Course Description

This course focuses on developing students' abilities to communicate, think, and deal with their feelings. They will explore realistic personal goals, assess their own abilities, and realize how these actions will affect their learning and decision-making processes. They will develop awareness of their place in the community and the value to their personal growth of giving service to the community. The course is divided into five modules: personal development, career awareness, workplace readiness, financial management and LifeWork Portfolio. The LifeWork Portfolio is the tool provided to students so that they may start or continue to organize the artifacts of their significant achievements and life events and reflect on their meaning.

Community-based learning is a partnership involving the student, families, the school and the community, with each of the partners sharing the responsibility for the student’s learning experience. Students benefit from the expertise, talent, and resources of community-based service organizations, agencies, business, industry, citizen groups, entrepreneurs, and parents and gain opportunities to apply and enhance, in real-life contexts, knowledge, skills, and attitudes acquired through their work in school.

Career Development 11 builds on the grade 10 career development curriculum. Units include career awareness, work cultures, financial management and lifework Portfolio.

Cooperative Education is a core component of the Options and Opportunities Program. Each O2 student must complete at least 3 COOP credits before graduation. Each of these credits will be centered around a work placement where the student will get hands-on experience in a trade/career that they are considering for their future. These work placements also play a critical part in the student’s choice of what post-secondary program to enroll in after high school graduation. There are opportunities for students to use their CO-OP hours towards a youth apprenticeship. This will ensure that these students have a head start in the skilled trade that they are pursuing.

By the end of the course students will be able to identify healthy work environments and recognize the impact of unsafe work practices, recognize the main types of workplace hazards and identify the source, apply their learning about healthy work environments to their home and school, recognize employer and worker rights and responsibilities, review the Nova Scotia Health and Safety Act, develop an awareness of Injury prevention and demonstrate a commitment to a culture of safety. Students will be completing WHMIS training during this course.