It provides an education to those young people who are at risk of not completing their School Certificate (the basic level of qualification in New South Wales).

The John Berne School is owned and operated by the Marist Brothers, an order founded in France during the early 19th century by St Marcellin Champagnat.

The school caters for students who may be experiencing problems due to physical, psychological, emotional and/or familial reasons.

Their placement at Berne could be short term, where the aim is to work on the student's behavioural or emotional issues in order to reintegrate them back into their mainstream school, or long term, where the aim is to continue to educate them through to the School Certificate.

Pete's Place operates in a different way from the main campus of the John Berne School: it has a smaller number of students (15 approximately) and the instruction, provided by three full-time teachers and one part-time teacher's aide, is more individual.