What a great co-incidence it has been – for our Ministry of Education to come out with a new initiative to have students exposed to industry sectors BEFORE graduating from secondary school – and for Silicon Halton to exist for the purpose of bringing people together in the Information and Communications Technology sector!
The fact is, our schools need business partners to provide students with Reach Ahead activities, Job Shadowing, Job Twinning, Presentations or even semester long Co-op placements in our Information and Communications Technology SHSMs. Could I dream of a better resource for partnerships than SiliconHalton.com ? I am a teacher with the Halton District School Board – where I have taught Computer Science and Computer Engineering now for 16 years. (I also teach math and gulp… dramatic arts – when they need me !) My school is TA Blakelock High School which is located near the Hopedale Mall at 3rd Line and Rebecca Street in Oakville.
What a great honor it has been to meet the people at Silicon Halton in Meetings 9 and 10 and to be able to present to the group to explain SHSMs (Specialist High Skills Major) diplomas. There are SHSMs availabe in many different industry sectors (Energy, Manufacturing, Arts and Culture, Information and Communications Technology… and the list goes on. See my profile on Linkedin.com for the complete list in a document called “SHSM Fact Sheet”). Certain schools provide certain SHSMs – as the cost of offering SHSMs makes it necessary to divide up the programs so that there is always one school in each of the 3 geographic regions in Halton for each sector. The complete list of Public and Catholic schools is found in picture files titled Pathways1.jpg and Pathways2.jpg (also in my LinkedIn profile). Please read the files to learn more of the school’s offering SHSMs near your company and see the shsm_fact_sheet.pdf.
At Meetup 10 of Silicon Halton, some new ideas were under discussion. We talked about having Silicon Halton companies having a career day – where they present to students who rotate through as if “speed-dating” the companies of their choice. We also talked about having the students host a “dragon’s den” where the reverse scenario has the employers “speed dating” the students. We talked about having a travelling bus day where students are allowed to visit multiple businesses during a day. And it was mentioned that specific student needs could be posted on the SiliconHalton site once students have stated their own preferences for the kind of positions they are seeking. It was all discussed with very positive responses, as I collected over 20 business cards of people offering everything from Reach Ahead activities (1 to 3 days’ commitment) to Co-op placements (1 semester’s commitment). And again I mentioned how you can view http://www.schooltocareer.ca as both a corporate partner and a parent to help determine if you can provide support to the schools in your area. Guidance contacts are listed and they want to hear from you ! Alan.
About the Silicon Halton Member Blogger
Alan Payne is a Secondary School Teacher at TA Blakelock High School in Oakville, ON for the Halton District School Board. Alan is presently working on the Specialist High Skills Major program for the Ministry of Education where he is seeking co-op opportunity for his students order to complement the student’s High Skills Major Diploma in Information and Communication Technology. Silicon Halton note: Alan conducted an Open Space session at Meetup 10 on the topic of the Specialist High Skills Major in Halton District School Board. This blog was generated from that event. Thanks Alan!