NWO Teacher Toolkit – FYA Partnership Review

VCAL Teacher Toolkit

If you don’t know FYA (Foundation for Young Australians) then stop reading this and google them or go here first: https://www.fya.org.au/. I first came across them 5 years ago when we were looking for a leadership program for some young up-and-coming Koorie people in Ballarat. Sheree and I walked into their office (an old nightclub) and proceeded to learn about “change making” while Alissa and Benson from FYA (and Tarni, Sheree’s daughter) started drawing on the glass walls in texta. We learnt so much but were both impressed and a little out of our comfort zone!

All up, we ended up running 3 Change it Up programs where over 100 young people from our area created ideas and pitched for funding to start a campaign, enterprise or group that would positively impact their peers. We even got to host Unleashed – a statewide event for all FYA Change Makers.

Last year, we asked Alex and Rachel to present on FYA’s research on the changing world of work (https://www.fya.org.au/our-research/#series) to our local employers and schools. It had such brilliant feedback that we knew we had to learn more from them. So we approached the $20 Boss team and asked them to support one of our local schools (which Annie and Kate did brilliantly, adapting the content for their students with additional needs). It was an amazing success! Again.

So, going for broke, we asked (in Change It Up fashion) “What would it take to empower teachers to deliver the findings of FYA New Work Order research to students as part of the curriculum”. When it had been properly pondered, so started our journey. 12 students, 5 schools and 9 months later we have created this: https://www.fya.org.au/nwo-in-the-vcal/

139 pages, 5 modules, 27 lessons, activities, handouts, teaching aides, hyperlinks, videos, portfolio documents, assessment tasks and more.

This seems to be the trend when asking FYA for something – you get more than you bargained for!

With a leader like Jan Owen AO and people like Alex, Shona, Casey, Annie, Kate, Andrew and Lauren, we understand why you are held in such high esteem. We will forever be glad that you took a punt to partner with a 4 person NFP like us.

 

“would recommend – 5 stars”

– Brendan and BGKLLEN team