VET Students of the Year 2020

Four Chevalier College students have received VET Industry Category Awards in this year’s Vocational Education & Training Awards, and Sam Caddy was named overall Student of the Year for 2020.  An outstanding achievement, especially during this challenging year.

The Southern Highlands Schools Excellence in Vocational Education & Training Awards have been held for over 15 years.  The awards recognise the fantastic efforts and great achievement of young people completing VET courses as part of the HSC.

“Congratulations to the students who worked so diligently to learn and then apply their skills and knowledge during their work placements” said Ingrid Jensen, VET Leader of Learning at Chevalier College.  “It’s great that their hard work has been well-recognised.”

2020 STUDENT OF THE YEAR

Samuel Caddy

2020 VET Students of the Year

Industry Category Award Recipients

Samuel Caddy – Construction
Elizabeth Duncan – Hospitality (Food and Beverage)
Cooper Pettit – Students with Special Educational Needs
Alice Stockman – Hospitality (Kitchen Operations)

Certificate of Excellence Recipients

Construction – William Dodic
Construction – Samuel Caddy
Hospitality (Food and Beverage) – Elizabeth Duncan
Hospitality (Food and Beverage) – Zoe Newton
Hospitality (Food and Beverage) – Cooper Pettit
Hospitality (Kitchen Operations) – Alice Stockman

Chevalier College is fortunate to have excellent facilities for VET courses where students learn ‘on-the-job’ skills in a real-world environment, essential for employment.  Students not only learn the technical skills but also the valuable foundational skills for employment, such as problem-solving, teamwork and initiative.

This year, almost 170 students completed a VET course in the Southern Highlands as part of the HSC and 6 of the 11 students awarded with a Certificate of Excellence in the course they were studying are from Chevalier College.  From these 11 students, 5 VET Students of the Year were chosen for each of the industry categories.  Chevalier College students took out 4 of these 5 awards.  Samuel Caddy’s 2020 Student of the Year award makes it back-to-back wins for Chevalier College, with Darcy Howard named Student of the Year in 2019.

Students were nominated either by their host employers with whom they completed on- the-job skills training through work placement, or by their schools. They were then assessed by a panel of education and industry representatives as worthy recipients of a Certificate of Excellence in Vocational Education & Training.

Due to Covid-19 the awards ceremony did not go ahead this year – yet another special event denied these commendable HSC students – but their resilience, negotiation skills, people skills and service orientated work ethic, combined with the academics, creates a highly flexible and valued future contributor to the world.  These students have clearly met the challenges of 2020 and we wish them every success in the future.

Chevalier College would like to express its appreciation and thanks to the many local businesses who support these courses by providing work placement and mentoring to these young people.

The college also congratulates the VET students and staff from Bowral High School and Moss Vale High School.