 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||
  Home > STEPS News |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
STEPS News
Salute to STEPS for Excellence in Education 14/7/2006
On Friday 14 July, STEPS Employment and Training Solutions was saluted by the Tasmanian Education Department at its 2006 Awards for Educational Excellence.
STEPS Community Solutions staff, Phil Leed and Laura Della Pasqua, accepted the award for their part in co-ordinating a program called “World is My Oyster” (WIMO) with Mt Faulkner and Landsdowne Crescent primary schools.
The program aimed at encouraging children to consider a range of potential jobs and careers, and thus motivate interest in following through with education. It arose out of discussions between Phil and Laura, and Michael Hayen of Mt Faulkner Primary School, about encouraging children before they move on to secondary school to see the value of ongoing education and to open their eyes to the range of post-school options available to them. The program wanted to nurture the children’s ambition to achieve – to build an attitude of “I can do it!” and not limit the dreams they might have for their future. |
 |
| Phil and Laura developed the program, engaged with both Mt Faulkner and Lansdowne Crescent schools, to provide opportunities for social interaction between the children, and enlisted support from STEPS staff. | Phil and Laura receiving the Award from Minister Bartlett |
Altogether, 18 STEPS staff members volunteered to facilitate opportunities for the children to visit and discover a variety of “future options”. Time constraints meant that not all were able to be taken up: however, around 80 children undertook visits and observation of the following activities in November and December last year:
- wooden boat building
- University of Tasmania
- Edge radio
- dog grooming
- ambulance service
- fire brigade
- Tasmania police
- Hobart airport
- horse riding and horse care
- the Mercury newspaper
- robotics workshop
- express yourself through drama
- nutrition and basic food preparation
Response from the children themselves, and from the schools, was very positive. Typical of the comments was this from Graham Watkins, a teacher at Mt Faulkner: “The program was an effective way to expose the children to a range of workplaces, and to see first-hand people doing jobs, to actually experience some of their work skills, and to question some workers about aspects of their jobs.” At the well-attended State Awards ceremony in July, the Minister for Education, Hon David Bartlett MHA, presented Awards to twenty programs or individuals from around Tasmania. Phil and Laura accepted the Award for WIMO along with the Principals and some teachers from the two schools involved. STEPS was the only non-government recipient of a 2006 Award for Educational Excellence – one more example of how we contribute to the betterment of our communities! |
 |
| Phil Leed and Laura Della-Pasqua with the team from Mt Faulkner Primary School after receiving the Award for Educational Excellence |
|
© Copyright 2006 Southern Training, Employment and Placement Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved |