28 April 2026

In this episode, Teach welcomes back Ron Berger (Senior Advisor, EL Education, and Harvard Graduate School of Education professor) and Gwyn ap Harri (CEO & Co-founder of XP Schools Trust, UK) to reflect on the progress and growth since Learning Expeditions were first introduced a year ago. Discover how schools have embraced this approach, linking academic challenge with character development and community action, and hear inspiring stories from students, teachers, and school leaders who are seeing real change in their classrooms and communities. Ron and Gwyn share valuable lessons from international experience, the challenges and successes of scaling up, and the continual importance of school culture and leadership in sustaining meaningful learning.

Show Notes

Transcript

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today we've got some return visitors. We have Ron Berger, who is the senior advisor for EL Education. He's a bestselling author and he's a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Ron, welcome.

Ron Berger: Thank you for having me.

Dale Atkinson: We've also got Gwyn ap Harri, who is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of XP Schools Trust up in the north of England. Welcome.

Gwyn ap Harri: Thank you. How are you doing?

Dale Atkinson: Very well, thank you. So, 12 months since your last visit. Perhaps a refresher for the listeners if they've not been across developments over the last 12 months. Expeditionary Learning, what is it?

Ron Berger: I work with an organisation called Expeditionary Learning, and it was founded 35 years ago from a collaboration between Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I teach and Outward Bound, the organisation that brings youth and adults into the wilderness, but not to teach wilderness skills, but rather to teach character, to help people work as a team, to think of others before themselves, to have resilience, to have courage, to have compassion. And the idea of expeditionary learning was let's make school more adventurous and more dedicated to making the world better. So, combining academics with character growth, that those things can work synergistically. You don't have to choose one or the other. And in fact, when kids are becoming better people at the same time as they're becoming smarter people, it all works together in a way that's really inspirational.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it really is. Now Gwyn, this is a foundational concept for you and the development of the XP Schools Trust and the XP School, wasn't it?

Gwyn ap Harri: Yeah. Yeah. So we went over to America and met Ron and visited some of the schools. And we really took the two main structures, which are Learning Expeditions and CREW and we took them to England and when we made our schools, we made them central to our schools.

Dale Atkinson: Now, the reason you came here 12 months ago, and the reason you're back again now, is working with a lot of our schools around learning expeditions. What does that involve for a school and what are we, what experiences are we giving to the young people in that environment?

Ron Berger: We just returned from two schools in SA who have done learning expeditions this year and met with students and we were just blown away. We were so inspired by the thoughts of students about; one young student who said, I no longer wanted to be a background character in the world. I wanted to step up and do good in the world. Who said; I wasn't the best version of myself until I started this. And so the idea of a learning expedition is to take our academic research and our academic investigations and connect those to a way to contribute to the world in some way.

The school, the local community, the parent community, the whole city or state or the world more broadly. And it put kids, it puts kids on a mission to get smart to do good. And so we found that all the students we spoke with this morning felt empowered, felt excited. They couldn't wait to share how proud they were to have made a contribution to their work. And when I said, what's the most challenging work, they said, the research, we did really hard research. So it wasn't like, no, this is just charitable work. It was, it was the, a kind of professional level. We want to make a difference in the world, like professionals do, we need to step up our academics as well. But it's in service of making a difference. And so, we were both inspired and Gwyn runs the network of schools in England where the entire city is full of contributions that his school students have made. There are installations up, there's books written, there's changes made in the city. And now we're seeing that in SA. It's just really exciting.

Dale Atkinson: And what are you starting to see?

Gwyn ap Harri: We're looking at display panels on piers, talking about what lives under the pier. We've just returned from Christies Beach High School. They created a garden that allowed the kids to connect, not just to horticulture, but to how the First Nations know and use the plants. We saw a, what was the name of the plant Ron? There was a funny name for the plant, I can't remember.

Ron Berger: Pigface.

Dale Atkinson: Pigface. Yes. Listeners will know that.

Gwyn ap Harri: Yes. So I would have just walked straight past that, but now I know that pigface can be eaten, you can use it for stings, you can use it to season beef, all sorts of different things. Yeah. So we've seen those things. We've seen kids in primary schools standing up for the plight of chimpanzees, raising money, creating a food bank. There was an example of artwork in a town and the artwork…

Ron Berger: Tumby Bay. Yeah.

Gwyn ap Harri: Yeah. And the artwork already exists but the kids were then adding QR codes to the artworks so you could see who, who created it, why they created it, the story behind the artwork. It's fantastic to see kids learning come alive in the SA community.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. That's brilliant. So, started off engaging about a hundred schools that scaled up to over 170 now. What's been that process of growth? And how's that come about?

Gwyn ap Harri: When we came over and we were just sharing our stories, Ron was sharing his stories about the schools in America, I was sharing our stories about the schools in England and, for me the agency that already existed in SA in the teachers, allowed them to step up really, really quickly and say, yeah I wanna do this work. It's hard and I want to do it because it's worthwhile. That agency in teachers is rare.

Ron Berger: Yeah. We are so excited, Dale, because we don't know anywhere in the world right now where these kinds of practices of connecting character to academics, to having kids contribute through their learning, is spreading more broadly, more quickly. There are individual schools, individual districts in other countries that are doing this, but the whole state has embraced it here.

I think it's the most exciting thing happening worldwide right now around this kind of work and I think it, it took us by surprise, but it took the department by surprise that it spread so quickly. We shared these things a year ago and then all year long we've been getting videos and examples of student work and kids who are proud, parents who are proud, communities who are proud, and when we came back, we were just deluged with school leaders who said, can we tell you about this project we're doing? Can we tell you about this? Can we tell you about how the parents are so excited in our community that their kids are giving back and that their kids want to learn right now? So, I think it's spread faster than any of us thought it would. It's just caught on. And I credit the leaders here in the Department, but also the teachers here who are willing to dive in and the principals. Like this is a fertile place for great growth right now in SA.

Dale Atkinson: There are three tiers to the work that we're doing at the moment. There's the Learning Expeditions Exploration Program as a kind of foundational component of introducing this program into schools. There's the Scale Up program, and then there's the Maintenance program. Can you explain a bit about what those three tiers mean and what that looks like in a school?

Gwyn ap Harri: Yeah. So we've been involved in, so the basically, the launch of it. So what what are learning expeditions? And this time we've been involved in how we're gonna scale up. So this involves all the schools, the 114 schools that are already started and how they're gonna, how they're now stepping up to say, we wanna do more of this. So, we are bringing our stories around, just keep revisiting back to the why of why we do learning expeditions. Don't lose that because often you try and get big, but we have to keep the fundamental why. And then I've been sharing stories around our mistakes when we grew, when XP grew from one school to eight.

Ron Berger: We are acknowledging with people that this is hard work. Hard work for leaders and teachers and kids. And that just starting it off, that's the right place. But you have to keep working. You have to keep renewing this work. You have to keep dedicating yourself to, we're gonna make sure that learning is exciting for kids, that it's really challenging for kids, new community connections, new ways to contribute, new ways to fold in complex academics to it. It can't coast in this work. And so Gwyn has shared many stories and I have shared stories from America about how schools keep renewing themself to keep getting good at this work. You can't just decide, we got it, it works now. We don't have to think about it. You have to keep refining and critiquing your own work. Are these expeditions good? Are they making them more proud of who they are? Do they have a new sense of themselves from this? And if not, what can we do better?

Dale Atkinson: So what is… back to you, Gwyn, because I really noted that you were talking there about the challenges of going at scale and transitioning an approach that, works in one environment into another, and presumably that's a challenge that doesn't just exist from site to site, but from year level to year level, class to class. What have you seen that works and what have you seen that might not be as effective?

Gwyn ap Harri: Yeah, so the main advice that we've been giving is to start with quality and focus and not, don't go too big. So, a lot of the time we get really excited about this work and we want to do the best learning expedition that the world has ever seen. And that's great, but it comes with lots of risks and jeopardy. So, we really preach to build success on success.  So start with really high quality, but maybe not even all the elements of a, of an expedition. Maybe major on an authentic product and a presentational learning to an authentic audience. Then bring in experts, then try field work, and try and build a culture of critique over a term. We're, we are well really yeah, preaching about that quality and focus rather than size. That, that really works.

Things that you've got to be careful about is the quality of communication as you get bigger tends to reduce. Teachers have different journeys in terms of learning expeditions. So you might have 2, 3, 4 teachers who are really pumped to do this work and then you go, right yeah who, who wants to do this now? And the new teachers will say me, me, me, me. But they've not had the same journey as the original teachers. Yeah. So they might not get the why, the fundamentals. They might think they know what a learning expedition is. So we've, so again, that message is always return back to the fundamentals and just reference all the things that Ron said that are really important about learning expeditions.

Dale Atkinson: So what's the role of the leader Ron, in that environment where, you know what you're going after I guess as an end result is agency and engagement from a young person and so you want them to be driving the program. Where does the leader sit in all of that?

Ron Berger: I think most importantly, the leader has to have that safe culture of growth in the building. So what both Gwyn and I have been sharing is that the most powerful engine of quality is making learning public. So students making their learning, public, sharing what they're learning, being able to articulate, this is what I was struggling, this is what I'm better at now, this is what I'm proud of right now. That happens when the teachers in the building are willing to say, I'm gonna share my plan for my learning expedition, or plan for my project, or plan for my product, and I need guidance and critique from the rest of my peers. That takes courage. And we're amazed that so many SA teachers are stepping up with that courage to make their practice public.

There's a history, as you know in education, of staying in your room, staying in your silo. Like I, I teach my kids, I don't want anyone else in there. It's a big step for teachers to say, I'm going to make my practice public. I'm gonna make my project public to you. I'm gonna take critique from you, and then when we finish it, I'll put it out again and listen to your critique about what I could have done better. That takes tremendous courage. That only works if the leader has built a safe culture in the school of “this is a culture of growth, not a culture of hide in your rooms and stay safe”. This is a culture where we make our learning public, where we share our mistakes with each other, where we share our victories with each other, where we share our growth with each other, and the leader has to be a model of that growth. When the leader herself or himself is vulnerable, where they say, I did this really well, but I didn't do this that well, I didn't support you in this way. Teachers feel like it's okay to be real here. It's okay to discuss our growth.

Dylan Wiliam from the UK who is an international leader of this work, said if he were to look at one thing that makes a great school, it's an environment of continual growth by the teachers. If the teachers are no longer growing, then the school is no longer gonna be a great school. And so I think the, if the leader sets the tone of this is a place where we're all growing all the time, then you can have a great school.

Dale Atkinson: Gwyn, Ron said a number of very nice things about your schools and how the students had engaged with the local community earlier. Why is it so important for the learning to be grounded in their geographic and social space for a young person?

Gwyn ap Harri: I think Doncaster actually shares a lot of things around community and how important community is with SA. We have kids who were disenfranchised with their community, who did not have civic pride, who didn't connect with the various different elements of community and so that, we saw that as a challenge and an opportunity. Connecting with your community just allows you to think about yourself and think about yourself as a person and say to yourself, you know how, rather than I'm gonna move out of this place and go to a better place and that'll be better for me. It's, how can I make the place around me a better place and that'll make me a better person. I think that's the real key to engaging with community and I really see it around here in SA with the similar and different challenges in SA and where the opportunity is to bring community into the school and to bring school into the community.

Dale Atkinson: I think that's linked Ron with a bit of what you talk about sometimes where, you're very strong on the purpose for education as a grounding, and education as an activator of civic purpose for a young person.

Ron Berger: Yes, exactly.

Dale Atkinson: Sometimes we don't state that boldly as educators.

Ron Berger: I agree. I agree.

Dale Atkinson: Why is it important to do so?

Ron Berger: Because the world right now is full of people who may be smart, but who are not using a good moral compass. When we look at the issues in the world today that we're all grappling with, we realise that having a good ethical vision, moral vision, having a good civic mission for everyone matters as much as being academically strong. Because many of the worst people in history were bright academically but didn't have the heart and caring for other human beings as they should. And so, I think we need to unite that vision of what are schools for? They're to create citizens that are going to run our world like, and we need people with a moral compass as well as great academic and other skills.

So it, it's not just the skill preparation, it's the cultivation of good character. And it's also Dale, what every parent wants. Like, the most important thing to every parent, even though we talk about exam results, we talk, the most important thing to every parent is, I want my kid to be a good person. I want my kid to be respectful and responsible and kind and courageous and capable and resilient. That matters more to every parent, no matter what their background, no matter what their income level, no matter what their faith, that's what they care about most deeply. And when people say well that's not really the job of schools, that's the job of family or faith and I think, it sure is the job of schools, because we have them seven hours a day. We are shaping who they are. They're either learning to be more respectful or not, more responsible or not, more courageous or not, more compassionate or not. And if we're not intentional about building good citizens and good people, we are actually doing damage. And so, we have to take that on explicitly and intentionally in our schools of thinking we're, we know we're shaping people, let's shape them to be the kind of human beings we wanna run our world.

Dale Atkinson: It's a pretty inspirational message Ron. Thank you. Ron and Gwynn, thank you very much for your time and looking forward to having you back in October this year.

Ron Berger and Gwyn ap Harri: Cheers.