You can complete year 11 and 12 while making cakes (and eating them)
Tuesday, 16 July 2019
It is no secret that not everyone feels like they want to continue through secondary school in the mainstream curriculum. Which is why the Government developed VCAL. The Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning has been around for many years and has assisted those students who felt they needed a different avenue to complete their secondary school certificate.
VCAL is a hands-on option for those in year 11 and 12 and offers some flexibility with subjects to better suit students’ learning needs and interests. There are four compulsory strands of the program, with subjects to match, in literacy and numeracy, industry specific skills, work related skills and personal development skills.
Students are interviewed when they apply and are enrolled into one of the three levels of VCAL on offer, either Foundation, Intermediate or Senior, depending on their learning abilities and current skills. Within these levels there are industry streams that a student can choose from. Foundation offers Hospitality, while Intermediate and Senior levels offer creative industries, hospitality and warehousing.
Our VCAL students at Wodonga TAFE are almost back to begin Term 3 after a little mid-year break. However, prior to them heading off on holidays the group, who are completing the Hospitality stream, presented some delicious baked goods as part of their Pop-Up Bakery project. This stream gives the students hands-on skills that can be utilised in further studies in hospitality, bakery or cookery courses. They can build on their VCAL experience by entering into an Apprenticeship or further study at TAFE in one of our Certificate courses. See our image gallery of their delicious work!
Course content covered by the students in their learning towards their VCAL pop-up included: preparing and presenting simple dishes, using food preparation equipment and they also learnt about workflow plans, temperature checks and cleaning schedules.
The learning covered in these VCAL programs also includes valuable employability skills such as working as part of a team, punctuality, time management, communication skills, following instructions, customer service skills and confidence building! Here at TAFE our VCAL courses enable students to learn from industry professionals – in this case, the highly renowned Louisa Morris of Louisa Morris Cakes – the Border’s award winning cake maker from Wahgunyah - provided expert tutelage and guidance for our students as they completed the final details in preparation for their pop-up.
Mid-year enrolment for VCAL Foundation level is still open for applications, starting July 17th – late applications accepted until July 26! Find more information at www.wodongatafe.edu.au/vcal or call us with any questions you may have on 1300 698 233