Work experience student Callum Mathieson is taking on journalism at the Oliver Chronicle this semester. He enjoys writing stories and taking photographs.
Lyonel Doherty photo
How can students get hands-on experience with working? With work experience, the high school course offered at SOSS every year. Work experience allows students to acquire experience in and around many community jobsites.
Work Experience 12 is an elective course that many students in Grade 11 and 12 at SOSS take in order to prepare themselves for the transition between secondary school to the world of work or further education and training.
The course itself is 100–120 hours long granting the student four credits towards their required 80 high school graduation credit requirements. Thirty hours of work experience or community service is a graduation requirement for all students.
Using the community as the classroom, students gain knowledge and experience about the workplace. They are provided with an opportunity to review or revise their career goals by having a “tryout” of the profession that interests them the most.
The experience also allows for students to apply classroom learning in an environment outside of the school and bring a new perspective on learning back to the classroom.
The work experience course at SOSS is led by Rod Kitt. He ventures out into the community to find placements for students with businesses that are willing to take on a student and best fit the students’ goals and interests.
This semester there are 11 students enrolled in Work Experience 12 who have been placed in various businesses.
Shoppers Drug Mart, IPS Roofing, Beyond Bliss, Fairview Golf Course, Medici’s, Hester Creek, RCMP, Gold Hill Winery, Oliver Elementary School, The Dance Studio, ACC Roofing, Innervisions and The Oliver Chronicle have all agreed to have a student placed in their business.
As well as community jobs, students also have the option of becoming a peer tutor. Peer tutoring puts older students back into a classroom environment, this time as a mentor to younger grades.
There are many benefits for both the peer tutor and the younger student in this exchange. For example, the tutor can establish a rapport with the younger student in a way that a teacher cannot. The younger student will see the peer tutor as being more at their own level and may be more accepting of advice from the tutor.
Other opportunities for work experience students sit closer to home. Nathan Gordon-Fisher, a Grade 12 SOSS student, has been placed with Rachelle Goncalves, the graphic arts teacher at SOSS.
“I really wanted to be a part in the making of this year’s SOSS yearbook and to get a hands-on experience in media arts.” said Gordon-Fisher.
Goncalves has had three or four students work with her in the past and has found the experiences to be, for the most part, positive. She noted that “the biggest difference is when you see a student has a passion for what they are doing and are interested in the work and where it can take them.”
Callum Matheson
Special to the Chronicle
