09-81

=** V-Tracks Deadly Skills, Deadly Future**=

**RTOtoc**
North Coast TAFE - North Coast Aboriginal Learning Partnerships (NCALP)

**Contact**
Regan Harding //at tafensw.edu.au - (02) 6620 4758// Heather McGregor //at tafensw.edu.au - (02) 6560 2923// Jeanne Smith at //det.nsw.edu.au - (02) 6623 0272//

**Category**
Empowering learners

**Business Partner**
NSW DET North Coast Schools

Executive summary
North Coast TAFE (NCTAFE) partners with the School sector to increase Vocational Education and Training (VET) opportunities for young Aboriginal learners in junior secondary school through the //V Tracks// Program. This is to increase the retention and engagement of these learners who experience disproportionately lower rates of high school completion and related low levels of labour market engagement. Through TAFE tasters and work readiness activities in the earlier years of schooling, these learners are provided with opportunities to explore and plan vocational pathways and explore individual, workplace, educational and Aboriginal cultural values.

Deadly Skills Deadly Future seeks to map the //V Tracks// VET competencies to the school curriculum – specifically the Personal Learning Plans (PLP) and School to Work (STW) Plans that Aboriginal students complete in high school. This project therefore focuses on developing a suite of electronic tools to facilitate this cross-curricula mapping, and allow both school teachers and TAFE trainers to deliver and assess learning that meets performance criteria for Access, Employment, Education and Training (AEET) framework units //and// key learning areas from the school curriculum.

Deadly Skills Deadly Future will also respond to and further stimulate the demand expressed by schools to provide the //V Tracks// program to larger numbers of young Aboriginal students. Providing training and assessment through //Deadly Skills, Deadly Future,// will allow greater uptake of the //V Tracks// program. Using toolbox and moodle platforms, //V Tracks// could be offered to more students at risk of disengagement from school, and also address the financial challenges of transporting the school students to TAFE campuses and providing them with learner support within the TAFE environment.

**Final report**
Our project output is a Moodle course. You can find us here http://vtracks.edu.au Login using: Username: vtracksguest Password: V-tracks1 Our Moodle course is being piloted at Kempsey High School, beginning 7th December 2009.