Thrive with Purpose
Our High School program provides a four year curriculum designed to holistically prepare learners to make a positive difference in their world.
Green School High School students go into the world equipped to make change as well-rounded, skilled and knowledgeable global citizens who seek to live purpose-driven lives and have a positive impact on their communities. We aim to guide our students as they embrace their own personal learning journeys, share their passions, and to take responsibility for themselves as leaders within our school and beyond. We do this by asking challenging questions and identifying the complex interconnected systems and relationships impacted. Then through innovation and the lens of social and environmental justice, we create solutions and implement those solutions in the real world.
We celebrate a love for learning as a life-long pursuit, beyond the classroom, beyond the campus and beyond graduation. Together we provide every opportunity for our students to stand out from the crowd and maximise pathway opportunities. We provide courses that allow exploration, courses that encourage deep skill and knowledge development, and advanced level courses with specialised applied elements. Our High School has held and guided 10 years of graduates who are attending universities around the world, working in inspiring organisations, starting their own enterprises and finding purpose in what they do.
“We believe in the power of community in High School; our teachers and students embark on a learning journey together. Our High School nurtures a lifetime of curiosity, reflection, critical thinking and activation through discovery of what is meaningful to each one of us and how to act with purpose.”
HARRIETT BURROWS – HEAD OF HIGH SCHOOL
Our Learning in Action
THEMATIC LEARNING
Life cannot be compartmentalised into separate boxes, so why should learning be? Our curriculum addresses this by taking a thematic, interdisciplinary approach to the way we learn. For students, this could mean learning mathematics and physics by building a bamboo bridge over a river that passes through our campus. Or learning biology by exploring marine biodiversity, understanding our impact on it and developing solutions towards conserving and regenerating it.
We understand that each student learns differently, and our thematic units are designed to foster a deep love for learning in them. We have seen students thrive when programmes are designed to value their individual passions and they are empowered to lead their own learning journeys. This video is one example of our thematic approach to learning.
JALAN JALAN
These experiential programmes are curated with service, environmental and social impact at the centre. Students explore their passions and build strong connections with causes they feel deeply about. Courses are designed to help foster the Green School Skills, with a particular emphasis on adaptability, leadership, awareness, collaboration and creative thinking.
In one Jalan Jalan, our students visited restaurants and hotels across Bali to collect used cooking oil, which was then turned into Biofuel for our Bio Buses. The Bio Bus project is Green School’s very own green transportation system, kick-started by students and is a beautiful illustration of experiential learning, which goes beyond the normal academic routines. This is REAL learning where students work towards finding solutions to real-world problems facing our societies.
JALAN JALAN
These experiential programmes are curated with service, environmental and social impact at the centre. Students explore their passions and build strong connections with causes they feel deeply about. Courses are designed to help foster the Green School Skills, with a particular emphasis on adaptability, leadership, awareness, collaboration and creative thinking.
In one Jalan Jalan, our students visited restaurants and hotels across Bali to collect used cooking oil, which was then turned into Biofuel for our Bio Buses. The Bio Bus project is Green School’s very own green transportation system, kick-started by students and is a beautiful illustration of experiential learning, which goes beyond the normal academic routines. This is REAL learning where students work towards finding solutions to real-world problems facing our societies.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONNECTION
Understanding the environment is fundamental to the Green School experience and is explored throughout our Green School Skills. Our thematic learning enables students to ‘Think in Systems’ and identifies the connection between social and environmental justice, supporting students to gain an understanding of their voice, power and role in creating change. Environmental learning is threaded through courses and projects and is experienced day to day in where we learn, how we learn and what we consume. This awareness shapes sustainability mindsets as a springboard for activism, real projects that make a real difference and for instilling leadership in young adults. Underpinning this is a strong foundation of scientific learning and the Green School Values, nurtured in all our learners. From climate change to marine ecology, from the circular economy to botany, our environmental science courses are flagship offerings delivered by educators with deep expertise, with a deep commitment to nature and a values-based approach to life as our guide.
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL WELLBEING
We believe that a child’s wellbeing is as important as their academic success. At Green School, we seek to nurture within our students confidence, kindness, empathy and a joy for learning. We embrace the idea that sustainability starts from within and understanding ourselves as individuals – what we believe in, how we manage set-backs and how we find joy in all that we do – is a critical building block. Building on this are our relationships with others and our relationship with our incredible planet.
Students learn best when they are engaged, mindful and active. Our wellbeing programme (physical, social and emotional, mindfulness, and relationship education) skills students up as stewards of their own health and wellbeing and reflects our holistic approach to education. This is imperative if we are to nurture changemakers who will become the guardians of our planet.
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL WELLBEING
We believe that a child’s wellbeing is as important as their academic success. At Green School, we seek to nurture within our students confidence, kindness, empathy and a joy for learning. We embrace the idea that sustainability starts from within and understanding ourselves as individuals – what we believe in, how we manage set-backs and how we find joy in all that we do – is a critical building block. Building on this are our relationships with others and our relationship with our incredible planet.
Students learn best when they are engaged, mindful and active. Our wellbeing programme (physical, social and emotional, mindfulness, and relationship education) skills students up as stewards of their own health and wellbeing and reflects our holistic approach to education. This is imperative if we are to nurture changemakers who will become the guardians of our planet.
GREENSTONE
Greenstone is a Grade 12 capstone project where students present their world-shaping ideas in a TED-style talk. By exploring a project or purpose that leads to illuminating discoveries, students find self-worth, validation as critical thinkers, confidence as communicators and develop lasting connections to passions, causes, partners, and potential career pathways.
Ultimately the Greenstone embodies, “the journey is the destination”. The reflective storytelling is mentored, supported, and shared with our local and global community. These presentations are a rite of passage for all Green School graduates, bridging the Green School experience and each student’s next steps in life.
Click here to watch some inspiring student Greenstones.
Our Educators
Coming from all corners of the globe, our educators all have one thing in common: their passion for progressive education and educating for sustainability. Unique to them is also their passion for empowering students to lead their own learning journeys. Meet some of our educators and hear as they share their experiences and ideas with the world.
Kyle King
TRIUMPH OVER TESTING
Emily Ferguson
CURRICULUM FOR PEACE, JUSTICE & THE PLANET
Shawn O’Docharty
WILL FALLING OFF TABLES SAVE EDUCATION?
Our Alumni
By the time they venture out of our wall-less campus, our Alumni have acquired skills, knowledge and an understanding of themselves and the world to step forward with confidence. Through REAL and relevant learning, our Alumni experienced the power of making a difference, before graduation, setting them up for rewarding post-graduation pathways.
Whether it is straight to university, a year of life learning through volunteering or internships, or starting their own enterprise or foundation, our young but growing Alumni are shaping the world in remarkable ways. They are making change, leading change, finding purpose in what they do, following their hearts and minds, and accessing some of the world’s most rapidly growing and needed career paths.
Clover Hogan
CLASS OF 2016
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Clover H. alumni Green School Bali is a green changemaker, climate activist, researcher on turning anxiety into agency, and founder of Force of Nature; she is mobilizing the emerging generation of leaders, in the face of the climate crisis. She has worked alongside the world’s leading authorities on sustainability, within the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, and inside classrooms across the UK.
Maxwell Hidajat
CLASS OF 2017
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Upon graduating from Green School Bali, Maxwell was accepted to the prestigious Cornell University, ranked among the best universities in the world. Following the completion of his degree Maxwell joined the Social Enterprise Group at Cornell, where he is a Project Manager. In the future, he hopes to return to Indonesia to tackle his country’s pressing socioeconomic and environmental issues.
Melati Wijsen and Isabel Wijsen
CLASS OF 2019 AND 2020
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Sisters Melati (17) and Isabel (15) Wijsen VALEDICTORIAN were just 10 and 12 years old in 2013 when they started Bye Bye Plastic Bags. They remember being inspired by a lesson in school about people who changed the course of history and asking themselves ‘What can we do as children living in Bali, NOW, to make a difference?’. The answer was-Bye Bye Plastic Bags a campaign to end the use of single-use plastic bags in Bali, which has grown into an internationally recognized movement for sustainability and youth empowerment.
Click here to read more stories on how our changemakers are shaping the world with their ideas, actions and successes.
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