S1E9: Kate McAllister on opening her dream school

Kate McAllister is a force of nature, and a dear friend of the Rethinking Education podcast. Kate worked as a French teacher for 14 years, and has over 10 years’ experience in school leadership roles. She first worked on creating a Learning to Learn curriculum in 2005, with the aim of helping pupils develop the knowledge and skills they need to navigate the often-difficult transition from primary to secondary school. She then spent the next 15 years refining and improving both the methodology and the results, culminating in the publication of Fear is the Mind Killer: Why Learning to Learn deserves lesson time - and how to make it work for your pupils in 2020 (co-authored by James Mannion, the host of the Rethinking Education podcast). In 2015, Kate took Learning to Learn to new frontiers when she set up the School Bus Project, a charity providing mobile education for refugees. Kate crowd-funded the purchase of a double decker bus, installed solar panels on the roof and spent 6 months working in refugee camps in Calais, providing much-needed education and support for people living in displacement. Following the closure of the Calais camps, Kate set up the Human Hive, a global community of organisations and individuals working together to create a more welcoming and inclusive world. In 2020, Kate sold her house and set out to travel the world with her daughter, studying alternative education models. Finding herself in the Dominican Republic when the covid pandemic hit, Kate decided to stay and open her dream school! The Hive School is now open, and going from strength to strength... This is a fascinating conversation that covers worldschooling - what Kate describes as her "Alice through the looking glass moment' - the importance of #WomenEd in helping her find her voice, and how she is 'rethinking education' by building her dream school! Here are some links to interesting stuff we talked about: WEBSITE: The Hive School, Cabrera, Dominican Republic: https://thehive.school/ MIGHTY NETWORK: The Human Hive: https://the-human-hive.mn.co/ MIGHTY NETWORK: Rethinking Education: https://rethinking-education.mn.co/ PODCAST: James Mannion and Kate McAllister on the Education Research Reading Room with Ollie Lovell: https://www.ollielovell.com/errr/james-mannion-kate-mcallister-learning-skills/ BOOK: Fear is the Mind Killer: Why Learning to Learn deserves lesson time - and how to make it work for your pupils: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fear-Mind-Killer-teaching-Learning/dp/1911382772 The Rethinking Education podcast is hosted and produced by Dr James Mannion. You can contact him at rethinking-ed.org/contact, or via @RethinkingJames on Twitter.