THE HENRY KENDALL ALUMNI PROJECT
Last year we launched our Alumni Project. It has been conceived and developed here in this school over several years and is now at a stage where we can present it to our whole school community. The Alumni Project has many facets which this article will attempt to explain.
One of the major underlying concepts is to try and get a better measure of how well we as a school are preparing our students for living and working in our society. Up until now our only real measure is how well our students do in the HSC. The number of “Band 6’s we achieved” is often touted by the schools and media alike, as well as how many students achieved ATAR scores in the 90’s.
Real life tells us that not ALL students who achieve well at school continue their success in life and careers. In fact many who struggle at school become shining successes in their chosen career and life in general.
So how can we at Henry Kendall High School achieve a better measure of how well we are doing our job? If a student has a goal while at school to become a carpenter and they leave Henry Kendall High School and become a carpenter then we have been successful. If a student wants to be a nurse or go into business, and that's what they end up doing then we have been successful. There are a whole range of careers and occupations that don't require a top performance in marks. Our aim at Henry Kendall High School is to give our students an education and experiences which will prepare them for their next chosen step. This may be University, or a TAFE course, an apprenticeship or a job. If a student can make this next step, then we have been successful.
With this in mind we have developed as part of our Alumni Project, a short survey that generally takes less than 5 minutes to complete. About six months after Year 12 graduates, we send a text message and email that has a link to our survey. By this time our Henry Kendall High School graduates will have settled into a university or TAFE course, a gap year, employment or perhaps they are still looking. The survey is designed to find where the student is at, and allow an opportunity to provide us with other helpful feedback with the benefit of their hindsight from their years at Henry Kendall. Our intention is to follow our Alumni over the next 5 years with a similar survey. By the end of this time most people are probably settled into a career or occupation that is relatively stable.
During the development of this survey, we trialled it on ex-students through Facebook and to our surprise there was such a large interest that we had over 450 Alumni respond, going back as far as 1970 when Henry Kendall High School was an annex of Gosford High School.
So……….. Where are we up to now? Probably the best way to bring you up to speed is to give you a guided tour of our web page.
The Henry Kendall High School web page has a tab for the Alumni.
This will bring you to a page that contains a link:
“Please access the full Alumni web page via the following link.
The red arrow shows where alumni can access the relevant survey.
The yellow arrow shows where alumni can access some aspects of survey results.
At this stage we have graphed data from Pre-2017 as a collective group.
From this year onwards there will be separate data for each subsequent Year 12 graduating year.
Some of the Pre-2017 data is shown below:
If the “Alumni Connections” option on the left of the web page is selected, this brings you to a page which explains a number wonderful opportunities that arise from these connections. There is also a link on this page which takes you to a spreadsheet that shows you in a glance what occupation many of our Alumni are now doing.
If you select “Alumni Stories” on the left of the page, and then select a year range (say 2000-2009) it will take you some career stories that are of interest. At this stage we only have a few career stories, but hope this will grow; not just with some amazing stories, but also with the special stories of the average person. We hope you take the time to read some of our stories.
I hope you can see why we are excited about our Alumni Project. The more participation and “buy-in” we have from our Alumni the better it will be.
We have a school with a growing history that rightly brings a sense of pride.
Information that comes from the surveys can help us celebrate our genuine successes and will also help us to change if we are shown the need; ready to make our future even brighter.
Brad Jones
Science Teacher