School: Sunshine Coast Grammar School [Queensland, Independent System]
Educators: Wanda Hayes (Head of Pathways and Partnerships), Lauren Soden (Pathways Counsellor)
Context: 1,400 students (Years Prep-12), with a mix of university, VET, and direct employment pathways
Membership Level: Essentials
“Study Work Grow came across in my evaluation (of several available programs) as a standout”
Study Work Grow members Wanda Hayes and Lauren Soden from Sunshine Coast Grammar School are extensive users of our resources, as they love how well they are designed, researched, and put together.
Prior to joining the school in 2023, Wanda (who is also an ex-National President of the Career Development Association of Australia) did a comprehensive evaluation of career education resources available from several Australian providers, looking at quality, content, and ease of use, and she found that SWG’s resources were “a standout”.
The school already had access to some Study Work Grow resources at the time, and Lauren said that as a new Pathways Counsellor, it really helped her in her role by having so many guides, job spotlights, and other resources she could share.
The Entry to Medicine Guide in particular is one of their favourite materials, as it’s designed in a format that’s easy for students to follow while also being comprehensive, with all of the important information they need in it. This saves them a considerable amount of time and stress, as a good number of their high performing students consider medicine each year.
Lauren said “I’ve really enjoyed how much I can trust the resources that you’ve put out there. A big one for me for example is the Entry to Medicine Guide, that has been so helpful and so useful in my conversations with families just knowing that I can trust all of the information provided and every year you come out and refresh it. It’s amazing, and all of the nitty gritty hard stuff is all done, and we have this beautiful little resource that we can just present to students and families. And they love that too.”
“You make us look good!” Wanda added.
Pathways Hub
Video (02:51)
One of the biggest challenges for Careers Advisors is being able to share information with students and parents.
Wanda especially likes the Pathways Hub (school-branded careers website) that came with their membership as it gives them a central place for all things careers and pathways that they can refer people to. But because it’s so easily adjusted and is customised to the school, they’ve simply connected their internal school Learning Management System or LMS (Schoolbox) with the hub – making it a seamless experience for everyone.
They direct the students and parents to signup for the Study Work Grow newsletter via the website, where they can also access all of the guides and job spotlights from there.
Wanda said that she wants to drive a culture of careers that is student-driven, rather than teacher driven. That way it encourages student agency, and by having easy access to helpful resources that are regularly updated via the Pathways Hub, it’s all done for her.
“We are making ‘beautiful things’ available and are talking about them in excited terms and using them in different ways to get students excited, and curious, and looking for information. And the Hub is our friend there in sharing that information”.
Use of the Career Clusters
Video (04:05)
Wanda and Lauren both use the Clusters (and excitedly both have the Cluster posters in their counselling rooms). The Career Clusters was easy to implement as it’s only a short, 10 minute quiz for students, but it gives them a common language for everyone to use in career conversations.
Lauren said that the day before doing this case study, she had a parent in her office mention how she felt that the Clusters was “remarkable” and amazing how being so simple and engaging, it encourages students to look into it more. Wanda had a similar experience with her teachers who loved the clusters so much from when they used them at school in 2023 that they wanted a set of their own posters too.
“We want students and teachers saying ‘Can I have that, can I use that?” (like the Clusters)
The Ponder Program
Video (05:05)
Wanda said the Ponder Program is “rolling out beautifully this year” with half an hour in Form/Pastoral Care lessons each week.
Before each Year Level rollout, Wanda has been getting all of the teachers together to show them the content and how it works so that they feel confident in delivering the lessons during their time with the students each week. She said that Lauren goes around and ‘visits’ different classes to check-in on them has seen some “amazing things”.
“It’s really inspiring to see the teachers engaging with the materials and the content and being able to have those conversations with the students… …and that’s because it’s ALL there for them and they don’t have to do anything ‘extra’ for those lessons”
One of the interesting things was that because the teachers felt empowered by the content taught in Ponder, they could build better relationships with their students as a result. And Lauren found that the students were benefitting too from having a different way of thinking about careers and their future.
As a highly experienced careers professional, Wanda said that she liked how Ponder isn’t “Careers Careers Careers!” and that it’s actually about personal development and growth. Because of this and the format it’s designed in, teachers at her school are getting to have rich conversations about topics that they wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to talk with students about.
Wanda said that they don’t use the Ponder Program in full with each year level (it is after all a completely flexible framework), and that’s because she gets the Heads of Year together each school term to talk what content they want to cover with their students. From there, she simply customises the content by taking pages out of the Teacher Guides & Student Workbooks to suit.
This approach has helped Wanda and Lauren to get buy-in from their education team, and now it’s enjoying uptake right across the senior school.
Lauren adds that the ability for them to pick from the program to suit their needs is also helpful.
Pathways Cards
Video (09:47)
Something that the careers team are super excited about are the Pathways Cards from Study Work Grow!
These print-at-school cards help career counsellors to make career exploration visible for students in a practical, ‘hold-in-your-hands’ way. Lauren especially likes using these because the students can spread them out across the table and then start exploring the things that interest them.
“The students absolutely LOVE these cards!… …It’s really empowering for them as well to be able to find things that excite them rather than being ‘told’ what their options might be. They get to discover things for themselves… even things (jobs) that they didn’t even know existed”
Taking this a step further, Lauren said it’s great that she can then tie the cards back to the Clusters, which then helps the students to see if the pathways they’ve chosen match their Cluster(s). All of this makes career counselling sessions easier, more enjoyable, and valuable for the students.
Key Takeaways:
- Wanda independently and thoroughly compared all of the available programs on the market and found that Study Work Grow’s resources came out on top.
- Lauren found that as a relatively new Career Counsellor that the resources helped her in her role at school and that she could trust the materials when sharing them with her students and parents.
- They’ve connected their Pathways Hub (customised school careers website from Study Work Grow) to their school’s Learning Management System so that students, parents, and teachers have a seamless experience in exploring the careers resources available.
- They use the Career Clusters student quiz with their students to help start career conversations and to show them where they might ‘fit’ in the world of work.
- Ponder is used by educators from several year levels in Form Class/Pastoral Care, with each lesson being self-lead by the educator thanks to the easy to use materials. Wanda works with the Heads of Year to work out which lessons they’d like their educators to deliver each term (that way there’s buy-in from everyone). They also don’t deliver the full program to each year level – they flexibly choose from the lessons to suit their needs instead.
- The Pathways Cards are loved by both Wanda and Lauren as a practical tool for career exploration and ideation – helping students to discover for themselves what might be possible and then connecting those pathways back to their Career Cluster(s).
- As Wanda says at the end of the video “We are achieving the outcomes that we wanted!” – that’s the most important takeaway of all.
We kindly thank Wanda & Lauren for taking the time to so generously review their use of Study Work Grow’s resources at school and appreciate their wonderful support.
If you would like to learn more about the Ponder Program and Career Clusters, check out Essentials here.