Career Development Resource Package for Careers Education (Victoria)

Overview

This resource package was developed as part of a national project grant to trial elements of the Australian Blueprint for Career Development. The project was managed by Miles Morgan Australia on behalf of the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) on behalf of the Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA).

The South Gippsland Bass Coast Local Learning & Employment Network (SGBCLLEN), in collaboration with Leongatha Secondary College, successfully applied for the project grant with the aim of trialling the Career Blueprint against its stand alone careers program, as well as review and develop a comprehensive careers program that included the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) (Level 6) and the Managed Individual Pathways (MIPs) Best Practice Framework - both key initiatives of the Victorian government.

The package provides a career development program that can assist in the delivery of career education for year 9 & 10 students in Victorian secondary schools.

Using the eleven career competencies of Phase II of the Australian Blueprint for Career Development (the Blueprint), this resource includes a series of student worksheets that are accompanied by teachers’ notes. These worksheets are designed to enable students to achieve the competencies necessary to manage their lives, learning and work.

Contents of the resource

The Blueprint has multiple goals, but the primary aim is to have users work with a national framework of career competencies to create comprehensive, effective and measurable career development programs which will help Australians to better manage their lives, learning and work. The content of this trial resource package is designed to further facilitate the stated aims of the Blueprint, and in particular, move towards establishing a career development culture within schools.

Re-CaP - Resource for Career Practitioners

Re-Cap was produced by DEST in 2004 as a national career resource to facilitate the development of a customised quality career service or program. The Re-CaP teachers’ notes and activity sheets have been adapted and used as the basis of this resource package to align more specifically with the Career Blueprint career competencies and the VELS and MIPs initiatives.

Mapping of the Blueprint to VELS and MIPs, including MIPs Best Practice Framework

To understand how the Blueprint competencies have been mapped, a table depicting the career competencies by area and phase against the relevant VELS Level 6 Strands, Domains and Dimensions, and MIPs objectives has been developed, and follows this introduction.

The MIPs Best Practice Framework has also been included but with a fifth ‘best practice’ element - ‘Career Development Culture’. This element helps to integrate all the objectives of the Blueprint, VELS and MIPs initiatives.

Career Competencies by Area

The content of this resource package is arranged to align with the format of the Blueprint.

Career development activities including teachers’ notes and student worksheets adapted from Re-Cap have been arranged according to the eleven career competencies and are presented on the section tabs in colour across the three key areas:

REDArea A: Personal Management

BLUEArea B: Learning and Work Exploration

YELLOWArea C: Career Building

Teachers’ Notes and Student Worksheets

Each career competency comes with Teachers’ Notes and includes the following session plan format;

  • Outcome
  • Rationale
  • Task description and Local Standards
  • Suggested resources

The Teachers’ Notes also includes a table which indicates the relationship of the Career Blueprint competency by stage, phase and performance indicator, and the VELS and MIPs aims, and Best Practice element.

This resource package is designed as a starting point. It has been organised to provide a career development program that can assist in the delivery of careers education for year 9 & 10 students. The resource package is also designed to support the demanding role of the careers teacher whether experienced or new to careers education. The student’s activity sheets and teachers’ notes are a guide only to delivering the career competencies. It is anticipated that teachers may wish to amend, add to and change these activities according to their circumstances.

Useful Online Resources

A suggested list of useful online career resources, many of which are referred to in the teachers’ notes and student worksheets are provided on the links page of the Blueprint website.

Additional Local Standards

In addition to the extension activities and local standards outlined in the teachers’ notes, further local standards (activities) have been identified to meet both the career competency and performance indicator.