Indie students on board for garden, mentoring initiatives

INDIE School Bacchus Marsh year 11 students are leading the way in revitalising a community garden at the local neighbourhood house.

And that’s only one of the activities they are involved in during term 2 and the remainder of this school year.

They’ll also be acting as digital mentors at the local library to help older people with technology in term 3, and on 1 June they’ll get a real life insight into work options through the school’s second annual careers expo.

Work related skills teacher Katharine Everitt said the local Lions club had approached the school about being involved with the garden, and students jumped at the chance.

“It’s sort of taken on a life of its own because we took the students up there, and they were so inspired that they now want to do lots of things in the garden,” she said.

“They now have two garden beds per class (the school runs three year 11 classes), and … they have been writing a proposal for the neighbourhood house committee.

“There’s a little cubby house there left over from when it was a child care centre; they are writing a proposal because they want to completely reinvent it.

“They want to paint it, turn it into a … seed prepartion area for young children to get them in to gardening.

“There’s an area behind the shed, some of our boys would like to turn it into like a fairy garden – almost like a treasure hunt for young children.”

Everitt said students were also hoping to install a pond and revitalise the indigenous plants garden bed so people can go there and take cuttings.

“They are so fired up by the proposal; it’s been amazing,” she said.

Meanwhile, students have also started training to act as digital mentors for older residents at the local library in a partnership with The Laurels.

Everitt said the idea sprang from some older library users mentioning that they often struggled with technology.

“They (The Laurels) want to teach all of our students how to help them when that happens,” she said.

“So they can be in the library and when people come in they can … show them how to do these things, because obviously our students are very tech savvy and some of our older population less so.”

Students will be present at the library during term 3.

Finally, the school’s second annual careers expo is set for 1 June and dovetails with their Work Related Skills subject, which is Everitt’s specialty.

She said while students will attend official expos in Melton and the Victorian Careers Expo in Melbourne, the school-based event will be more personal and will feature local people actually working in featured careers being present to talk to them.

Builders, police, electricians, healthcare workers, automotive mechanics and others were involved last year and will be present once again.

“It’s a smaller setting and these are real people, so instead of recruiters that they’re speaking to … they can ask real questions,” Everitt said.

“It’s just a really successful way of those students getting to meet those people locally that do these real jobs.

“Last year a couple of our students ended up with work experience off the back of it.”