03 Dec 2023
Principal of Granville Boys High, Noel Dixon, with year 10 students Yussef Chaker, Ahmad Amoud and Mamadu Jallah. Dixon has introduced multiple programs and initiatives at the school since 2015. CREDIT: EDWINA PICKLES
“We do day trips – and shorter excursions – as rewards for good behaviour. Once a term we try to go fishing, we take students from across different grades as a group together. But if they muck up, they don’t go,” he says.
“Being a teacher, and now a principal, it is all about the relationships you build with the students - one at a time.”
Granville Boys, where enrolments have grown from 490 to 710 in the past five years, is becoming known among parents and the local community for its list of programs and ambitious initiatives rolled out under Dixon’s time as principal and from when he started as deputy in 2015.
There are the school’s famed barbershop in a room attached to the main hall, two robotics labs, a chess club, a bagpipe band and free Saturday morning group tutoring sessions.
“We’ve also started running school holiday tutoring sessions to help HSC students prepare for their final exams. We need the boys to be achieving at their highest level,” he says.
It is near the end of term 3 when we meet at the school on Mary Street before taking a short walk to have lunch at the original Granville chicken institution, El Jannah, which has a line out the door just after midday.
Sitting at an outdoor table with wraps, chips and a fattoush salad for us to share, Dixon, 63, explains how the school, where he started his career as a newly qualified music teacher in 1985, has undergone major change, particularly in the past five years. Its former reputation as a tough school has faded, as he’s pushed to transform it into a place where expectations are high and enrolments are rising.
“We’ve had some tough times, difficult times. But I don’t want to focus on that too much. The school is so different compared with when I look back to how it was 10 years ago,” he says.
“Our boys have to compete with everyone else in the state,” says principal Noel Dixon. Students at Granville Boys have access to free tutoring sessions on Saturday mornings. CREDIT: EDWINA PICKLES
“Turning around an underperforming school is like turning around a semi-trailer in a one-way street,” Dixon says. “It’s a tough gig. But it is possible, and I want this to be a school where people want to send their kids.”
There are 152 students enrolled for year 7 next year, about twice the number of new pupils admitted in 2019.
Part of the drive to lift results has been a decisive move to an explicit teaching model, which favours clear instruction over inquiry or student-led learning. The public school, which is partially selective, has zeroed in on improving literacy skills in all subjects, lifting attendance and boosting gifted education and extracurricular programs.
Three years ago, Dixon hired an external tutoring company, James An College, to run free lessons in all subjects on a Saturday, with more classes offered to students before sitting their HSC exams. Funding for the program was partly drawn from money allocated to schools for the COVID catch-up tutoring program, and the remainder from a decision to cut back on the number of deputy principal positions at the school.
Principal Noel Dixon in the barber’s workshop at Granville Boys High .CREDIT: EDWINA PICKLES
“We had three deputies, and we moved to two, so there were funds from that we could use. Our boys have to compete with everyone else in the state. If students from other schools are attending tutoring classes on weekends, then why shouldn’t we have that too?” he says.
“We run free tutoring for all students from 8 to 11am on a Saturday for all who want to attend. We want them to achieve in their exams. So I am here every weekend. They do their classes, and then play some sport. We work hard, and we have to be competitive.”
NAPLAN results have improved since 2018, and last year’s HSC average scores in advanced and standard English and maths have risen when compared with five years ago. “The truth is our selective students used to leave us for private schools. Now they are staying as we’ve expanded enrichment programs, including robotics classes.”
“In 2019, I changed our structure. You have to have explicit teaching as the basis of all learning in a school. Particularly for boys. We also raised expectations of parents and students,” he says.
“The greatest gift for a student is helping them achieve the best HSC results they can. That solves a lot of problems. It removes some of the worry because they have more options. We have so many successes, there are students who go on to university and many running their own businesses.”
That success isn’t always academic, he adds. “It is different for everyone, and opening up different programs has given students more opportunities to enjoy school.”
Granville Boys has attracted publicity for its hugely popular barbershop program, where students learn to cut hair in twice-a-week sessions for students in year 7 and up. He also set up a school Scottish bagpipe band, with students going on tour in Queensland and regional NSW.
He believes there are some advantages to single-sex education, but also benefits to co-ed. “Our robotics program, and competitions students have joined as part of that, have allowed boys to interact with girls from nearby schools more often. That’s so important.”
Dixon grew up in south-west Sydney, and was among the first year 7 cohort at Casula High when the school opened in the early 1970s. He gained his teaching qualification and then went on to the University of New England where he completed an arts degree majoring in music. His first position was at Granville. He then landed music teaching roles at Sarah Redfern High in Minto, Punchbowl Boys and Ashfield Boys, before moving to England where he did a short stint at a co-ed school in Wembley in north-west London.
He returned to Granville as deputy principal about 10 years ago. In late March 2016, while in the playground, Dixon was attacked by a student who grabbed him by the throat in an assault that was filmed and aired on television news that evening.
“I was really shaken up by it. But I came back the next day, and was back on playground duty. I spoke at the assembly and just told the kids this is not our school. This is not us. We lost good kids because the playground wasn’t safe enough. There was fighting, but we don’t have that any more.”
Student behaviour is something Dixon could discuss for hours, but the essence of how to improve it, he says, is focusing on the importance of building relationships with each child.
“I’m not an expert, I just know what works at Granville Boys. It is about connecting with each kid. It’s harder, and takes longer, but unless you do that they won’t listen to a word you tell them. They need to trust you because you can’t keep hitting them with a bigger and bigger stick. I suspend them when I need to, but we try hard to make sure we support them, and we have success, but we need to keep improving.”
As we finish the last of the salad, Dixon tells me about a professional learning program he runs with a head teacher, Tarek El Homsi, for new teachers when they start at the school.
“We run through a checklist of how to handle different scenarios in the classroom. How do you get students to be quiet when you need them to; what to do when they arrive in the classroom; how do you get their attention. And if they are misbehaving, explaining what you can do as a teacher in that moment. How to set up routines. I show them what’s been successful for me.
“It’s about encouraging students to do their best work, but not being superficial about it. Because you have about seven seconds worth of raising your voice in any lesson, and after that, you’ve lost them,” he says.
The school is not without its problems, he says. One major challenge, facing many schools, is ongoing teacher shortages. On the Monday we meet, dozens of students are in the assembly hall: year 8 and 10 classes had been merged. “Some days we don’t have enough teachers, that’s the truth.”
He credits Granville’s deputy principal, Maina Ram, for “picking up a lot of the work that normal principals do” including drafting annual and strategic reports and other administrative workload. “I do everything else. I’m creative, constantly thinking of ways we can improve as a public high school, what we can offer to our students,” he says.
“I don’t want anyone paying a cent for what we give them here. I want the best school money can’t buy.”