Construction students at Ballarat High School are getting real-world building experience in the ultimate classroom – a $7.8 million building project at their school.
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Their construction classroom is the new classrooms, science laboratories, lecture theatre and study areas contained in a new senior learning centre being built on the Gillies St side of the school.
Ten VCAL students, who aspire to a career in the building industry, were hand-picked to collaborate with construction company SJ Weir and learn what it takes to complete a multi-million dollar project.
Soon after the building contracts were awarded, Ballarat High School assistant principal Jessica Sergeant met with SJ Weir director Craig Jenkins to discuss VCAL students working on a real worksite as part of their studies.
“Every Monday afternoon students meet with the builders and work through a range of problems. Being able to have them working in industry is fantastic,” Ms Sergeant said.
One student has already picked up a trial apprenticeship and a number of students have different work experience opportunities.
Mr Jenkins said he was excited to have the year 11 and 12 students on board.
“For some time I’ve felt it’s really difficult for kids to transition out of the classroom and in to an apprenticeship or job, so we are trying to give them this opportunity,” he said.
In the early stages of the program, students discussed construction issues, learned to read plans, understand how plans work and how they relate to an actual site, and break the project in to individual components.
When construction was a little further along the students compared the paper plans to the building site and were challenged to find information and answer questions from the various sets of building documents.
And most recently they’ve been given the chance to get industry experience in the fields they are interested in.
“We want the kids to take responsibility for what they are looking to achieve and open the door for them. They are all in the vocational education trades program and all have diverse ideas of what they want to do – carpenter, plumber, electrician – the link is the same regardless of the trade they want to work in,” he said.
Year 11 student Flynn Musgrove has his sights set on becoming a carpenter and is relishing the real worksite experience.
“It has certainly given me more appreciation of all the other builders that come in as well. The past couple of weeks we’ve seen the concrete come in and the slab laid down, after that the framing, electricians, plaster and how all the trades work together.”
