Working with youth leads to major award wins
4 August 2005
Teacher of the Year, Jan Davey (left) and Staff Member of the Year, Julie McClimont with their certificates.
Kangan Batman TAFE’s VCAL Coordinator, Julie McClimont, and VCAL teacher, Jane Davey were major winners at Kangan Batman TAFE’s awards ceremony this week.
Ms McClimont was awarded Staff Member of the Year and Ms Davey, Teacher of the Year which are the top awards presented at the Institute’s Quest for Excellence awards.
The win is significant in that both women work in the Post Compulsory Education Pathways unit which provides VCAL training for at risk 15-19 year olds. Manager of the unit, Mr Peter Harrison says both women are ‘exceptional people with a strong team ethic whose leadership skills and ability to create an environment for youth in which they feel comfortable and welcomed’ is top priority.
‘Not only do they make young people feel valued and provide surroundings which are non-threatening, the students can achieve things they wouldn’t have thought possible,’ said Mr Harrison. ‘Often they see TAFE as their last hope and the turnaround in attitude is due to the belief that Julie and Jane have in young people.’
Ms McClimont lives in Coburg, works at the Broadmeadows campus and started work with Kangan Batman TAFE three years ago. She represents the Institute at LLEN meetings, community agencies and schools and is often called upon to mentor and support new VCAL teachers or coordinators both within and outside of the Institute. She was invited to be one of four people on the Northern Region VCAL Quality Assurance Panel in 2004.
A major part of Ms McClimont’s work is liaising with other departments to create, design and coordinate the VCAL programs which can run across many departments. She deals with all the aspects of timetabling, staffing, curriculum and provides teacher support. She also developed a comprehensive guide for VCAL teachers which included timetables, contacts, discipline procedures and forms.
Julie continues to develop new and creative projects for students and is working on a number of new VCAL programs to commence next year.
Ms Davey, who lives in Mount Waverley, has been teaching in the VCAL programs since October 2002 and has taught in the Institute’s VET and VCAL programs.
She teaches primarily 15-19 year olds, often those who have had poor educational experiences. These students can feel angry and ostracised and a significant number have weak literacy and numeracy skills. Ms Davey will persevere with difficult students, finding out what excites them about learning, which can take months, determined that all her students engage in learning and make progress towards obtaining their VCAL certificate.
Ms Davey also developed the statewide VCAL learning materials for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Ms Davey develops positive relationships with the young people in her classes, and has had a lot of good feedback from the students and their parents to her teaching style. In 2004, Ms Davey developed an Induction Kit for use in classrooms across the Institute to assist in settling students into their new adult learning environment.
She has also run professional development programs for teaching staff, including ‘Power and Democracy in the Classroom’ which aims to give teachers techniques for dealing with young people.
