Graduation
At graduation everyone wore dressy clothes and the girls wore heels. We had a ball at graduation. There was finger food and drinks, a certificate ceremony where we got given our certificates, group photos, and you could see parents talking to each other. Everyone got free drink cards and then you could go to the bar for a soft drink, beer or wine. The best part of graduation was everyone singing me (Hamish) Happy Birthday. It was like a big party.
We saw some of the other participants who have been working, and it was good seeing them again after a few months of them finishing SLES. Suzie [Trainer] and Brittany [SLES Mentor] did speeches, they did really well, and it was fantastic. Anna [MBS Employee Coordinator] even came to see us and take photos. We all sat around talking to each other and doing high fives – that was good. Did you know the certificates were in frames? I (Kasey) put mine on display on the table.
Travel training
On 8 March 2022 we had our first excursion for our certificate course, and we also incorporated our travel training into it as well. Like Brittany and Suzie said, we killed two birds with one stone. Suzie and Brittany were the leaders on the day. A lot of hard work went into this, looking at timetables, being able to read them, choosing meeting points, learning about maps, using the public transport app to look at meeting times and getting our parents to sign permission notes and handing them back to Brittany. We also had to choose as a group where we wanted to go, and we all decided on the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), as one of our units is related back to footy tipping and scoring.
We met at Sunshine and Footscray stations. We had to make sure we all had money on our MYKI and that we had our vaccine passports on us. We took the train to Richmond station and once we arrived we walked to the MCG. We went on a tour of the MCG and it was fun. I (Kasey) saw them setting up the goal posts for the AFL.
My (Hamish) favourite part of the tour was when we saw the section where the footy players came out onto the ground. We saw some footy players from the Melbourne footy club. James took a photo with Jack Viney (pictured at top) and he was so happy. Then we went to the museum and there was cricket, AFL, Olympic and horse racing sections. We got to play interactive games and Ethan did rock climbing.
When we went outside the MCG, we saw Shane Warne’s statute and took photos. There were heaps of bottles of beer, cigarettes and food around him, it was sad. Then we took the tram to Flinders Street, got some lunch and sat on the church steps. We walked around and then headed back down to Flinders Street station to take the train home. It was a really fun day and we learnt a lot of cool things.
Thanks Hamish and Kasey for being our SLES bloggers this edition!
To find out more about our SLES program visit our School Leaver Employment Support page.
Wondering how SLES works? Visit our SLES FAQ.
Want to know if SLES is right for you? Contact one of our friendly team members on 9731 9200 or email us at hello@mambourin.org
Get in touch