Reimagining education: Nikki Kirkup

It’s interesting that the 21st century has ushered in advancements in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cryptocurrencies and more. Yet despite these innovations, many outdated systems persist simply because no-one stops to ask, "Why are we still doing it this way?"

Take the QWERTY keyboard, for instance. Designed in the 1870s, allegedly to prevent typewriters from jamming, it remains the gold standard despite far more efficient alternatives having since been invented. Daylight saving time is another example. Originally meant to conserve energy, it’s now widely debated for its actual benefits.

Education is no different. For generations, it’s followed a predictable pattern where students of a certain age enter a specific grade and take exams that determine their academic success. While this approach may have served an industrial workforce in the past, it no longer aligns with the unpredictable, fast-moving world students are stepping into today.

"If we ask ourselves why we’re educating students, it’s not just to fill them with facts," Nikki Kirkup, Principal of The Knox School tells The CEO Magazine. "That’s how education served the world hundreds of years ago, but that’s not the world our kids are going into – and it hasn’t been for a long time."

A personalized approach

While things are changing, slowly but surely, with many schools adopting personalized learning methods, Kirkup says, more times than not, it’s just a small tweak from traditional education practices.

"You’ll find that a lot of schools talk about personalized learning, but what they actually mean is developing individual learning plans. And that’s where it starts and stops. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not particularly innovative," she points out.

However, The Knox School is setting the benchmark for reimagining education with a genuinely personal touch.

"Our personalized approach looks at the learners as individuals and therefore holistically," she explains. "That means we don’t solely look at them from an academic standpoint, we look at them with the idea of three journeys: knowledge, skills and character."

Located in the Melbourne suburb of Wantirna South, the school’s students aren’t just progressing through a curriculum because of their age. Instead, their education is tailored to where they are across these three areas.

"If it’s truly personalized, then you need to know where your child sits on those three continuums. And then tailor the education to suit them at their point of need rather than the age on their birth certificate," Kirkup says.

"It’s a real reframing of our education philosophy. As educators ourselves, we had to unlearn everything we thought we knew in order to come at this with fresh eyes."

The traditional one-size-fits-all model fails to account for the fact that children learn in different ways, at different speeds and come to school armed with different strengths. So instead of merely preparing students for exams, The Knox School focuses on preparing them for life.

"What the past couple of years, particularly through the COVID-19 pandemic, taught us is that unpredictability is the way of the future," she reveals.

"We need people who are going to have a certain skill set, character and resilience. The best leaders that came through the pandemic were those who could actually think outside the box and problem solve, rather than regurgitate algebraic formulation."

Learning with purpose

Traditional education practices often encourage students to memorize information without ever questioning its real-world value. According to Kirkup, this is a fundamental flaw.

"In the classroom, if we have a learning activity, the question that I’ll always ask our children is, ‘Why are you learning that? What’s the purpose? What are you going to use it for?’

"If the answer is simply for an examination and no other reason, then I don’t think that has great value. It needs to have a real-world outcome."

For instance, Kirkup says that many students can struggle to recall much of their high school mathematics because they learned it in a vacuum – only for the purpose of passing an exam.

In contrast, skills like communication and collaboration, which students practice repeatedly, stay with them for life.

"They become embedded in your brain," she explains. "We know how long it takes to develop a real skill – some figures say 10,000 hours. But you’re not going to practice algebra for 10,000 hours; however, you might practice communication skills and collaboration skills. And guess what? Those are the skills you’re going to need."

Lessons in the real world

To ensure learning has value and relevance in the real world, The Knox School has developed innovative learning frameworks, called Knoxpeditions, which allow students to explore learning as a journey in a real-world setting.

"A Knoxpedition is essentially project-based learning," Kirkup says. "And every Knoxpedition must start out with a genuine real-world client at its heart."

Reflecting on a recent Knoxpedition involving a partnership with a residential home, Kirkup shares that the elderly residents felt disconnected from the community they helped build. So the students took on the challenge of helping them reclaim that sense of belonging.

"There were about 30 students involved in this project, which involved them spending around eight weeks visiting the residents to get to know them," she says with a smile, recalling the meaningful Knoxpedition.

"The students learned how to get the residents to open up, encouraging them to share their stories."

From these visits, they wrote the biographies of the residents, capturing 80 years of life on an A4 page. They also put their photography skills to the test, creating professional-grade portraits of their new elderly friends, which were printed on canvas and presented to them in an emotional gathering.

"At the end of the semester, the whole group presented to the residents," Kirkup recalls. "They would get up and share the resident’s life story back to them, with their family listening. Then they presented them with the portrait they had taken.

"Seeing the moment, not just from the kids’ perspective but also the residents’ – how much it meant to them – it gave me goosebumps."

Transforming lives

Beyond academic success, these Knoxpeditions change students on a personal level. Kirkup shares how one boy, who’d often struggled in school, formed a powerful bond with a resident named June.

"It's kind of funny; he was well known around the school for not taking particularly good care of his uniform. But when he went to visit June, who didn’t like him looking ‘scruffy’ as she put it, he would tuck his shirt in, do his hair and take his earring out," she explains. "It was incredible. And he’s carried this with him."

Another student, who Kirkup described as quite shy and hesitant to express herself, wound up finding confidence through the experience.

"She’s always had a lot to offer and through this project – her reflection made me cry a bit – she said, ‘Now I have a voice, and I know how to use it,’" she says.

"In a world where kids live a dual life because of their physical and online identities, it’s important to help them find out who they are in the world, where their voices matter and how they can make an impact because you know what? Learning algebra, that’s not going to do that for you. It’s just not."

More than a single experience, Knoxpeditions run throughout the school, with many students doing at least two per year.

"If a student joins us in year two in junior school, they’ll have up to eight Knoxpeditions under their belt by the time they’re headed into senior school in year seven, which is incredible," she confirms.

"That means they build a network of different clients in the community they potentially remain connected to beyond the school grounds."

Smart investments

Incredibly proud of the fact that Knoxpeditions are firmly embedded in the heart of the school’s learning model, all of the school’s educators are aligned with this approach.

"If our staff aren’t able to deliver pedagogy in this way, then how can our students benefit from it?" Kirkup says. "We invest in our staff to help bring this vision to life."

And it’s because she’s always looking at the bigger picture. Kirkup is committed to shaping a generation that’s equipped to tackle the world’s biggest challenges.

"Honestly, it’s about making a difference. I know that sounds really cliche," she admits. "But I genuinely think back to when I was in school, there was no real focus on self-improvement.

"We’re at an absolute pivotal moment in history. Crisis is everywhere you look."

Teaching tomorrow’s changemakers

While previous generations prioritized wealth and profit, Kirkup believes the motivations of today’s young people are far more altruistic.

"The younger generations are more invested in compassion and morality. They have a more holistic view of the world," she explains.

"Our kids ask questions in a way that I never did. They’re confident and they speak up, using their voice. So if you’re providing an educational framework that harnesses – rather than suppresses – that confidence, it’s a game-changer."

Those students, she says, will be able to solve problems all the way through school and then excel when they enter the workforce. And it can’t happen fast enough.

"My husband is a CEO and, all the time, he tells me they have people who can do things they’re told to do, but they’re not solution-focused. They don’t have the creators in the workforce that are so desperately needed," she says.

Stories like this only feed Kirkup’s passion for co-designing education with students, rather than imposing outdated structures that only stifle innovation.

"If you keep doing what you always do, then you’re going to have the same outcomes and the same crises – and no-one’s going to know how to solve it," she says.

"But if you open up these frameworks and pathways, empowering students to solve real-world problems, then one day they’re going to be sitting at a table at the United Nations."

No child left behind

According to Kirkup, one of the biggest challenges in education is the cycle of short-lived initiatives. These ‘flash-in-the-pan’ ideas that last for a few years before fading out is exactly what she is determined to avoid.

"Education suffers a lot from death by initiative. Somebody comes up with a great idea, everyone’s excited, they do it for two years and then they move on," she explains.

"But you have to underpin it with research, which is really important. Then it’s not just an idea that came out of nowhere – it’s real, evidence-based learning."

At The Knox School, every aspect of the three journeys model – knowledge, skills and character development – is measured, valued and credentialed.

"Bringing it back to what I said at the start: knowledge is not more important than character, and character is not more important than skill. All three are equal, all three are valued here and all three are measured," Kirkup stresses.

This approach ensures that every student, regardless of their strengths, feels recognized and empowered.

"Think of all those kids who go through the school system, feeling like they’re not achieving or they’re not worthwhile, because they’re not great at mathematics or English," she suggests.

"But maybe they can speak five languages. Maybe they have incredible problem-solving skills. In a traditional system, those talents can go unnoticed."

Redefining success

Some might question whether focusing on this real-world problem-solving style of education means sacrificing academic results. But The Knox School’s data says it all.

"People ask, ‘If you’re spending all this time working on collaboration and communication, then what about their grades?’" Kirkup acknowledges.

"When students are motivated, when they care about something, when they see the outcome and value, that is when they learn best. Our exam grades are going through the roof even though we’re not teaching to the exam."

Instead, The Knox School is teaching students to think critically, work collaboratively and apply their learning in meaningful ways. And as a result, they’re absolutely thriving – not just in the classroom, but in life.

"Everyone has a superpower. I genuinely believe that," Kirkup says. "But too many of us go through traditional education systems without discovering it, at least not until it’s too late to do anything with it.

"Imagine if we recognized and nurtured our students’ superpowers from the start. That’s what we’re doing here. And that’s how we change the world."