Careers and Pathways at Catherine McAuley College

Parent Information

Positive parental influence can boost your child's confidence when making career choices. The earliest, most powerful, learning about careers is shaped by the adults in a child's life.

It is imperative that young people don’t narrow their future career choices as a result of believing they are constrained by their gender, ethnicity or socio-economic background. Children often base their aspirations on the jobs their parents, friends and neighbours do, and on TV and social media. Young people need exposure to the world of work and access to people who can help bring learning to life and show them how the subjects they are studying are relevant to their futures.

Aspiring to future occupations can help your child start planning and working towards achieving their goal. However, the types and number of jobs available continue to change due to shifts in the local and global economy and advances in technology.

It is really important that we help young people develop a better understanding of the relationship between education, the employment market and jobs of the future and broaden their aspirations to a new generation of careers and occupations.

Understanding Education and Training Pathways

Learn skills with Vocational Education and Training

VTAC Guide to Researching Tertiary Courses

National Institute of Careers - Parent information for school leavers

Resources to support your child

The experiences we have as children have the power to shape our future. Find out how creating the right Little Ripples can change children's lives.

https://www.yourcareer.gov.au/littleripples (for younger students)

Myfuture Assist Your Child

Jobjumpstart

The Parents Website

My Skills: Students can search for and explore vocational courses across Australia, learn about in demand jobs and watch videos of young people who have completed vocational training, http://bit.ly/1D8uek7

Helping your child choose school subjects

The subject selection process is an exciting part of your child's education journey. It allows them to reflect on how the subjects they study at school affect their future career path. And if you support your child to choose suitable subjects, they are more likely to achieve good results in their final years of school.

If your child knows what they want to study after leaving school, they can identify a number of courses to explore. Each provider and each course has prerequisites that students must meet. So it's important that you and your child are aware of these.

In the final years of school, your child should choose subjects that:

enable them to work from their strengths
challenge them to make the most of their capabilities
provide them with the qualification they need to pursue their ambitions after school
are enjoyable while they study
offer a range of study that is manageable, with a balance between theoretical and practical subjects
provide life skills
are their choice and not the choice of others.

Who to talk to

The course counsellor at your child's school will be able to give advice on choosing senior school subjects. In particular, they will be able to provide your child with information about the subjects:

required for entry to university
related to particular occupations
required for VET courses.

The following people and organisations can also assist your child to make informed decisions:

subject teachers
Indigenous education workers
parents
friends
lecturers and teachers at universities and TAFEs
students who are currently studying the subjects your child is interested in
employers
people in an industry or organisation that interests your child
role models or successful people in the career of their choice.

Open days

Most university and TAFEs have open days (usually throughout August). These provide a chance to speak to staff and current students about courses and university/TAFE life.

Open days allow you to see what the campus looks like and what facilities and services are on offer. There are often information sessions held throughout the day. For details, see the tertiary admissions sites listed below.

Encourage them to look back at their achievements

It will be important for your child to think about their achievements. They should identify:

the subjects they have done well in, or not so well in
what their achievements tell them about their abilities (eg mechanical aptitude, verbal ability, numerical ability).

Building a picture of themselves

Encourage your child to build a career profile to help in their decision-making process by:

listing their strengths, abilities, skills, knowledge and interests
looking at how their family and other people in their life are influencing their decisions
knowing the occupations they are suited to and interested in.

My career profile contains a set of activities that help students to develop self-knowledge for career decision-making and explore career pathways. By completing the activities, students will receive a list of suggested occupations that reflect their responses to the activities.

If your child already has a clear idea about the career direction they want to take, then they can visit the Occupations section. Some of the occupation profiles have accompanying videos. You can find a list of the occupations that have related videos in our Occupation video library.

Suitable subjects will be a blend of what they are good at or enjoy doing and those that they need to complete to get into a particular course. It will also clarify whether a chosen career path is actually realistic or achievable.

As young people mature and collect more information, they will likely change their understanding about their choices. The subjects they choose should be able to deliver the broadest range of choices for tertiary education.

The tertiary admission centres for each state and territory of Australia are listed below:

In the Northern Territory, applications for all undergraduate courses and postgraduate courses by coursework at Charles Darwin University are made through the SATAC.

About the author

myfuture

myfuture is Australia's National Career Information Service. Since 2002, myfuture has supported people to make career decisions, plan their career pathway and manage work transitions. Contact us or say hello on Facebook or Twitter.

Parents – School to Work Resources

Supporting your child in preparing for the world of work after school can be a challenge. Casualisation and globalisation of the work force, and automation and rapid advances in technology will all have an impact in your child’s navigation of the world of work.

The Australian Government has developed resources to support parents through the Future Ready Career Education Portal. To access the resources, go to https://schooltowork.dese.gov.au/

Focus on VET Pathways

Vocational education and training (VET) includes traineeships, apprenticeships and TAFE study.

4 out of 5 parents report that they would prefer their child to go to university than study VET, http://bit.ly/2vPBkPF but it is crucial that both parents and students take the time to understand the VET sector, and that a preference for just university study may in some cases limit a young persons potential.

Between 20 – 30% of young people in Australia drop out of or change their university course within the first year. Many young people don’t even consider studying VET due to incorrect perceptions or through lack of understanding of the sector.

It’s no secret that employers love job applicants who have TAFE qualifications, including those who graduate from a university degree with a VET qualification.

VET graduates are considered to have ‘job ready’ skills and in the future labour market in Australia with 1 in every 2 young people expected to complete a Bachelor degree, it is more important than ever to have diverse skills, industry experience and more than one qualification (e.g., a Bachelor of Engineering with a TAFE Diploma in Project Management).

Did you know that 9/10 occupations predicted to have the most jobs growth by 2023 are in vocational training areas and in the industries with the most growth (e.g., health and community services, construction, and accommodation and food services)? Source: http://bit.ly/1mab7j7

Specific occupations with the biggest growth prediction include sales assistants, aged care workers, disability workers, enrolled nurses, electricians, chefs, and early childhood education workers etc.

Current skills shortages are in occupations such as automotive trades, food trades, construction trades, and building professionals.

A report, titled: ‘Perceptions Are Not Reality: myths, realities & the critical role of vocational education & training in Australia’, was released by Skilling Australia Foundation last year,

It revealed the following:

· VET graduates earn wages comparable to, if not exceeding, that of university graduates.

· VET graduates have a higher employment rate than university undergraduates. More than 78% of VET graduates are employed after training.

· VET courses have adapted more readily to changing workforce needs.

There are some occupations that require a university degree (e.g., medicine, social work, law).

It is advisable that students consider undertaking VET study during their gap year (e.g., gap year traineeship or TAFE course) and concurrently with their university studies (if time permits).

Other benefits of TAFE courses include:

Higher level courses (e.g., Diploma) can provide a direct pathway into university courses with credit
Can give you the opportunity to trial an industry or career area before you commit to university study
Can give you a qualification you can use to gain part time work whilst undertaking university study.

Do you know you can study a huge range of vocational courses at TAFE? TAFE provides students with the opportunity to:

Undertake applied learning
Gain ‘industry ready’ experience
Learn about industries and careers
Obtain a qualification in a relatively short time frame.

The following are example courses you could consider:

Jane knows she loves working with people, has excellent written and verbal communication skills, is creative, loves thinking outside the box, is highly organised and enjoys solving problems. She explores the following TAFE courses:

Public Relations
Marketing
Advertising
Professional Writing and Editing
Broadcast Journalism
Liberal Arts
Library and Information Services

Sheridan loves sciences and health and is considering working in rehabilitation, medical sciences or allied health in the future. She explores the following courses:

Dental Technology

Nursing

Massage and Myotherapy

Allied Health Assistance

Laboratory Technology

Pathology Collection

Paul knows he loves helping people and that he would like to work in counselling, case management, or human services in the future. He explores the following courses:

Community Services

Youth Work

Disability Services

Mental Health

Alcohol and other Drugs

Aged Care