VCE - Vocational Major

What Is VM ?

The VCE-VM program is an applied learning program, designed to be completed over a minimum of two years. The Vocational Major provides students the opportunity to follow and apply skills in relation to their personal areas of interest while also upskilling them for their future.The VCE-VM curriculum offers four subjects Literacy, Numeracy, Personal Development Skills and Work-Related Skills. Students also undertake a VET certificate.

VCE-VM at St Mary’s In our first year of VCE-VM at St Mary’s we currently have 14 students. These students have all made an amazing start to the year and have come together to form a cohesive,and friendly class who support and encourage each other to achieve their best.

Where can you find us? Our VM classroom is located at the end of the secondary wing in Room 21. You will find the VM staff in the office next door, the submarine room.

What have we been learning about?

Literacy Area of Study 1 - Literacy for personal use:- is crucial for students to understand, communicate, and engage with various texts. We focus on personal use by exploring and creating different types of discussions, research, note taking, short answers, reading, comprehension questions and filling in charts. Specific text and film via the themes of Family and the ability to say Sorry have been studied. Students are developing skills in reading, interpreting, and responding to texts through listening,viewing, speaking, and writing.

Numeracy:- Our first area of study covered Number skills and Personal Numeracy we did lots of budgeting and calculations involving ‘real life’ tasks, like calculating the cost of ticket prices, petrol for a trip, percentage discounts, costing food options, etc. We are currently working on drawing a floor plan of our VM classroom to scale.

Personal Development:- In our first area of study we delved into our personal identity and emotional intelligence. Learning about ourselves, our skills and how we work with others. We have completed many tasks challenging us to work effectively with others. We are currently learning about our health and wellbeing.

Work Related skills – AOS 1 is Future Careers:- Students explore two careers or industries and their future development, examining key employment data and the requisite skills for success in these fields. Students are to identify and discuss employment growth areas, analyze current and projected trends, labor market data, and emerging industries, including green sectors. We will also assess the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing employment in low, medium, and high-growth industries,providing insights into strategic planning and decision-making via information analysis,and effective employment planning for students entering the workforce.

Words from our students:

“Getting in groups and solving problems and doing teamwork activities to improve leadership and social skills was something that I found enjoyable because it meant that I could be close with my friends while learning alongside them. VM takes every student's well being seriously which is great and helped me a lot this term. We were given tasks to do in order to help with our wellbeing for 10 minutes every single personal development class.” Angela

“This term in VM has been an interesting experience for me, as in previous years all of my classwork was just writing and doing tests, but so far I have found VM a stark difference from what I thought it would be. After learning and experiencing the VM experience first-hand, I found that it was way more tailored to suit the individual needs of the students and provide a fun and enjoyable learning style. One of my favourite parts about the VM classes is the maths assessment, where we are working together to plan a class picnic.” Micah

“My name is Ash, I am doing VM, you may not have heard about VM before, or know what it is, VM stands for vocational major. The thing that I have enjoyed most so far when being involved in VM is in personal development skills. Every lesson we get to pick a task of our choice like colouring, drawing, word search, puzzles, boardgames or something that could help improve our wellbeing. We do this for 10 minutes at the start of every lesson of personal development class. The task I choose every lesson is either a fun word search or colouring in. I find doing these tasks for 10 minutes each lesson helps me be ready for the class work and feel calm and relaxed. This task helps improve people’s mindsets and how they are feeling in themself.”

“I like VM because it helps us improve ourselves. I enjoy being in groups, working together to solve problems and do teamwork activities. It's fun because I can be close with my friends and meet new people I don't usually talk to. Learning alongside others is great, and the supportive environment at VM makes the whole experience even better.’’Michelle

Melissa Wood Amanda Hard

P&F Association