It is really enjoyable seeing students and ex-students starting on their career pathways.
I attended the CACTUS ex-student morning on 18th September and had a good catch-up with some students. The photo shows two ex-students Lleyton Wright and Jayden Toohey-Robinson. Jayden completed a Gateway placement at Kiwirail, then he completed a course at Ara whilst working on all aspects of train maintenance, and he is currently fulfilling his long-term career goal of becoming a train driver.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to have a small article in the careers section of the monthly newsletter with your current career pathway from school.
Below we hear from two of our senior students who had a day’s work experience in their areas of interest this month.
Year 12 student, Finn Batterbury, attended a Compass FM Intro to Radio Day. Here is what Finn had to say about his day:
“Tune into this story as things go swimmingly at the Compass FM Radio Day! A riveting day filled to the brim with excitement and learning. Students recorded their own ads and at the end of the day, got to hear them back, mixed and ready for radio! Guest speakers appeared to give their two cents about the radio industry and their experience working with it.
On a more personal note, I loved this day, as radio has always been a fixation of mine. I would recommend it to anyone looking to get into radio.”
Year 13 student, Josh Jarman, spent a day with the Ministry for Primary Industries at Christchurch International Airport. Here is what Josh said about it:
“On the 3rd of September I had the opportunity to do a day of work experience at the Ministry for Primary Industries (or MPI for short). I got picked up from school at 7:00 am by Jono, who is a dog handler and a quarantine officer for MPI. Our first stop was at MPI HQ which is located near the airport and we arrived at around 7:30 am. Once we got inside the building, Jono showed me around a little and when we got to his desk he showed me what jobs we had to do for the day. Our jobs for the day included an inbound international flight at 9:20 am, Seed and wood pallet inspections from 10:30 am to 12:45 pm and timber inspections from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm.
While the passengers from the Singapore flight were coming back into the airport, I was watching baggage go through the x-ray machine and passengers with their bags go through the sniffer dog area. The role of sniffer dog is to sniff for any contraband items that are not allowed to enter the country, which includes things like fruit, and animal skins. The x-ray machine also does the same thing as the sniffer dogs, but it also detects things like jars of honey, meats, and muddy hiking boots. This last one is because the dirt that is on the boots could have insects in that can harm our environment. While watching the x-ray machine I learned about the fines that are given to the people that don’t either declare certain items or have fruit in their luggage, which is upwards of almost $500 in some cases.
Once all of the passengers had gone through the security checks, we went to GVI logistics located right next to the airport park and ride to inspect shipments of seeds that had been imported into the country from places like the Netherlands, Republic of Germany, and South Korea. Once we had completed the seed inspections, we went across the carpark at GVI logistics to inspect wooden pallets that had arrived from Australia, which didn’t take long.
Once we were done with everything, there was some time left for me to go see Jono’s dog named Captain who has to stay in a separate kennel near the airport because, if the dog was living with Jono, he would be constantly sniffing all the fruit and vegetables around the house and it wouldn’t be fair on Captain if he was always in work mode.
In summary, if I were to be given another opportunity to be with Jono and Captain for a day with MPI I would definitely take that chance and it has helped me decide that I want to work in an airport environment for my career in the future.”
Andrea Williamson, Careers Advisor
KHS Careers website: https://kaiapoi.careerwise.school/posts
