Considerations
- What is the ideal curriculum for learners who attend your school for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or an average of 3 months?
- What if your learners are aged between 11 and 18?
- What if your learners are disengaged from any type of formal education and have not attended a mainstream school with any regularity?
- What if your learners are identified as at-risk young offenders, young parents and/or drug users and/or victims of physical, mental and sexual abuse?
- What if your learners are considered young adults within their communities, but have a literacy and/or numeracy level equivalent to a pre-schooler?
- What if your learners have no intention of returning to a mainstream school?
Our solution
Here at the Cleveland Education and Training Centre (CETC), we address these questions as we modify and adapt a holistic curriculum for our learners who have been identified as at-risk, young offenders.
Professional relationships
Working within a multi-disciplinary environment (Health Department and Department of youth Justice) under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), we constantly seek guidance through ongoing relationships with professionals in their fields.
These include psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, occupational therapists, speech therapists, guidance officers, transition officers, case workers and youth workers.
Commitment to principles
Our commitment to the principles of continuous improvement (audit requirements) ensures we maintain ongoing relationships with professionals from key industry areas who visit us to ensure the curriculum content we offer meets our learners’ needs. This may include either taking them through the next stage of training or employment when our learners transition back to the community.
Embedding research
We seek out and embed into our curriculum, current research from organisations specialising in understanding best practice for teaching and learning in our unique context (National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), Closing the Gap, etc.) all while striving to maintain our obligations to the intent and purpose of both federal and state strategic plans and policies.
Delivery and assessment strategies
Influenced by best practice, here at CETC (as a Registered Training Organisation (RTO)), we have developed delivery and assessment strategies in a competency-based curriculum, focused on the individual learner using self-paced, hands-on learning and incorporating employability skills, life skills and personal development.
This approach also allows us to map competencies across several certificate areas and to cluster competencies to maximise the opportunities for our learners to experience success in the limited time they are with us.