School has room for improvement

FOUR teams of volunteers passed a two-day The Block-style challenge to each re-design and renovate a room at Berry Street School’s Noble Park campus last month.
The specialist independent school, which supports vulnerable children, issued the challenge to create a “re-energised” learning space.
The teams of up to 20 volunteers from Canon, The Hyatt Group, E&Y and GE armed themselves with architectural plans, colour schemes, tools and furniture to deliver their designated room.
Principal Robert Miller said his students deserved an environment that reflected the school’s “high-quality” curriculum.
“The young people enrolled at our schools are aged 12-18 and many have experienced trauma in the lives as a result of abuse, neglect and violence.
“Berry Street offers these students, who all have struggled in the mainstream school system, a chance at reconnecting to their education and teaching them strategies to become independent and autonomous learners in their pathway choices and adulthood.”
The school uses Berry Street’s model of ‘trauma-informed positive education’ to promote each students’ strengths and to build their capacity to recover from past trauma.