The world's a very different place. 

[00:12:39] Kylie Speer: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Geoff, and congratulations once again on the incredible year Hillcrest has had. 

[00:12:48] Jeff Davis: Thanks, Kylie. It's just been wonderful to talk to you and it's been wonderful to talk to the audience too because we love what we're doing here and we want to share what we've done to help others aspire to being innovative and creative in their environment. 

[00:13:02] Kylie Speer: And thank you, of course, to our viewers for watching the latest episode of The Educator TV. We look forward to seeing you again soon.