In the 1960’s and seventies, there was a worldwide interest in alternative schools or “free schools”. Fresh out of teacher training in 1972, and only 22 years old, I was fired up with enthusiasm. I spent six weeks in a Queensland High School, having numerous arguments with the Principal—the first being on the first day when I turned up without a tie! I finally resigned and, unemployed, sharing a room somewhere, I created a one-page manifesto about a different kind of High School. I went around teacher training institutions in Brisbane at lunchtime, got up on a box and shouted my vision.
Eventually a group from the University of Queensland heard about me and they became the Steering Committee while I became the Founding Director of The Orwell School in 1973… And behind all this activity lay a dream….
