A NEW education provider that shuns the traditional classroom will be at the heart of a revitalised Fremantle Piazza.
The piazza’s new owner Bronwyn Owen has signed up the Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Academy as anchor tenants.
The academy, expanding its St Georges Terrace campus to Fremantle, has 28 students expected to join February’s intake, with co-founder and director Rebecca Loftus hoping they will help fulfil “Bronwyn’s vision” for a young, artsy precinct.
“I think our students and the families at Fremantle are going to be involved in the birth of IDEA within,” Ms Loftus said.
Fellow co-founder and director Nicole Gazey said the students would be involved in helping Piazza businesses, as well as acting as “guardians of the space”.
• The IDEA team: Experience lead Rob Bygott, directors Rebecca Loftus and Nicole Gazey, and alumni Kairi Bandiera.
“It’s really important for our young people to be fully immersed in the real world, and I don’t think you can get much more ‘real world’ than the redevelopment of an iconic community venue like the Piazza,” Ms Gazey said.
Ms Loftus agreed: “I think what we’re most excited about in moving to Freo is that [IDEA] is kind of already in the spirit of Freo; it’s a bit grungy and alternative.
“So, to not only be coming into Freo, but to be coming into the beginning of this redevelopment project at Piazza, and Bronwyn’s vision for the place, it just sounds phenomenal.”
IDEA is an alternative to secondary school where students follow flexible, project-based learning instead of a traditional curriculum.
From $14k per year, students are taught under the guidance of “trainers” with “flexible learning days”, leaving the academy with “vocational qualifications”.
Ms Gazey said they saw a need in the community for young people who wanted to accelerate or needed something different, often more “creative” and “outside the box”.
Many were “homeschoolers used to independent learning” but “craving community”, and traditional school “structures don’t work for everyone”, she said.
“There’s an assumption that if you don’t get the system there’s something wrong with you but that’s just not the case.
“[There are] 1.5 million 15 to 18 year olds, and expecting one system to meet their needs is just not the case. So that’s why we decided to be a training provider,” Ms Gazey said.
In February the academy will open its doors and move temporarily into the lower-level lots of the Piazza before relocating upstairs after its renovations are finished.
by ISLA TOMLINSON