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Managed Individual Pathways (MIPs) Good Practice Case Studies

Daylesford Secondary College
Debney Park Secondary College
Galvin Park Secondary College – Werribee
Geelong High School
Kyabram Secondary College
Marnebek School – Cranbourne
Oberon High School
Traralgon College
Wanganui Park Secondary College – Shepparton
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Daylesford Secondary College

Daylesford Secondary College is located in a thriving tourist town, but this can disguise the challenges facing full-time residents. Old industries are declining and housing prices are rising. Absenteeism is a problem for local schools, and retention rates are low. The MIPs program is an important part of the school’s strategy to address these challenges. Key to the program’s success is the teaming of a teacher (a Daylesford local with a long history at the school who is qualified in Careers Education and has university connections) and an employer (a semi-retired, ex-human resources manager for large companies, with connections in the Ballarat business community). The MIPs office is like a slice of the outside world, where personal responsibility and mutual courtesy are required and achieved.

Debney Park Secondary College

Debney Park Secondary College is set in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. The students come from a diverse range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and many speak English as their second language. The school also runs a bridging program for new arrival migrants, most of whom are Sudanese migrants who have had disrupted (or no) school education. The school’s MIPs program has to support a broad range of transitions, including post-school literacy programs for adults, employment and university entrance. To add to the challenge, during 2005/2006 they were afflicted by the common curse of the MIPs/careers program - staff turnover resulting in a complete change of pathways team members. Nonetheless, the school continues to refine a MIPs program that is caring and tailored to the needs of ‘the students in front of you’.

Galvin Park Secondary College – Werribee

Galvin Park Secondary College is a large secondary school located in an area of high youth unemployment and relatively low rates of university entry. The senior school at Galvin Park is built around the concept of pathways, and the School Council takes a particular interest in student destinations and post-school outcomes. The Galvin Park case study describes a school where MIPs is given ample space in the curriculum, each student gets individual attention, and the MIPs coordinator is involved in all key decision-making. But how much of this is due to the personality and persistence of the MIPs coordinator?

Geelong High School

Geelong High School has undergone a complete transformation over the past five years, from curriculum to school structures and hierarchies. The MIPs program is built around the vertical home group structure (2 teachers and up to 30 students in each home group), and the ongoing relationship between home group teachers and their students provides for seamless pathways planning from Year 7 to Year 12. Almost all students also undertake an elective careers unit at Years 9 and 10. The Pathways team provides training and program support to home group teachers as well as specialist guidance to students, and maintains the MIPs database that records students’ study and career goals. This is a dynamic model of a whole-school, integrated approach to MIPs.

Kyabram Secondary College

Kyabram Secondary College has an excellent, built-for-purpose MIPs database that they’re happy to share! This electronic MIPs Plan gathers in its ‘pages’ many of the MIPs activities that occur in other schools, such as: exploring personal interests, strengths and weaknesses; identifying career preferences; recording educational achievements, work experience and demonstrated work skills; setting short-term and long-term goals, and; identifying barriers to successful pathway outcomes. Students enter and maintain their own data and can log into their plan at any time. If they select the ‘Print Resume’ button, all of the relevant information is pulled from their file and printed as a perfectly formatted resume! MIPs staff can extract from the database lists of all students interested in a particular career path, those who would like assistance or advice, or even those who have not updated their MIPs Plan since a chosen date. However, the MIPs team are clear that the database is just a tool – its success lies in how it is used to underpin regular conversations with students about their future direction.

Marnebek School – Cranbourne

Marnebek School is a Special School that caters for students with mild, moderate and profound intellectual disabilities. Opening in 2002 the school has seen a large growth in ths student population over the last 5 years. The MIPs program has grown with the school, and as the students progress through the school the focus on VCAL, work experience and in-school training programs has expanded to include pathways and transition support. The Marnebek case study will interest any school – mainstream or Special Education – that has a cohort of students who need extra support to negotiate work experience and pathway planning, and a cohort of parents who are extremely anxious about what the future may hold for their children.

Oberon High School

Oberon High School is in a state of transition. The school’s student population is rapidly growing which is putting pressure on classrooms and space. A vertical home group structure was introduced in 2005 and its impact on school programs and structures is still being worked through. Year 9 and 10 students choose from the same electives and are therefore in mixed-age classes, making it difficult to schedule pathways planning for the 230 Year 10s. However, the school has developed a MIPs program that addresses these challenges. A series of one-day events in terms 2 and 3 take Year 10 students through an intensive pathways planning process, with volunteer staff mentors each working with 20 students to complete MIPs plans. This is supported by the Year 9 and 10 English teachers who have incorporated resumes and job applications into students’ writing portfolios. While MIPs may be integrated into the home group structure in future, this model offers an effective solution for current students.

Traralgon College

The MIPs program at Traralgon College is based around the notion that pathways planning is most successful when students work with teachers who know them well. This has led to an innovative approach where maths and English teachers, from year 10 to year 12, are also MIPs teachers for one of their classes. An extra period each week with this class is timetabled for MIPs activities, though teachers have the freedom to bundle MIPs into week-long bursts if they prefer. The MIPs/careers staff provide program support to MIPs teachers and specialist assistance to students. The school has assembled an impressive Pathways team that includes two teachers (both Leading Teachers), a Transitions Officer (0.4), a case manager for at risk students (0.8) and a learning support specialist (0.4). This approach allows the school to provide effective pathways planning and transition support to the 700 students enrolled at the senior campus.

Wanganui Park Secondary College – Shepparton

At Wanganui Park Secondary College, they have taken a rather different approach to MIPs and pathways planning. First, they use the term ‘MIPs’ to describe a specialist program that builds work readiness and career direction in a small cohort of Year 10 students. Second, the MIPs coordinators are both House Leaders, thereby integrating MIPs into the school’s leadership team. Third, individual careers and pathways planning support for all Year 10 students is delivered by volunteer staff - fifty-five of them! Finally, retention and engagement programs abound in Years 7 to 9, addressing a local trend where many students either leave school during Year 9. The school’s vertical home group structure is central to its pathways planning approach, as it is to all of its programs and processes. This approach pulls together MIPs, pastoral care, choosing individual learning pathways and monitoring academic progress.

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