LifeEdu ► Life Planning Education

Background

In face of the unprecedented pace of changes worldwide with the advent of information technology and explosive growth of knowledge, our education system aims at preparing students in making informed and responsible choices so that they would be able to grasp the best opportunities ahead. With the implementation of the new senior secondary (NSS) curriculum and the diversified articulation to different pathways for lifelong learning, the senior secondary stage denotes a key transition between secondary schooling and post-secondary / vocational education and career development. Upon completion of senior secondary education, irrespective of the pathway that a student may choose, he / she will face an environment markedly different from school life and hence, it is of utmost importance to provide students with enhanced life-planning and career guidance support.

Life planning is an ongoing and lifelong process for personal fulfillment, with different foci at different stages of one’s life. Life planning education plays a significant role at school in fostering students’ self-understanding, personal planning, goal setting, reflective thinking and articulation to progression pathways. Hence, life planning education is not merely a remedial or advisory service for students when they need to make career choices. Effective life planning education and career guidance should equip students with the knowledge, skills and attitude to:

make wise choices in accordance with their interests, abilities and orientations;
understand the world of work and the change of society;
connect their career/academic aspirations with whole-person development and life-long learning;
develop their own life planning by making use of different resources and basing on their own strengths.

Implementation of life-planning education

Since 2006, SKH Bishop Baker Secondary School has started to develop a school-based life-planning education programme. It is not merely providing students further education information and careers counselling but enriching and fostering on students’ self-understanding, personal planning, goal setting, reflective thinking and articulation to progression pathways.

In junior form, we hope students can grasp basic concepts of life-planning. They should start understanding their own strengths and interests. They should also explore different opportunities provided by school, and prepare themselves for their senior secondary education.

In senior form, we will focus on the world of work and help student set their own careers goals. Of course different education pathways will be explored to help students making informed and responsible choices. Skills in preparing interviews and writing their self-accounts will also be discussed so as to better equip our students.

The following shows our goals for life-planning education in different forms:

Forms	Goals
Form 2	Understanding life-planning Understanding myself Goal setting
Form 3	Planning my study in senior form Understanding the subject selection in NSS Making informed and responsible choice
Form 4	Exploring the world of work Reflection on my own learning experience Amending my study plan
Form 5	Exploring the different pathways of higher education Reflection on my own learning experience Writing of the Student Learning Profile(SLP)
Form 6	Exploring the different pathways of higher education Preparing for the interviews for further study / work Goals setting

To achieve the above goals, we have prepared year-round activities for different forms. Here below list some examples:

Junior form activities:

University visit
Life-planning education lessons for F.2 and F.3 students
NSS subject selection counselling programmes, including Parents’ Talk, Mock Subject Selection, Workshop for Senior Form Study Planning, “Lunch with Careers Teachers”, etc.

F.4 Careers Exploring Activities

By a series of workshops, careers visit and jobs shadowing, we enrich our students knowledge in the world of works.

F.5 Tertiary Education Visits
Various Supports for F.6 students :

Talks for both students and parents, by school and different education institutes;
Joint school interview training workshop
Mock release of HKDSE results
“Morning Assembly for Careers” in every Day 4
Individual Counselling on study choices or JUPAS programme selection
Workshops for writing students’ self-account
Sharing from our school alumni

Development of Careers Corner, a place where students can access different careers related documents.
Schemes of Jobs Shadowing provided by NGOs, government and different organizations
Students Careers Team

Besides activities provided by Careers Life-planning education team, students can also enjoy various life-planning activities organized by different subjects or sections. For example, the Student Reporter Training from Chinese Department, Taiwan Art Visit Tour by Visual Arts Department, LCCI examination training by Accounts Department, etc.

Activity photos

Career Prefects set up counters and introduced the Senior Form Syllabus of their electives as well as their study strategies to junior form students and parents in the Career Information Day.

Dr Lilian Chan, Programme Director of HKU Business School, served as guest speaker to introduce the admission information of the university to students and parents in the Career Information Day.

Parents shared their career development stories in the Parent Human Library during the S.2 Career and Life Planning lesson, so that students could understand the value of work such as responsibility and hard work.

S.5 students were attending an interview workshop designed for enhancing their presentation and interview skills.
S.6 students were attending the joint school mock interview designed for enhancing their presentation and interview skills.

The alumni offered career counselling to S.6 students on the HKDSE Results Release Day.

S.5 Life Mentor Matching Scheme: Alumni are matched with S5 students to learn more about their preferred tertiary institutions through meeting the alumni and visiting the alumni's tertiary institutions, as well as providing alumni counselling on the selection of JUPAS choices for the students.

S.3 students visited a coffee shop to learn about the work of a barista and try their hand at coffee blending.

S.3 students visited a craft beer brewery to learn about the brewing process and the entrepreneurial spirit of the brewery!

S.4 students studied fashion design in the morning and went to the tutor's store in the afternoon to learn about the entrepreneurial spirit of fashion designers.

S.4 students were acquiring skills of becoming an early childhood educator through the vocational training programme.

In the S.4 Career Development and Life Development lesson, the students have understood more of their personal attributes and further explore their individual career pathways with help of the career cards provided.

Students with outstanding performance in S.4 Career and Life Development lessons visited a talk on table manners held in a hotel.

Joint-School visit to Credit Suisse Bank under CLAP@JC HKBM Career and Life Development Programme.

As a Resource’s School of the CLAP@JC HKBM Programme, we arranged an A.I. workshops for HUB D3 teachers who coming from THREE BAND ONE Schools so as to learn about the latest A.I. related teaching strategies and career information.