Career Education in the Primary School

Read all about it!

Jenni Proctor with Andrew Laming, Local Member of Parliament.

It has been very gratifying that the Career Education program that we developed at Mary MacKillop Primary School, Birkdale Queensland has had a lot of success and acknowledgement in the last couple of years. You might like to read about our program here, and as others send us stories of their career education programs we will be delighted to publish them here as well.

We hope this page can become a resource of best practice in career education around the world.

Career Education? It’s Child’s Play - Curriculum Leadership Journal

ACS Newsletter, June 2005
What Works p6 and 2004 ACS Judith Leeson Award Winner p1

2004 ACS Judith Leeson Award for Excellence in Career Teaching

ACS Newsletter, November 2003
What Works p10 Creative Career Education Programs in Primary Schools

ACS National Innovation in Schools Career Education Programs Award, 2003

Career Education in Primary Schools

Published in “Curriculum Matters” – Brisbane Catholic Education Journal
November 2004

Australia’s future depends upon each citizen having the necessary knowledge, understanding, skills and values for a productive and rewarding life in an educated, just and open society. (The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century, Preamble, 1999)

The world of work has changed irrevocably. Now and into the future individuals need to have the transferable meta-competencies of learning skills, life management skills and communication skills that will enable them to take control of their career. In response to this need, schools must prepare their students to be ready to face these challenges with the career competencies and understandings that they will require. If we are to truly enable every individual in our country to lead productive and rewarding lives in the future we must assist their career development from a young age.

Many primary school teachers would express dismay that career education should be part of the primary school curriculum. Yet they are already facilitating much career related learning with their students without consciously giving it that label. When children learn about community helpers they are, in effect, engaging in career education. When they go on a school excursion they are in a position to observe the people who work there and the work that they do. When experts are invited to speak to students about their field of expertise the children can also learn about that person’s work role and through this develop an understanding of the relationship between work and society. Some children’s literature also explores career concepts. All of this enables the children to construct their own career understandings and awareness.

But it is not just in expanding the child’s world view outside the classroom that this informal career education is taking place. As teachers instigate strategies to build a child’s self-image or foster positive relationships and communication in the classroom the children are building their personal management skills. As they plan outcomes based learning activities to develop the roles of the life-long learner they are engaging in career competency development.

Without consciously promoting the career development of their students, good teachers have always fostered strong intrinsic work habits, an appreciation of the value that current school work will contribute to their future lives, a broad understanding of the nature and societal role of many occupations, a valuing of the contribution of workers in the community, and a belief that gender and other limitations should not be placed on career aspirations. How empowering those concepts are for children!

This is all part of career education which fits so naturally into the primary school curriculum, and integration of the concepts can be a seamless process enhancing what is already occurring.

It is important that primary school teachers recognise the career related learning they are already providing unintentionally, and consciously put into place planned programs of career education integrated into the curriculum. It is in the recognition and naming of career development concepts that are already embedded in the curriculum, in making them explicit and acknowledging their importance, that teachers will identify the contribution they are making in this aspect of the development of their students. Through recognising and mapping career development concepts that are being taught, then integrating these into whole school curriculum mapping, a sequential, developmental and effective career education program can be implemented.

Australian research has indicated that schools have an impact on the career development of children, whether the school plans this or not. (McMahon and Patton, 1997). Mary McMahon and John Carroll (2001), who have done some interesting studies of career education with primary school children in Brisbane, state three issues that provide a rationale for career education to be integral to every child’s P-12 school experience.

First, career development is a lifelong process and as such may be effectively addressed with all age groups. Second, with or without career education, schools are influential in the lives of young people and it is preferable that the influence is intentional through the provision of career programs. Third, schools are the stepping-off point for all young people to further education, training and employment.

The Australian Government in 1989 put career development for young people from P-12 as a goal for schooling in Australia, and this was reinforced through the 1999 Adelaide Declaration of National Goals for Schooling (MYCEETYA, 1999).

The most recent initiative is The Australian Blueprint for Career Development, commissioned by the Department of Education, Science and Training and currently awaiting approval for trial. Firmly supporting the concept that a career is the sum of an individual’s life roles, it is crafted to develop competencies that will be required by workers of the future. Personal competencies such as adaptability, resilience and being pro-active are interwoven with traditional employability competencies, and all are placed in a developmental framework. This Blueprint makes explicit much career development that already takes place in other curriculum contexts. The strength of naming the competencies is that their teaching will become more conscious, more directed and therefore more effective.

If we accept that children are developing their career concepts from a very young age, then it is very important that there is a commonly accepted developmental framework of career development available to educators and that our curriculum documents and school practice support this framework. Within Brisbane Catholic Education’s Learning Framework the attributes of the lifelong learner fit very closely with the Career Competencies of the Australian Blueprint for Career Development, and it is through recognizing the relationship between career development concepts and lifelong learning attributes that career development can be given the importance it deserves in our curriculum planning.

Earlier this year Mary MacKillop School Birkdale was awarded the runner-up prize of $2000 in the 2003 National Innovation in Career Education Award organized by the Australian Career Service and the Department of Education, Science and Training. The award was overall for our Career Development Policy, with the initial focus on our career day known as C.L.A.N., an acronym for Celebrating Literacy and Numeracy.

C.L.A.N. was a whole day conference for Years 3 - 7, complete with many speakers, a conference bags of “goodies”, and children moving independently between selected presentations. The day commenced with a whole school gathering, setting the tone of celebration and with a “Keynote address” by our local Federal member. Parents and other members of the community had been invited to speak with groups of children about their career and the way in which they use their literacy and numeracy skills in their career. Each child attended four different presentations during the day, and children were, as much as possible, given their first or second choice of which presentations to attend. During each of the four sessions there were fourteen speakers presenting in different rooms throughout the school and church. Due to the number of speakers all groups were small, making presenters very accessible and the tone intimate.

Visitors had been encouraged to make their presentations as concrete as possible in accordance with the children’s ages. Presenters came from many occupations, with media, trades, community services, professions, sport and small business represented. Some responded in most creative ways. A female builder organised the children to create house plans, look at quotations and then plan their colour scheme on computers. In another room a midwife performed a successful caesarean delivery of a teddy bear, complete with surgical implements and gowns. The children reported finding this day very enjoyable and interesting, and found the exposure to a variety of presenters exciting and stimulating.

To ensure that career education remains a focus at the school we have now developed a Career Education Policy with emphasis on two aspects, the career day and the integration of career related learning into curriculum planning.

The career day is to have a three year cycle, to ensure that it varies each year and provides a different curriculum emphasis. The first year of the cycle will remain a celebration of literacy and numeracy (a cross-curricula priority). The second year is now in the planning stage. It will be a Life Long Learners day, with presenters chosen for a particular lifelong learning attribute that is evident in their career. Students will choose their workshops by the life-long learner attribute, not knowing what occupation the speaker will represent. Presenters will be asked to reflect on the way that they demonstrate that life-long learning attribute in their work and why it is important to them. To keep the children’s interest they will be encouraged to have interactive or practical presentations. The third year of our cycle is planned to fulfill the cross-curricula priorities of life skills and futures perspective, with activities centred around the importance of personal attributes and looking towards the future.

When developing the Career Education Policy we looked first at the Australian Blueprint for Career Development to see how the principles of the Blueprint integrate with what was already being taught. We found that so much of what already occurs in the school, both classroom learning and school activities, is contributing to career related learning. By adding a Career Development focus to the existing curriculum it became clear that much is possible with just a slight variation of emphasis in the planned teaching and learning activities.

In creating a matrix for the Blueprint for Career Development with the Queensland Syllabus Outcomes Statements, certain aspects became clear. Attributes of life-long learners, underpinning all the documents, also underpin the career competencies. If teachers are planning towards the development of these outcomes they are already well on the way to developing their students’ career competencies. Similarly the cross curricula priorities of life skills and futures perspective add a dimension to the children’s learning that supports and develops the stated career competencies. The cross curricula priorities of literacy and numeracy are obviously basic to all that the children do and as such are fundamental to all career development.

Other models of career education in primary school have also been found to be successful. McMahon and Carroll conducted a study at a P-12 school in the southern suburbs of Brisbane. They planned specific lessons over a ten week period, conducted by the class teachers but not integrated with other activities. The program stood separate within the curriculum as part of a sequentially planned P-12 career education program and was found to be most effective.

The Department of Education, Science and Training has recently promoted a series of games designed to develop career concepts with children in an entertaining way. (www.realgame.com.au) These games, already successful in Canada and the U.S., have been adapted for use in Australia. The “Make it Real” game is designed for children from 10 – 12 and we are now planning to introduce it as the basis for an integrated unit for Year 7 in Term 3, with the hope that this will consolidate the career related learning of our students.

The career development of our students will have an impact on the choices they make in life, the success they enjoy and their resilience through the inevitable changes of their life and work roles. In primary schools we are in the privileged position of being able to integrate the concepts of career development into the curriculum of our students, enhancing their understanding of the world and giving further depth and richness to the teaching and learning already occurring. In accepting the challenge of integrating career related learning into our curriculum we will lead our students towards gaining the necessary knowledge, understanding, skills and values for a productive and rewarding life.

Jenni Proctor
June 2004

Bibliography

Haines, C., Scott, K. and Lincoln, R., (2003) Australian Blueprint for Career Development- Draft Prototype, www.milesmorgan.com.au Final version emailed by Katie Scott to author on 24/10/03

McMahon, M. & Patton, W (1997) School as an influence on the career development of students: Comments by young people and considerations for career educators. Australian Journal of Career Development 6

McMahon, Mary and Carroll, John, (2001) ‘K-12 Career education programs: from rhetoric to practice’, in Patton, Wendy and McMahon, Mary (ed) Career Development Programs, Preparation for lifelong career decision making, Melbourne: ACER Press.

Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs. (1999). The Adelaide Declaration on national goals for schooling in the twenty first century. Canberra: MYCEETYA, 1999.