Careers presentation for year 9 students
By Elizabeth van den Berg
Future careers are on the year 9s minds now as they have their option choices to make or have just made them and then we had two presenters from Tai Tokerau Trades Training at school. They came in on Wednesday 1 December and Friday 3 December and had a workshop with each of the year 9 classes around Vocational Pathways. They explained the options students have after finishing high school. These are: going to university, going to a technicon (such as Northtec) taking up an apprenticeship or going into a job with on-the-job training. They encouraged students to take some time to go on websites about careers and talk to family friends about what their jobs really are on a day-to-day basis. Students had to choose which one of the six different vocational pathways appeals to them at this point. They acknowledged that students often don’t yet know what they want to do or may change their minds several time in the next few years but give them great tools to help decide where they might go.
There is more information on the Vocational Pathways on this website: https://youthguarantee.education.govt.nz/initiatives/vocational-pathways/
With Covid-19 restrictions our annual Year 9 question and answer session with members of the community and parents wasn’t practical and this initiative with TTTT was a great opportunity for students to gain worthwhile information.
Feedback collected from students was very positive and the presenters were complimentary about the conduct and participation of all our year 9 students.