At Daylesford Dharma School, the day unfolds in a tranquil rhythm of mindfulness and compassion.
Since opening its doors in 2009, the school, nestled in the serene foothills of Victoria’s Great Dividing Range, has developed a unique model that seamlessly weaves the Australian Curriculum and Buddhist philosophy together.
Each day, students calmly begin their morning classes, where teachings of kindness, patience, and altruism set the foundation for their learning. For teachers, their day begins with 30 minutes of meditation and mindfulness, creating a calm, intentional atmosphere that permeates the school grounds.
Absent are the shrill sounds of bells; instead, students move seamlessly through ‘brain breaks’, noble silence for quiet play, and immersive Bush School sessions, where they connect deeply with their “heart-led and experiential environment”.
Even before she stepped into the principal’s office in 2021 during the post-COVID ‘great resignation’ when it was difficult to recruit into educational leadership, Andrea Furness was no stranger to Daylesford Dharma School.
As its co-founding first principal in 2009, Furness helped to craft the very culture that the school’s community celebrates today.
She says her return has evolved into a three-year ongoing tenure out of a sense of responsibility to support the school’s vision and values during those turbulent times of change and now “a heartfelt motivation” to bring this wisdom-compassion education approach into the mainstream and into the awareness of other teachers.
“I am deeply inspired each day by the breadth and depth of compassion and skillful means that our teachers and staff extend to their students to support their social-emotional well-being while doing the important work of providing an excellent foundation education in the primary years’ requirements,” Furness told The Educator.
“The two, as we know, go hand in hand—well-being is an important foundation for experiencing success in learning as a student.”
The ripple effect of mindful leadership
When asked how her leadership philosophy and approach has built on the school’s culture, Furness pointed out that embodying mindfulness, compassion, and responsibility at a leadership level not only strengthens staff morale but also creates a ripple effect that deeply enriches the school’s culture and benefits its students.
“I think it’s difficult to argue that the education sector is not influenced strongly through a top-down leadership approach,” she said.
“Before I took on the role, I asked a Dharma friend and teacher of twenty-plus years what in his experience were the most important qualities in a principal; he quite confidently said that the flaws, weaknesses, and inconsistencies of the principal would either inspire similar behaviors to be emulated by staff or will erode the morale of the staff over time.”
Both of these responses, the teacher told Furness, weaken the school and work environment.
“I took this to heart and determined to be the first in and the last to leave each day with joyful effort, to not skip morning meditation with the staff but see it as important, and to give unlimited support to staff as we strengthened the core of the school,” she said.
“At some point, I needed to identify my inner resources that needed deeper development such as deep listening – rather than speedy problem solving – and patience with the many and equally important moving parts that propel the day in a school.”
Furness says the school’s five days of mindfulness retreat each year have been “enormously helpful” for her in developing calm and concentration rather than the habitual response of feeling stressed.
“I think when staff can witness their leadership team doing the same work that is expected of them to benefit their students, then it creates a powerful workplace culture and this ripples back to the students.”
‘An antidote to unhappiness’
To develop the awareness of students, the school’s ‘Australian Dharma Curriculum’ sees each day begin with a related meditation or mindfulness session that addresses the topic of the week.
“For example, this could be patience or deep listening, nonviolent communication or respect, honesty and intent, or human rights or non-harm,” Furness explains.
“All our weekly topics are inextricably linked to our curriculum and teachers and staff have lesson plans to work from so that all subjects whether that be in performing arts or science and maths, can connect with those themes.”
Furness said this creates “a deeper, holistic learning experience” for our students who can see these values applied in different contexts.
“Our Australian Dharma Curriculum is as much for the students as it is for our teachers. The curriculum provides a guide for us to navigate each day through a lens of compassion, mindfulness, and respect,” she said.
“Growth and learning, resilience, curiosity, and openness become values that our students carry with them into their secondary school years and beyond. It’s quite remarkable the feedback we receive from our alumni students.”
Furness doesn’t exclude herself from this learning, either.
“I work through our awareness topics and program each week with staff, and we all use it as a lens to develop ourselves and grow,” she said.
“I use the Plum Village app to set a mindfulness bell on the hour every hour whilst I’m at work, to ensure I pause to take a mindful breath and don’t get overwhelmed by the daily tasks.”
Furness said she also runs some of these sessions herself from time to time.
“I am often inspired by the incredible growth of the children and their openness to developing their compassion, and responsibility and they show me that what we are teaching them is working,” she said.
“I certainly didn’t experience this kind of education and consider that what we are giving our students is remarkable.”
Furness said watching the children develop their inner resources and self-confidence is “hugely rewarding.”
“Our small school was an experiment when we started it more than 15 years ago now, and it truly works. I believe that we are providing an antidote to unhappiness and discontent through education that also has so much benefit for social cohesion.”
Turning life’s challenges into lessons of growth
Furness said a particularly powerful aspect of the school’s curriculum is that it enables students to have in-depth conversations about what it means to help someone in need, listen to someone without judgment, or what kind of strategies can be used to cope with change.
“This week I ran a whole school assembly for our Prep – Year 6 students where we all sat together and discussed the changes that were happening to them and every other student in Australia who are moving from one year into the next and shared ideas and strategies for coping with change,” she recalled.
“Our Grade 6 students were sharing in this conversation and our Grade 1’s and 2’s also had the confidence to share their fears and excitement about next year. We shared strategies for accepting change and a Grade 2 student advised us that courage was a way that she coped with change.”
Another student had the strategy to look for the things that they were already familiar with in the new situation, Furness added.
“This is one of the benefits of having a composite class structure where children learn to respect each other regardless of their age or life experience level and have the confidence to share their thoughts.”
The school also ensures teachers are supported to do their job without feeling overworked or overwhelmed by what is expected of them to educate students for the 21st century.
“We address this in part by emphasising how important it is that our students are supported to take responsibility for their behaviour and experiences,” she said. “These are mutual expectations of ourselves, and our students and it creates a strong cohesion for us as a community.”
Four-day weeks, wellness retreats for teachers
The school addresses teacher wellbeing by letting classroom teachers work a four-day week. Additionally, all staff attend annual retreats and mindfulness training as part of their paid professional development.
“We have Five Precepts, that are based on the Buddhist Precepts but modified for children, and these are our lived school values that guide us daily,” she said.
“Whether that’s in how we teach, how we speak, how we play, or how we listen and respond. Our teachers are skilled at embedding them into the classroom and our student wellbeing support program is very robust as a result.”
The school is also starting to develop parts of the Australian Dharma Curriculum to be accessible outside the Dharma School, Furness said.
“We recognise there’s a strong demand in the education sector for resources to address the current challenges teachers are facing,” she said. “We can see that teaching children these foundational values benefit both the student, the teacher and their greater community.”
As early as next year, teachers at other schools will be able to access elements of the Australian Dharma Curriculum from the school’s website.
“They will be able to apply this approach to cover specific parts of the Australian Curriculum General Capabilities while they strengthen their classroom management skills and develop a healthy culture in their classroom,” she said.
Furness noted that teachers can register their interest on the school’s website now and will be notified when the Curriculum is available.
Navigating the digital world through ‘deep listening and loving speech’
Furness said one of the innovations that will be developed in 2025 is taking the Victorian Government’s ESmart toolkit around Digital Safety (which the school tested in 2023 and 2024) and amending it to fit within a compassion and Dharma framework
“ESmart is a good resource but our students were not engaging with it,” she said.
“We are bringing a values-based vocabulary and a mindfulness approach that integrates kindness, compassion, individual responsibility, and interdependence understanding into the material so that students can develop self-awareness of how they are using technology.”
Furness said this includes how students at the school can practice deep listening and loving speech in a chat room, looking at where students’ practice of generosity lives in the digital world, and how they are using technology (i.e., is it mindful, and how does this look and feel for them?).
“Next year, we will be trialling our modified EWise program with our students and utilising their feedback and approaches so that the resource more clearly contains their voices,” she said.
“We are wanting our students to develop their awareness of how they engage online and how to be beneficial and healthy in their digital world.”
A new model for intercultural learning
In 2026, the school plans to open a secondary campus in Braybrook, on the site of the Quang Minh Temple, which is recognised as one of Australia’s most significant Buddhist sites and one of the largest Vietnamese temples outside of Vietnam.
Furness said this is “an extraordinary opportunity” for both the students and school community to expand the reach of Daylesford Dharma School’s effective curriculum model in helping students navigate secondary school and adolescence.
“Through city and country learning modalities we will be able to offer students at both campuses rich intercultural exchange whilst enabling the continued development of Daylesford Dharma School,” she said.
“By opening a new campus in Melbourne’s outer western suburbs, families in the region, and Melbourne will have access to our unique curriculum that teaches children to live kindly and develop their wisdom.”
Furness said the Quang Minh Campus will be a sister location to the Daylesford campus and share its specially developed curriculum, teaching pedagogy and resources.
“We see it as the sharing of country, city, and culture learning opportunities between two locations,” she said. “The Daylesford Dharma campus will share and model its established culture of kindness and wisdom and its location in the Wombat Forest with access to open landscapes and nature-based learning.”
Furness said the Quang Minh Campus will offer the Daylesford students culturally rich experiences closer to Melbourne, where they will be exposed to Vietnamese food, culture and a rich excursion program.
“Teachers from both campuses will benefit from collegial collaboration and sharing of expertise and planning, with participation in regular cross-campus professional development,” she said.
“We will be opening the Quang Minh campus with a playgroup to start with, as we have a solid playgroup pathway program at our Daylesford campus.”
In 2026, the school will also open its F-6 primary school facility and plans to proceed with those students to secondary school.
“We are in the early stages of planning an Australian Dharma Curriculum for Secondary School and aim to have this curriculum ready for implementation,” Furness said.
“Whilst the Australian Dharma Curriculum as it stands for Primary Education is invaluable, we also see the need for a similar but extended offering for Secondary School students to support young people through the difficult terrain of adolescence.”