Vocational learning in Years 9 and 10 addresses key competencies and content related to work and employability. Any implications from current work at the Board and other developments related to the middle years of schooling will be addressed in future syllabuses.

Vocational learning programs in Years 9 and 10 need to build on prior learning in the middle years. Students start gaining awareness about the world of work and their place in it from primary school through study of the Human Society & Its Environment K-6 syllabus. In Years 9 and 10 NSW schools can offer a work education course that builds on this understanding. A number of externally run programs are also available to schools to support student development of business skills in those years.

It is also important that the curriculum include, in addition to specialised learning area outcomes, outcomes related to vocational learning which are cross-curriculum. The NSW Board of Studies’ current review of the Years 7 to 10 curriculum in NSW will look at how ‘work-ready’ concepts and skills can be incorporated across all learning area syllabuses.