St. Peter’s College provides valuable ‘Real Life’ learning for our students through our Work Experience Program.
Work Experience
Year 10 students are required to undertake a mandatory one week placement with an employer that relates to their course and career interests. This is conducted in June each year.
Students are provided with another opportunity to undertake a second week of work experience, though this will need to be conducted during the first week of the mid-year June/July holiday period. In certain circumstances, students may be allowed to undertake additional work experience outside of this time frame, with approval of the Deputy Principal, Head of Campus and the student’s House Leader.
Completing the Work Experience Program provides our students with an opportunity to explore possible course and career options, and gain industry insight that they may not from other forms of research. Work experience allows students to confirm or adjust their potential career choice and gain valuable skills and confidence. This can also assist with future subject selections, VCE/VCAL decisions and a more focused educational pathway.
Our students are expected to make their own arrangements with employers. We do not encourage parents to undertake this task on behalf of their child.
Students are introduced to our Work Experience Program approximately nine months before it occurs, and are strongly advised to plan ahead and make enquiries with prospective employers well in advance. Some industry placements are already filled up to twelve months in advance.
We appreciate students may already have part-time employment and they are developing these skills. However, we believe students need to explore beyond these realms and into future possibilities. For this reason, students are not permitted to undertake the mandatory Work Experience placement with their current employers, as this contradicts the aims of the Work Experience Program.
To further assist our students to gain the maximum benefit from this program, students are not permitted to undertake the mandatory Work Experience placement with parent-run businesses. The June placement is to consider their own future course and career plans. If this is a strong desire of the student and the parent, the College position is that this is completed as an additional placement during the first week of the mid-year or other appropriate school holiday periods.
All requests for students to deviate from this policy are to be made to the College Careers Advisor and will be considered in consultation with the student Management Team.