Year 12 Students

Important Info & Dates

Laura Hughes

Pathways Counsellor

Reminder: VTAC Upcoming Key Dates 

For a full list of cancelled, amended, and new courses, visit VTAC Course Updates

The VTAC website is www.vtac.edu.au

Make sure that your VTAC account is registered with a personal (not school) email address, and that in your account you tick ‘Yes’ to be made eligible for supplementary offer rounds.

Supplementary offers commence after February offer round 1 domestic. 

You may receive supplementary offers if you: 

• are a domestic applicant (current Year 12 or post-school) 
• have not received an offer listed on your course preference list, and 
• have given VTAC permission to release your application to all courses with vacancies.

In mid-November, after exams, I will send out a guide to change of preference and accepting offers in the next (last) issue of the Brunswick Star, to students and parents on Compass and on the Teams Year 12 channel.

Scholarship for young women in STEM 

Eligible Year 12 students are strongly encouraged to read more about scholarships and apply here:

https://www.womenofstem.com.au/about

Interesting Reading

I recently enjoyed this article by Career Practitioner and CEO, Lucy Sattler, about how supporting young people to contact potential employers, work experience providers, and other external career contacts is valuable. This is related to our Pathways Curriculum, as we are working on content around making professional phone calls and emails, hopefully to be presented early in the Year 10 program. 

I have added some key excerpts here from Lucy’s article, and the full article is available at this link: Getting young people to do things for themselves . 

“I was on a panel yesterday where one of the guests, Bridget Murphy, who just so happens to run a very popular STEM work experience program, made this comment:

“And this is not the first time I've seen this occur - scholarship providers, people offering cadetships, even those looking for apprentices, they all prefer it when the student or young person contacts them, than if a parent or other adult does it on their behalf”.

When young people learn how to contact employers and apply for work experience on their own, they are actively building the communication skills they will need in the workplace.

Of course, they're going to get it wrong sometimes, but that is part of learning and the vast majority of people are absolutely lovely and more than capable of supporting young people as they learn how to communicate in the adult world”.

Lucy’s tips (backed up by our Work Experience Pack – the PDF is available to all year 9 students and families via Compass and Teams).

Tip 1 - Scaffold the process

• Expecting them to call a potential employer as one of their first professional phone calls is a bit ambitious, so take the time to build up to it.
• You can give them opportunities to practice in low-value situations. Get them to make their own appointments for their haircut, or talk to the sales assistant and handle the transaction when buying their next pair of shoes.
• Giving them multiple opportunities to engage with adults, and not limiting those opportunities to the high achieving students, will help them build skills but also confidence over time, and make it less daunting when they need to make the important phone calls or write the important emails.

Tip 2 - Follow a formula

• Most professional communication follows a bit of a formula, so work with them to create a template for a call or email as preparation.
• Include all the basics, like what they can say to introduce themselves and why they are calling, and include a few contingencies for if the conversation goes slightly off track. As adults, we don't need to think about these things, but it can be helpful for young people to have them written down in front of them before they pick up the phone.
• I've been doing this with Ethan (my 15 year old) as he writes emails corresponding about his work experience, and we had multiple conversations about how to include polite statements in the emails (like 'hope you are well'), which felt quite unnatural to him, but are important to stop him from sounding so blunt.

Tip 3 - Rehearse

• Before they even pick up the phone or open a new email, get them to practice and rehearse what they're going to say.
• If you've got your template, this is a good time to use it, and they can practice by themselves (which may be more comfortable to start with), and also let them practice with you if they want. You could literally go to the extent of being in a different room and having them call you as you 'pretend' to be the employer, if they feel comfortable with that.
• It's often really helpful if they focus on rehearsing the first few things they're going to say, like introducing themselves and explaining why they are calling, and that once they get over that bit they tend to relax a little.
• You can also combine this process with Tip 1, and get them to rehearse easier conversations, which may help them refine how they rehearse and make them feel more comfortable later on. And I always try to plan for a couple of curly questions as well, just like you would in an interview”.

As always - students and families are welcome to get in touch with me any time via email at LHUG@brunswick.vic.edu.au.