West Coast businesses help students focus on their careers
Tourism, building, motoring and retail businesses on the West Coast are partnering with schools to offer work placements
or on-site visits as part of the secondary school curriculum. These placements help students get real life experience
and better equip them to secure future employment.
Coast Toyota offers ‘tuition’ in its services department offering work placements three times a year for Manufacturing & Technology pathway students.
Chris Doig, the Service Manager at Coast Toyota says they are “absolutely committed” to the work placement programme as
it is “an important community contribution”. Chris says that students observe what technicians do, get knowledge of
day-to-day activities on the job and get stuck in with hands-on work. “You can tell pretty quickly which ones are really
engaged; our current apprentice was introduced to us from a placement.”
Andrea Forest runs Shantytown Heritage Park, which has a museum, steam trains, cafe and function centre. Andrea explains
that three of the students who recently came to do work experience on an engineering pathway have been employed – one by
Solid Energy, one by the Army and a third by a local engineering firm. “The students who benefit best from the work
placements are those with a defined pathway,” says Andrea.
“Getting students into industry as part of their secondary school training is part of the growing and necessary
relationship between education and industry,” says Joseph Thomas CEO of Development West Coast. “The capability and
capacity of the future work force starts to develop as early as secondary school. Students need to understand the
relevance of their learning and development in terms of how this will position them for future employment opportunities.
Schools and business need to ensure that what is taught at school aligns with the current needs of employers.”
Andy England, Principal at Greymouth High School says that his school partners with industry in a number of ways -
through Gateway placements, visits by industry representatives at school, site visits and through the Youth Guarantee
network. “We need even closer ties. We have the capacity to influence the direction of our young people but we want to
do it in a way which makes the most sense for their futures.”
John Paul II High School which has 200 students, currently has 19 students doing work placements through the Gateway
programme as part of their vocational training. They are placed in a range of industries including building,
hairdressing, journalism, early childhood education, and engineering as well as beauty and electrical.
“We want our students to be exposed to as many industries as possible so that they see what is out there,” says Kieran
Stone, Principal at John Paul II High School. “What has been an issue is that there are not always assessors available
to enable students to earn credits while ‘on the job’. We want to encourage our youth to stay and contribute to growing
the region. Introducing them to opportunities in industry while still at school is a way to do this.”
West Coast Trades Academy manager Sarah Caseley says that if students think earlier about the opportunities available to
them by doing work placements and following a Vocational Pathway, then they are more likely to have a sense of purpose
and motivation.
“One of the ways of encouraging them to do this is by being treated like an adult in the work place with real
responsibility while still at school. At our awards ceremony at the end of last year we got local business owner, Jeff
Evans from Jeff Evans Plumbing, to speak very honestly to our students about the need for them to take responsibility
for their learning and careers and to communicate eye-to-eye with employers.”
Development West Coast and the West Coast Trades Academy continue to encourage education and businesses to work more
closely to ensure that what is taught at schools remains as relevant to the outside world as possible, setting students
on the right pathways to future employment or further study.
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