Candlebark is a relatively new non-denominational co-educational fee-paying day school, from Prep to Year 9, set in 1100 acres of native forest north of Melbourne. In 2010, the school will enrol its maximum of 100 pupils, with a faculty of 11. Candlebark encourages children to be adventurous, to have an open, trusting attitude, and to engage with life wholeheartedly. We want our students to explore the world in all its beauty and ugliness, in its richness and poverty. Our concern is that students have as many first-hand experiences as possible. To that end we run an extensive program of sleepovers, camps and hikes, as well as international and interstate trips, and visits to galleries, museums, exhibitions and festivals. We maintain a sparky academic program, with strong emphasis on motivation and relevant content. It seems that the current government's vision is for a bland and dreary education system, rendered lifeless by an obsession with testing, conformity and standardization. The inevitable concomitant to that is a joyless school experience, endured passively or submissively or angrily. Candlebark has a different vision. Our greatest on-going challenge is to maintain the integrity of our program, in the face of relentless political and bureaucratic pressures.