Cranebrook High School is a co-educational high school serving a diverse community in Western Sydney with more than 800 students.
Around 1 in 5 students identifies as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and a small number of students from a non-English speaking background.
The school has a dynamic student leadership group that contributes significantly to the local community, however the leadership team found issues with the senior classes more broadly, and didn’t feel confident in the students’ self-awareness to navigate paths of their students once they finished their time at school.
With support from the leadership team, Student Support Officer, Luke Smiley, organised for Creating Chances to deploy their Future Pathways program to provide participants with the skills required to navigate the impending choices for high school completion, and equip them with a tailored roadmap for the journey beyond.
Future Pathways program is founded in engaging indoor activities that spark students curiosity about themselves, their values, and their futures. This culminates in the opportunity to create a work readiness portfolio that enables them to be fit for employment paths beyond school.
Facilitators led workshops and sports activities to identify individual strengths showcased inside and outside the classroom.
One of the students, Matt, 16, was experiencing a sense of unease in relation to his future endeavours beyond school. After participating in workshops, sports activities and coaching programs to identify individual strengths, develop an individual transition plan, build a practical work-readiness portfolio and enhance their own personal identity, wellbeing and relationships. He looked into his interest of being a scientist, and found a pathway to get there.
“This program has helped me with building my confidence with forming my resume and getting a future job. A challenge that I faced was how to communicate with an interviewer. It made it hard for me to get a job in Australia. Since participating in the program I was able to change the way I communicate and how I should behave in front of the interviewer. It helped me to be more confident while talking and made me talk in the right way.”
Matt successfully attained the after school job they interviewed for and believes the confidence in their ability to communicate they gained by participating in the Future Pathways Program has had an immense positive impact on their outlook for the future and further employment opportunities.
The positive effect of these workshops on participants was huge with reports of student improvement of 9.1% in Resilience, and 13% in Self-efficacy. A further 87.7% of students who agreed that they know how to write a resume/CV, and 93.5% of students agreed that if they were invited to a job interview, they think that they would do well.
At Creating Chances, we connect ideas, inspire growth, and empower young people to build confidence, resilience, and optimism for a brighter future.
