What do our past students say about their transition from Year 13 into tertiary education or the workplace?

What do our past students wish we had covered with them at school?

What do they say about how well we prepared them for leaving school?

I visited some of our 2018/19 students who are now in tertiary education to interview them. I also had online survey responses from approximately 30 past students who are either working or in tertiary education.

Overall, most students surveyed or interviewed felt that they got enough support from staff at Waitara High School to be able to make decisions for their future. Certain staff were mentioned by name - so what happens if those staff leave? What process or systems do we have in place if this happens?

So what did we do well? Students said:

• Making sure we had a CV.
• Got some cool speakers in to talk about what we could do when we leave school.
• Getting us in the habit of getting assessments in on time.
• A.P.A referencing from English.
• Research skills.
• Helped us apply for scholarships and courses.
• Allowed us to work independently and take responsibility of our own learning which is a good thing as this is what must be done at uni to be successful.
• The teachers provided great support around every aspect of our future, it was very clear that certain teachers cared about our future. The school organised meetings with Universities to help us learn everything that we needed to know. The teachers were helpful when i was deciding on certain subjects that we had to take for our career path. They helped us with filling out forms and creating our CV.
• Going to career expos and bringing ideas for future employment to the school, eg the army or the performing arts.

What can we do better? What did we miss?

• Having more job experiences about things students enjoy, like giving them a taste of how it would feel in the job industry. 
• A general understanding of how a university actually works. Such a lectures, course structures, how they grade us.
• Life skills would have helped and also maybe a class were you base general life things around.
• Nasty attitudes from other workers (this one was something I hadn't thought of - how do we prepare our students that workplaces aren't always positive? How do our students get to know about employment contracts? Their rights as workers?)
• Ensuring due dates are met for assessments because in uni your due dates must be met.
• There are certain classes/workshops that I think would be important for each student to learn which would help for our future which are Economics and Accounting. Having classes to help us with the financial side of adulting, like budgeting, accounting, taxes.
• More about how uni isn’t always the way and that you can get a good job that pays well without it.
• Contracts, work laws, money/banks.

In 2019, we offered a Work Ready course. This had limited success in terms of credits. Was it successful in other ways (ways that are less easily measured?)? Was it unsuccessful - why? It was an optional course, not all students took it. Would all students benefit? (Judging by the comments above, yes... so does it need to be compulsory?) Are there schools that offer a compulsory course like this and how does it work?