Victorian Skills Gateway– classroom lesson plan

Year 11: Deciding with the Victorian Skills Gateway

Alignment to the Victorian Careers Curriculum Framework (VCCF)

Stage: Career exploration

Competencies: Identify the transferable skills, knowledge and attitudes that can fulfil the requirements of a variety of work roles and work environments. Explore the importance of revisiting and fine tuning your preferred study, training and work options. Engage in career planning and development that takes into account changing economic, social and employment trends.

Stage: Career management

Competencies: Use career information resources to identify career opportunities that are available to someone with your skills, knowledge, aspirations and assess the reliability of the information.

Learning outcome: Students can reflect and adjust, if necessary, career plans in accordance with knowledge gained through the effective use of the use Victorian Skills Gateway website and other sources of online career resources.

Additional resources: Youth Central Guide myfuture

Lesson details for teachers

Suggested length: 100 mins

The lesson is designed to highlight that career goals can be achieved via a variety of pathways and examines the issues when searching for information. The lesson plan is a guide and teachers/careers practitioners may adapt the lesson plan to suit the needs and experiences of the students.

  1. If students have not used the Victorian Skills Gateway website previously, direct them to information ‘Making the most of this website’ and ‘Useful terms’ web pages in the ‘Students’ section. This will assist students in navigating the site. Explain that they will be using additional resources as well as the Victorian Skills Gateway in this lesson.
  1. Year 11 is a time for students to begin consolidating their decisions regarding their post school option. For some this may include a decision to complete their Year 12 or equivalent at another provider. The other important consideration is for a student is to have a ‘plan B’ option for future training/study.
  1. The Victorian Skills Gateway can provide a range of career information on just one occupation if students use the range of ‘gateways’. The following exercise will help students understand the variety of ways they can retrieve information from the Victorian Skills Gateway.

(Continued over the page)

  1. Working in groups, the students record their discussion as they move through the following activities:
  • Students type in lawyer into the ‘Occupation’ search box and follow the instructions to the full occupation description. Students briefly describe the type of information provided and return to the homepage
  • Using the course search, students type law in the search box and record the information that they find. They then move to the ‘Study area’ tab and type the keyword ‘legal’ in the search box and identify how the information is different from the course search. Discuss how they could use the course search effectively.
  • Remaining in the Study area page, students search using the keywords of either ‘law ‘or ‘justice and law enforcement’. Students discuss the differences in information provided.
  • Then using the ‘Read more’ tab to select a course at Certificate IV level and one at diploma level, students briefly explain the differences in the course information e.g. entry requirements.
  • Students follow-up by selecting a provider of one of the courses and describe any extra information found in this window.
  1. Now using the ‘Providers’ search, students answer the following questions:
  • How many providers are close to their location/postcode?
  • What happens when they change the distance to 50 kilometres in the refinement panel?
  • Do any of the providers offer either of the courses the group selected?
  1. Students now use the Victorian Skills Gateway to finding information about their preferred occupation or a possible ‘plan B’ option that will assist them in completing their career action plan.

The career action plan can be downloaded from Victorian Careers Curriculum Framework website ( or the career action plan customised for the cohort or school. Check with the careers practitioner regarding choice of career action plan.

Victorian Skills Gateway – classroom lesson plan / 1