In 2023, St Hilda’s continued to shape our Beyond St Hilda’s strategic initiative to strengthen our post-schooling partnerships, pathways, and career-oriented events to broaden the St Hilda’s experience, with several of these experiences occurring over the last few weeks of the 2023 academic year.
Our Year 10 cohort attended university immersions at Curtin and UWA. During these immersions, students had the opportunity to explore both campuses, test their prototyping skills, hear from university lecturers about creative thinking, visit student housing at UWA, and hear from current students about what it was like to be a university student and the challenges in learning in a very different format and style from high school.
We also ran an immersion experience for our Portfolio pathway students in Fremantle for the first time. This immersion focused on preparing our Certificate students for their experience over the next few years as they juggled learning in different environments off-campus or online with their traditional St Hilda’s studies. The students heard from former Certificate students and other experts to help them understand some of the challenges they might face during the journey. As part of the experience, the students also undertook a Barista training course to help them hone some of their hospitality skills.
The same cohort headed into the world of work – no doubt, this was a first for many students and perhaps an eye-opener to the challenges of working full-time. St Hilda’s is one of only a few schools still to offer a full five-day work experience program, as we believe the experience could profoundly impact students as they contemplate their own future directions. The logistics of overseeing 144 students in 144 different workplaces were no easy feat, and I’d like to thank all our staff members who visited students at their chosen workplaces to see how they were doing.
We were also excited to bring back the St Hilda’s Careers Expo in Week 8. The expo allowed all Years 9 to 11 students to hear from 27 Old Scholars across eight industry panels. The panels ranged from Medical and Allied Health to Finance, Engineering, and Creative Industries and featured a range of Old Scholars, from recent graduates with just a few years of experience right through to senior leaders with 40+ years of experience, who had each graciously agreed to give up their time to share their own unique and individual career stories with the students – with the aim of inspiring the next generation in their chosen profession.
