At this time of the year, year 10s come home from their respective schools with the VCE VET Subject Selection Guide. A nicely bound A4 booklet brimming with details of all of the things they can learn in years 11 and 12.

Some schools offer the International Baccalaureate (IB), and so there’ll be another book for this too.

All of the schools produce them. The import of this document is drummed into the students at an Information Evening, during which they had been presented with the ATARs of the previous years’ year 12. “Look how well they did, year 10s!” intones the Principal. “We want you to do this well, or better, so: no parties; no going out and enjoying yourselves at the weekend; tell your parents not to let you out of your room until you have done 5 hours of study every night, and get them to seriously reconsider that mid-year holiday to Bali”. They then introduce the School Counsellor, who makes a speech about the merits of meditation to relieve stress. Go figure – they’re all crying from the previous speech and lining up to see the GP for some anxiety meds.

So let’s just take a big deep breath and remember that these kids are 15 going-on 16. They know what they love doing for the most part, and they know which subjects they get their best grades in. If they have a big dream they might need to check with a careers counsellor to see whether they must take certain subjects to get into particular courses, however there aren’t many prerequisite subjects.

The VCE VET subject selection booklet is a bit like a shopping catalogue, but a bit wordier. Go through it together if you think your child is overwhelmed or daunted.

There’ll most probably be a bit of pressure to make subject choice decisions quickly and that is because the school needs to get the timetable (blocking) right for everyone. So do pay attention to the date by which the information is needed and if he or she has a change of heart, communicate this to the school straight away. You don’t want any early upsets.

VCE VET subject selection, or that for IB, can be quite hard for some students, but it comes down to a process of elimination. If you can be methodical and thorough in your reading of precisely what the learning objectives are, then your young person will pick up quite quickly which ones sound great, and which ones sound like pulling teeth.

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