Fiona McKenzie is a teacher who quickly realised that a conventional school environment was not going to allow her to achieve her vision of generating positive change in the world. It was partly the ‘what’ of the curriculum, but mostly the ‘how’ of the schools she worked in. Sensing that the ‘how’ could not be changed without a new approach to school structure and program design, Fiona established a primary school based on a model that addressed these systemic problems, for 6-12 year old children in a rural area, 150km south of Melbourne, Australia - Koonwarra Village School opened in 2012 with 26 students. Following requests from parents in another community nearby, a second primary school opened on Phillip Island four years later, and in 2020, the opening of a high school (Village High School) became a natural progression as students and parents wanted to maintain their engagement with self-directed learning into the senior years of schooling. Fiona is currently the Principal of the two youngest schools and remains on the Board of the third.