Holy Cross College has last month encouraged its pupils to consider their potential career options from an early age.
Some 1000 people – including families and the wider community – attended the “My LIFE Launch and Careers Expo” held on Wednesday, 28 July in the school’s new sports centre.
Families were spoilt with options as the exhibition included 40 exhibitors, workshops, and interviews with industry and university careers professionals.
Custom Holy Cross showbags were gifted to each family, some with postcards for Year 10 students to travel to the four LIFE pillars (Learning, Inter-relationships, Faith, and Enrichment) to find career pathways along with branded merchandise, My LIFE pathways brochures, treats, and more.
Food Technology students served onsite-made bites throughout the evening as attendees enjoyed the live music.
Virtual reality experiences were popular, and some stall holder queues – particularly for Cyber Security, Science and Technology, and Construction – were several families deep. The event was open to the wider community with principals, staff representatives, and students from several local state schools present.
Holy Cross College Principal Julie Hornby said she wanted to change its students’ mindset of by giving them tailored, customised pathways towards a meaningful career and a meaningful life. To achieve this, career engagement with creativity begins in Junior School and continues up to Middle and Senior School.
My LIFE is an initiative to provide a framework for students from Years 10 to 12 to make life-giving choices, have life in all its fullness, while envisioning their long-term future.
Each Holy Cross student has a dedicated advisor to help navigate, to coach and be connected, a partner along the path.
The My LIFE compass shows the many opportunities available including a new initiative from Holy Cross College, the Horizons pathway which includes Tarma students. These students may be special needs, gifted and talented or have special attributes that are unique to their study programme. My LIFE is all about individual needs: My Learning, My Future Profile, My Character, and My Support.
“Bishop Dom Salvado, the Patron for Salvado House at Holy Cross College, used a surveyor’s compass during his journeys in the 19th century. A compass shows you the direction you are facing, as well as the other directions available to you,” Ms Hornby detailed.
“It will keep you pointed towards your chosen direction at all times along your journey. However, what a compass cannot tell you, is which direction to choose, what you will encounter along the way or whether you will choose to change direction entirely.
“The My LIFE initiative aims to instil the knowledge and skills students will need, to not only choose a destination, but to also be discerning, as they navigate their way, through the differentiated pathways,” she added.
Faith vocations were also represented with seminarians from St Charles’ Seminary in Guildford, Acts II College of Mission and Evangelisation, and 24:7 Youth Ministry hosting careers stalls.
Ellenbrook Parish Priest Father Bonaventure Echeta was a vibrant example in the Faith stall of Holy Orders, representing a fulfilling and joyful vocation.
My LIFE is an ongoing journey of improvement and renewal and a quest to find new and exciting opportunities for Holy Cross College pupils.