Kurri Kurri High School's vocational students presented an interactive showcase on Monday afternoon during National Skills Week.
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Vocational subjects provide recognised skills and qualifications, as determined by the Australian Qualifications Framework, allowing students to leave school with a head start into their career of choice.
Subject areas showcased on Monday included hospitality, construction and metalwork, and the Big Picture Studio School, which offers alternate pathways to transition to work, was also incorporated into the event.
Students guided parents, business and industry representatives through work areas, demonstrating their skills and elaborating the benefits of vocational study to students and employers.
"It is our goal that when students are going out into the workplace, they are going out there skills ready," the school's vocational education and training coordinator Jay-Marie Blue said.
"We are proud to regularly have students offered employment opportunities from such work placements and it's a testament to the learning going on at our school."
Luke Trotnar, who studies metalwork and engineering and construction, said he is taking both of these trade subjects as it gets him involved in areas of work he wants to be in.
"And rather than doing it at TAFE, at school it's free and I am getting a HSC and trade qualifications at once," he said.
Year 11 hospitality student B. Morgan said working in the school café has been just like the real thing.
"I was able to step right up to make great coffee recently on work placement, and they thought I was so efficient that they offered me a job," she said.
"I think that it also helped that our teacher is really professional and she treats us just the same and I just transferred these skills into work."