VCE Vocational Major Personal Development Skills (PDS) takes an active approach to personal development, self-realisation and citizenship by exploring interrelationships between individuals and communities. PDS focuses on health, wellbeing, community engagement and social sciences, and provides a framework through which students seek to understand and optimise their potential as individuals and as members of their community.

This study provides opportunities for students to explore influences on identity, set and achieve personal goals, interact positively with diverse communities, and identify and respond to challenges. Students will develop skills in self-knowledge and care, accessing reliable information, teamwork, and identifying their goals and future pathways.

PDS explores concepts of effective leadership, self-management, project planning and teamwork to support students to engage in their work, community and personal environments.

Through self-reflection, independent research, critical and creative thinking and collaborative action, students will extend their capacity to understand and connect with the world they live in, and build their potential to be resilient, capable citizens.

VM Personal Development Skills enables students to explore and address important social challenges and questions. Who am I? What is community? How can we improve the health and wellbeing of individuals? What are my goals as an individual and as part of a community? How do I seek and critique reliable information? How do I build meaningful connections with others? What actions can be taken to respond to issues that affect us as a society?

Through independent and collaborative activities, PDS builds the capacity of students to set personal goals and participate in their communities with confidence, respect, safety and resilience.

Numeracy empowers students to use mathematics to make sense of the world and apply mathematics in a context for a social purpose. Numeracy gives meaning to mathematics, where mathematics is the tool (knowledge and skills) to be applied efficiently and critically. Numeracy involves the use and application of a range of mathematical skills and knowledge that arise in a range of different contexts and situations.

Numeracy enables students to develop logical thinking and reasoning strategies in their everyday activities. It develops students’ problem-solving skills, and allows them to make sense of numbers, time, patterns and shapes for everyday activities like cooking, gardening, sport and travel. Through the applied learning principles Numeracy students will understand the mathematical requirements for personal organisation matters involving money, time and travel. They can then apply these skills to their everyday lives to recognise monetary value, understand scheduling and timetabling, direction, planning, monetary risk and reward.

Technology is an integral part of everyday and working life in Australia. There is an expectation that our students are ready with these skills when they transition to independent living, further study or to work. The integration of digital technologies in the learning of mathematical processes is essential and is embedded throughout this study.

VCE Vocational Major Work Related Skills (WRS) examines a range of skills, knowledge and capabilities relevant to achieving individual career and educational goals. Students will develop a broad understanding of workplace environments and the future of work and education, in order to engage in theoretical and practical planning and decision-making for a successful transition to their desired pathway.

The study considers four key areas: the future of work; workplace skills and capabilities; industrial relations and the workplace environment and practice; and the development of a personal portfolio.

Students will have the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills gained from this study in the classroom environment and through Structured Workplace Learning (SWL).

Students preparing to transition to the workforce and to further education are best placed for success when they have confidence, self-awareness and the skills to interpret relevant information and make informed decisions about their future goals.

In VM Work Related Skills, students will develop the knowledge, skills and experiences to be active and engaged citizens and future members of the workforce, with the ability to communicate effectively, advocate for themselves and be adaptable to change. The study of WRS leads to opportunities across all industries and areas of work as well as in further education, and provides young people with the tools they need to succeed in the future.

VCE Vocational Major Literacy focuses on the development of the knowledge and skills required to be literate in Australia today. The key knowledge and key skills encompass a student’s ability to interpret and create texts that have purpose, and are accurate and effective, with confidence and fluency.

As students develop these skills, they engage with texts that encompass everyday language to the more abstract, specialised and technical language of different workplaces, including the language of further study.

Literacy empowers students to read, write, speak and listen in different contexts. Literacy enables students to understand the different ways in which knowledge and opinion are represented and developed in texts drawn from daily life. The development of literacy in this study design is based upon applied learning principles, making strong connections between students’ lives and their learning. By engaging with a wide range of text types and content drawn from a range of local and global cultures, forms and genres, including First Nations peoples’ knowledge and voices, students learn how information can be shown through print, visual, oral, digital and multimodal representations.

Students develop their skills to respond to texts and interpret the texts that surround them throughout their time in VCE VM Literacy.This understanding helps students develop their own writing and oral communication, so that they become confident in their use of language and their ability to comprehend, respond to and create texts for a variety of settings.

The applied learning approach of this study is intended to meet the needs of students with a wide range of abilities and aspirations.