‘Working with heads, hearts, and hands’

More than 700 students will be able to hop between high schools for different courses and extracurriculars next year as part of a new inner-city initiative.

The Winnipeg School Division is planning to formally unveil its Big Picture Learning Campus in the fall.

Four schools — Argyle Alternative, R.B. Russell Vocational, Children of the Earth and the Adolescent Parent Centre — are part of the network.

Everyone will continue to have a home school, but there will be student mobility within the North End, “much like a university campus,” chief superintendent Matt Henderson said.

“We are branding it as a ‘Big Picture Learning Campus’ because of the opportunities to work with heads, hearts, hands and because of the opportunity for leaving to learn between the buildings,” Henderson said.

Big Picture Learning, also known as the Met School approach, is a schooling model built around individual student interests, inquiry and internships.

It involves repositioning teachers as advisers and tasking students with creating portfolios and hosting “public exhibitions” to share what they’ve learned with mentors, peers and family members.

Henderson said advisers will encourage inner-city students on the new campus to explore their passions and access related activities and facilities.

Indigenous cultural programming at Children of the Earth will be accessible to all. The same goes for R.B. Russell’s vocational studies, including its new theatre stream and the Waabishkaa‑Makwa Lab.

“It’s not just courses. It’s experiences. When learners are engaged in something that matters to them, they show up to school and they stay late,” the superintendent said.

A pair of American educators coined the Big Picture Learning concept in 1995 and established a non-profit to promote their alternative to rote learning.

Henderson was the founding principal of Maples Met School — the second Big Picture Learning site to open in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Canada. His teenage daughter is currently a Met student.

The Seven Oaks School Division runs all three local Met sites, but their underlying philosophy has been gaining traction across the province in recent years. Public school leaders in Winkler are piloting the model in 2026-27.

Seven schools in central Winnipeg are part of what Henderson calls “the BPL cohort.” They include General Wolfe School, Hugh John Macdonald School and Gordon Bell High School.

The division pays $100,000 per year to be a part of an official global network. That fee covers leadership consultation services, teacher training sessions and an annual divisional conference on the topic, Henderson said.

“When we make changes and we set up school learning systems, it’s always important to centre that around students and their learning,” said Vinh Huynh, the newly-appointed executive director of the Community Education Development Association.

“When we do that in a good way, it should increase student voice, choice and agency.”

Many of the families who access the North End hub’s after-school tutoring and mentoring programs will be part of the new campus.

High schoolers should be able to better customize and take ownership of their education with this campus model, but execution will be a challenge, Huynh said, reflecting on his career as a school administrator.

Huynh retired as principal of Gordon Bell High School at the end of June. It’s hard enough to co-ordinate day-to-day operations inside a single building, he said.

“There’s always going to be some sunshine and some potential shadow…. We need to make sure staff on different campuses are in alignment in terms of understanding students, co-ordinating and communicating,” Huynh added.

R.B. Russell (364 Dufferin Ave.) and Children of the Earth (100 Salter St.) — the Adolescent Parent Centre is being moved into the latter’s building — are located within five minutes of each other on foot.

Henderson said the division will provide transportation to shuttle students to and from Argyle Alternative (30 Argyle St.) and the North End. Contrary to a rumour that’s been circulating, the school in South Point Douglas is remaining open, he noted.

“We want to make sure that kids have as few barriers as possible or no barriers,” he said, noting that’s one of the reasons the division is relocating its program for pregnant teenagers and young moms to a more central location.

The longtime home of the Adolescent Parent Centre (136 Cecil St.) is slated to become the Weston Adult Learning Centre.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca