Being “future ready” is a wide-reaching concept, with schools equipping their students with the skills needed to navigate real life. The National Career Education Strategy defines being “future ready” as building the skills and general capabilities students will need in the workplace, strengthening school and employer collaboration, and developing students’ career-management and navigation skills to prepare them for life after school.
At Queenwood School, thinking about your future career starts in earnest in Year 10
with comprehensive careers profiling, where students complete questionnaires looking at
their aptitudes, preferences, interests, skills and aspirations. “We collect this data as a
springboard for student-led discussion,” says Julie Eggleton, head of Careers and Pathways.
Eggleton works closely with students to discuss subject selection for Years 11 and 12, and how that might link to future opportunities. Year 10 culminates with a formal week of work experience organised by the students themselves, from sourcing opportunities and contacting companies to writing resumes. “This helps students understand that sometimes you won’t hear back from organisations, or you might be rejected, and helps them become
used to putting themselves out there and understanding how it all works,” she says.
“In Year 11 and 12 we provide opportunities to learn about different industries and fields,” explains Eggleton. “We have guest speakers from universities and organisations. We also have a series of alumni panels from fields such as health and medical, the finance and banking industry, and creative and design.”
Reddam House School also starts its careersadvice program in Year 10 during subject selection for Years 11 and 12. “In order for students to make appropriate decisions, they
need to have potential careers in mind,” says principal Dave Pitcairn.
“We do a workshop with them over a number of weeks where we can join the dots from potential careers back to a uni or TAFE course that they might need to do to get into
that career, then back to the subjects they might need to select for Years 11 and 12,”
explains Pitcairn.
Students at Reddam House also undertake assessments to see if their interests align with their strengths, which are followed up with group information sessions and individual appointments with the school’s careers adviser.
Students organise their own workexperience placements in Year 10, which Pitcairn believes is a great way to try out a career that a student is interested in, as well as giving them a taste of the recruitment process.
Pitcairn advocates that giving their Year 11 students freedom helps cultivate the autonomy skills they will need for after school. “Our Year 11 and 12 students don’t have to be
on campus unless they have lessons, and we have found that by giving them some freedom
and treating them as adults, they respect that and behave as adults,” he says.
“We find it helps with their time management and self-discipline, and if you give freedom to students incrementally they learn to deal with it, which helps when they get to university, for example, where there’s absolute freedom.”