Trades Academy based in Hutt City thriving

20 February 2015

PRESS RELEASE: TRADES ACADEMY BASED IN HUTT CITY THRIVING

With a significant funding boost for 2015 Hutt City is set to benefit from a fantastic programme that improves young people’s chances of achieving their educational goals.

Many young people thrive at school and can’t wait to get back after the long summer break. Others though are ready for different experiences, working with their hands or alongside other adults. One programme in Hutt City is combining the best of both worlds, making sure young people stay in education and gain qualifications, with 80% gaining NCEA level 1 last year, exceeding all expectations!

A small group of Year 11 boys from Wainuiomata High School spent last year splitting their week over 3 days at secondary school and 2 days at the Wellington Trades Academy (WTA) at WelTec. 12 of the students achieved NCEA level 1 and almost all of the students are continuing on with further study this year. The students received mentoring and pastoral care through the Tamaiti Whangai programme with Heston Patea from Wainuiomata providing the link between Wainuiomata High School, Te Runanganui O Taranaki Whanui and the Wellington Trades Academy.

Wainuiomata High School Principal Martin Isberg said “We are very pleased that this collaboration with the Wellington Trades Academy and Taranaki Whanui Runanga has achieved such positive results for our students.”

The programme links to Vocational Pathways, one of the government’s Youth Guarantee initiatives, which helps students transition between school and careers. The programme built on the boys’ interests and opened up experiences of what it is like to be a carpenter or an engineer.

“The students started by making some of the equipment Tradies use every day, like saw stools and metal tool trays,” says Kerry Parkes, Wellington Trades Academy tutor. “Then they moved on to projects like making a set of cupboards, picnic tables (which they did a great job of) and wind vanes with aluminium fans on the tail.”

“The weather vane project was really interesting because we took them up to the Brooklyn hill wind turbine so they could understand what they were making had bigger uses than simply showing which way the wind is blowing,” says Kerry. “They saw that same technology leads into power generation and that what they were doing could help them get into good careers.”

Helping the students see how good their future could be was a driving force for the staff of the Trades Academy and Wainuiomata High School working with these students.

“We took the time to do goal setting with the boys and then took them through a step by step process right through the year that kept coming back to these goals and showed them how they were doing,” says Wainuiomata High School teacher, Tryfan Ephraim.

Kerry and Tryfan worked closely together, meeting regularly to shape the programme and carry over what students were doing in one context to the other. For example, the practice of using paper templates to measure dimensions for 3D objects in engineering was copied in maths lessons at school when the boys were calculating area and volume.

Wainuiomata High and the Wellington Trades Academy set high expectations for the boys. “We were determined to harness their potential, their energy and their creative tendencies and point them in the right direction,” said Kerry.

“I get a feeling a lot of young people see their last years at school as the end of something; they’ve got their NCEA and they’ve finished. The programme at the Trades Academy set up a new horizon, helping them to start them on something that would be meaningful for the next 5 to 10 years.

“They now understand the difference between just getting a job and starting a career where there are long term opportunities for advancement, and branching out into new things like a site foreman, project manager or quantity surveyor.”

Lower Hutt Mayor Ray Wallace says, “Hutt City Council is pleased to support this fantastic and innovative programme. It is important that all of our young people have the opportunity to reach their potential and that means offering alternate pathways. “This programme inspires students through providing connections with trades, while also ensuring they gain valuable academic qualifications.”

The Wellington Trades Academy has a number of part-time places still available. Information on the exciting range of options can be found at www.weltec.ac.nz/tradesacademy

Tyrone Taka from Wainuiomata High School with the metal tool box he made at the start of his engineering programme at the Wellington Trades Academy.

Tyrone finished the year with NCEA level 1 and is carrying on with more tertiary study this year.

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