Careers News

The world of Careers has been busy as usual. Here is a rundown of what is happening.

Year 11 

Year 11 will be attending a post careers workshop in Week 2 which will be at the Coffs Harbour Education Campus. This is an excellent opportunity for students to research career pathways and make contacts for work opportunities.

The exhibition has over fifty presenters and includes presentations from a plethora of universities including: The University of Sydney, University of Queensland, University of Canberra, University of Tasmania, University of Newcastle, University of New England, Griffith University and Southern Cross University. There are a whole host of TAFE courses, businesses and industries present as well including: Essential Energy, the Coffs Harbour Bypass, Serco, Costa and Faircloth & Reynolds.

The students will spend the morning researching different career opportunities at the various presentation stands and will be able to talk directly to the presenters to find out key facts and requisites for career choices. They can access information about courses, apprenticeships, job opportunities and scholarships. 

Some Year 12 students will also be attending this event.

Year 12

Many of the students are finalising their university applications. Some early entry  offer university dates for the first round of offers have already elapsed. However,  for  the University of Newcastle the date is 29th August and for Southern Cross University the date is 30th September. For the University Admissions Centre (UAC) the forms must be submitted by 5th September. All students should apply for the schools recommendation scheme.

UAC INFORMATION TALK - unpacking the university admissions process 

The University Admissions Centre (UAC) will be presenting an online information session at the College on Tuesday, 19th August. Representatives from the centre will be there to give key pieces of information or respond to questions from students or any interested staff. This is mainly aimed at Year 12 but any interested Year 11 students may attend too.  This will be for 40 minutes at lunchtime.

Year 10 and 11

Unserious Careers Roadshow - Presenter  Alana Killmartin 

Alana Killmartin will be presenting a careers talk for Years 10 and 11. She is touring Australia and presenting an engaging perspective on career mapping. The topics she will cover include: 

• Removing the pressure to figure out your entire career by the time you leave school. 
• Why you can't fail at your career in the first five years (aka the Casual Jog Years).
• Building a strong Career Support Team.
• Everyone has at least one Career Superpower: which one is yours?
• Your career is only one part of your life. What other goals would you like to kick after school?

Year 10 Work Experience

All students should be organising a place to complete work experience work for Term 4, Week 8 (1st-5th December). This is a great opportunity to experience the real world and test different career options or working environments. All students are completing a short course to prepare for work experience in class. There will be a lot of  preparation and paperwork required for this process and this will take a period of time to get organised.

All of the required documentation can be found on the Career Tools website which the students have access to but I am putting screenshots of this below.

STAGES FOR WORK EXPERIENCE

STAGE 1 - Students complete a work readiness course in class.

The first stage is to find an employer and get them to fill out the first piece of paperwork which is basically listing the business on paper for the school. This initial letter should be returned by Week 4 of this term.

Here is the application form, which students must return to the Office and put in the box at the Office.

STAGE 2

A. In this stage the students will have more paperwork to return by Week 7 of this term. This paperwork is more detailed and requires parents and the host workplace to sign.

Return this paperwork to the Office and put this in the box at the Office.

B. They will issue the workplace with the information for employers documents, found on Career Tools website - see below.

C. The school will check all of the paperwork.

STAGE 3

A. Contact the workplace two weeks before placement to check that everything is finalised.Issue the workplace journal to the employer

B. Final check with the school that everything is organised.

STAGE 4

Attend work experience and fill out the workplace journal with the employer each day. A school representative will check in with the employer and student early in their work placement. If there are any concerns contact me immediately.

STAGE 5

Return to school, reflect on the experience and fill out the evaluation documentation, send a thank you letter to the employee, add the work experience to their resume.

Below is a screen shot showing where to find all of the paperwork on the Compass website.

Working with animals as a part of your work experience or moving interstate or away from home for your work experience? 

Those who are involved in either of the above need to fill out extra paperwork which must be signed by the Principal. Attached are these forms.

Finally, this is obviously quite an involved process but it is very worthwhile. Please contact me for any help with this.

Mrs Maria Rouse

Careers