After watching her eldest daughter, Mila, struggle through primary school in New Zealand due to dyslexia, Jackie Easthope decided she had to do something about it.
“Mila’s a good girl, but she would come home from school and say she hated it. In New Zealand, we have this national standards graph and she always sat under it,” Jackie told Business Insider. “And I knew it would just get harder and harder for her once she got to intermediate and high school.”
Jackie started looking for schools that offered alternative education systems.
That’s when she learned about the Green School in Bali, Indonesia, known for its sustainability-focused curriculum and eco-friendly bamboo campus.
She had chanced upon a TEDTalk video by John Hardy, who founded the Green School in Bali with his wife, Cynthia, in September 2008. The school has since expanded to new campuses in New Zealand and South Africa with a total global enrollment of just under 1,000 students.
Since May 2021, the school has been managed by Education in Motion, a Singapore-based education company, although the Hardys are still involved as ambassadors.
“I remember getting up and telling the family, ‘We’re moving to Bali for the Green School,’” Jackie said. “And here we are.”
The application process varies depending on which grade potential students are enrolling in. Those applying for primary school need to submit school reports, teacher recommendations, and a video as part of their application. Those applying for middle school need an essay on top of that, while those applying for high school have to sit for an interview too.
It’s been three and a half years since Jackie moved to Bali with her three kids: Mila, 15; Kingston, 13; and Indy, 9. They live in a rented house in Beraban, located north of Canggu, with views of rice paddies. Her husband splits his time between New Zealand and Bali.
She said the family’s decision to school their children in Bali took a few years of planning.
“When you have three kids, it has to work for all of them,” she said. “I wasn’t worried about the two girls. I knew their personalities would suit the Green School, but I was worried about my son Kingston because he loves structure.”
Project-based learning, smaller class sizes
For Mila, school in Bali is a whole new game.
“In New Zealand, we had a lot of big classes. You don’t really get to ask many questions; you just listen and then do your worksheet,” Mila told BI. “But since I’m dyslexic, it was really hard for me.”
As a result, she often got put into a lower learning program than her peers.
However, in Bali, Mila said she got personalized attention from her teachers.
“The teachers would move around the classroom, ask me questions, and point me out individually. Since it was a 10-person classroom, I actually understood things,” she said.
The school’s teaching model involves using practical examples, Mads Hedegaard, the director of admission, marketing, and communication, told BI.
“It can be a giant coconut slingshot to understand how to calculate trajectories, our seed-to-table cafe where the youngest students learn how to grow vegetables, and our middle schoolers learn entrepreneurship by running the cafe themselves,” Hedegaard said. “Or it can be hands-on projects like building a yurt to learn math, physics, and practical arts at the same time.”
For instance, Mila recently completed a project in collaboration with a local women’s shelter.
“I made my own artwork to raise awareness of domestic violence, sold it, and then made enough money to help them with appliances in the shelter,” Mila said. After completing it, she had to give a presentation about her experience.
A different grading system
Classrooms at the Green School don’t have walls. Students learn about the natural world, care for animals, and grow plants.
Only high-school-level students receive grades at the Green School; younger students at the primary and middle school levels get a progress report instead, Hedegaard said.
High-school students’ grades account not just for their test scores but also for their participation and engagement in class, Mila said.
Students also have the freedom to take electives that interest them, and those in higher levels can even introduce their own classes if they get a teacher to sign off on it, Mila said.
This is possible as long as the student provides a clear overview of learning outcomes and the course is related to one of the credit areas stipulated by the school, Hedegaard said.
Mila’s planning to introduce a dance class because she loves dancing.
“What I love about Green School is that I think the kids get to explore their passions,” Jackie said.
That said, the school does support students who wish to take the SATs or other kinds of exams for university admission, Jackie said.
The website for the Western Associates of Schools and Colleges (WASC) — an institution that accredits high schools in the US — shows that Green School is also accredited under the commission. A WASC representative told BI that the school has been accredited since the 2016-2017 school year.
“The GPA averages earned with our school can also be transformed into many other schooling systems globally,” Hedegaard said, adding that Green School in Bali currently has 510 students enrolled across 39 nationalities.
There are around 70 Indonesian students at Green School Bali, of which half are on full scholarships, he said.
A pricey education
But all of this comes at a hefty price tag: Yearly tuition fees start from 117.95 million Indonesian Rupiah, or $7,260, for pre-K students and can go up to 302,1 million Indonesian Rupiah, or $18,650, for Grade 11 and 12 high school students.
While those prices might not shock Westerners used to paying for private schools in major, developed cities, they are considered high for the island of Bali.
The average monthly net wage in Bali is about 3.04 million Indonesian rupiah, or $187.75, per the latest February 2019 data from data company CEIC.
That said, tuition fees at Green School Bali are comparable to those of other international schools on the island. Yearly tuition fees for Canggu Community School start at 105 million Indonesian Rupiah for preschool and go up to 245 million Indonesian Rupiah for year 12 and year 13 students.
“The fees are not high compared to other international schools,” Hedegaard said, adding that many parents experience a decline in fees moving from other parts of the world.
Adjusting to life in Bali
Jackie said that although her daughters easily settled into life in Bali, her son needed a longer adjustment period.
“When we came here, my boy — up until the end — didn’t want to leave New Zealand,” she said, adding that the first six months after moving to Bali was a struggle.
“Every day, I’d ask him, ‘How was school?’ And he would say, ‘I hate it, I hate that you brought me here,’” Jackie said. “But the thing is, so many families coming to Green School go through this. They’ll have one child who hates it. And I’m always saying to them, give it time.”
“For some reason, one day, it was like a switch went off,” she continued. “And he made great friends, and he didn’t hate school.”
Less stress, more confidence
For Mila, the educational environment at the Green School has helped her grow into a more confident person.
“I learned how to present myself and communicate my ideas with others, especially when speaking to adults or in front of a camera,” Mila said.
She doesn’t feel the same kind of academic pressure that she did back in New Zealand.
“Tests are so much more daunting, and they don’t have them here. It’s mostly presentations and you learn after a few years how to be confident and not really stress over it,” Mila said. “I just take a lot of different classes, and I get to try a lot of things.”
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