Description and Information

Frasernet is the name we give our work-based education centre set up two years ago. Students know this is where they come for careers advice, work placements, short courses etc. Students from year 9 to year 13 visit Frasernet.

The Frasernet team consists of 12 staff members. Three people focus on work placements for both the Gateway programme and the Youth Apprenticeships Scheme. They place students with employers and monitor them in the workplace. Recently, we have also added one part time person to focus on our collaboration with Te Wananga o Aotearoa by placing Maori students with Maori employers and improving outcomes for our Maori students. We also have a full time tutor who upskills students who are 'not yet work ready' so that they can become Gateway and/or Youth Apprenticeships Scheme students. Within this work place team, each person tends to focus on or specialise in specific industries, although everyone works together and moves students between Gateway and the Youth Apprenticeships Scheme as needed.

Careers education

We've been a Gateway school for seven years and as part of our careers process we target all senior students every year. We also work with all our junior roll inducting students in careers pathways education to help facilitate subject choice in the senior school. This includes the potential of the Youth Apprenticeships Scheme as a real pathway for students. We interview students one-on-one from year 9, every year, to identify how we can help them as a facility, through any or all of our integrated programmes.

Te Kotahitanga

Te Kotahitanga, an effective teaching programme, is integrated across our school and has an influence on the Youth Apprenticeships Scheme, by aiding teachers within the curriculum to work with Maori students.

This has partly contributed to our decision to collaborate with Te Wananga o Aotearoa. We have analysed data for our Maori students and found we lose the majority of these students at year 11 and that we need to improve achievement.

We've shared this information with our board, Te Wananga o Aotearoa and our community as a basis for working out solutions. We need to tackle issues around assessment of work place units on marae, for example. We're also keen to work together to more effectively communicate with whanau about student achievement and the potential of programmes like the Youth Apprenticeships Scheme.

Student selection

In 2009, we have 100 students involved in the Youth Apprenticeships Scheme across several industry areas. For example, we have 33 students in engineering, 21 in automotive, 7 in electrical, 25 in building, 3 in plumbing, 2 in draughting and 9 in other industries.

Also in 2009, 20 students were offered apprenticeships; 15 accepted the offer, 1 was considered not yet ready for an apprenticeship, 2 students refused because they are shifting to Australia and 2 chose to remain at school. Twenty-three further students have left school, with 12 taking up full time employment and 11 getting enrolled in full time training. The remaining 57 students are still participating in the programme.