Lucy Howard-Shibuya: The main benefit of the Rural & Remote K-12 Career Education Initiative is, without doubt, the incredible opportunity provided for our students to dream big.

[Music plays over images of a classroom, and a google earth zoom in over Goodooga and an aerial shot of the town]

Goodooga is a very strong, close-knit community, and the community works closely with the school, and their intention is to provide as many opportunities for their kids, their students as possible. We do a lot of different things in the classroom. The main focus though is that the students are learning to collaborate together, and for example, they're working very carefully on their small business they've started, Bokhara Creations, which is a jewellery-making business and painting.

Tyreese: My favourite part about careers class is that every time I go in there, I get to paint and make jewellery. I like painting stories of family and land.

Kiyesha: This experience made me think of my career in construction because I enjoy it. My math’s teacher is helping me a lot with it, especially with measuring, doing angles.

Ruby: I learned communication skills, teamwork, planning skills.

Ava: I've developed creative skills and teamwork skills during our lessons.

Lucy Howard-Shibuya: We're really trying to build their skills of learning what it takes to run a business and where that might lead them in the future. So these skills, though, they might come together and brainstorm some ideas through some practical creation because they are incredibly artistic and very creative.

Malcolm Banks: We started the transition program earlier, so getting our years five and six into secondary, having them have careers lessons and seeing what they can achieve if they're doing these things at school. We had already things in place, but the initiative has allowed us to take that even further to be able to purchase more things and to have teacher training to be able to go on to career network sites.

It allows for our students to travel too I think we've been to three career expos this year. Whatever we can do to assist those students at that young age to pick that career is good, and I think it's a great initiative that's come through.

Lucy Howard-Shibuya: You don't want to do this wonderful work and then it's just, okay, that was great, and it's gone. Sustainability is the key, so what we are doing here is we're clearly documenting a scope and sequence in our programs to make sure that we keep it going. And when we see that things are really working well, we’ll work towards the strength of the students and documenting that then means that it's there forever.

Kiyesha: If I can work in Goodooga and build houses, I would love to make sure that everybody has their own homes.

Tyreese: I encourage all Aboriginal kids to go to a careers class cause you could go a long way in school, teach you a lot of skills and help you where you wanna be when you grow up.

Ruby: Don't be ashamed to be a part of a careers program 'cause it will help you later in life and it'll help your community.

Lucy Howard-Shibuya: It's the support of the school and the community that makes it easy for me to see that we can all work together, because everybody wants the same things for the kids. They want them to have bright futures.

Megan Nicholson: The Rural and Remote K-12 Career Education Initiative has sparked lots of conversation and lots of celebration about what students can do, how that benefits them into the future, and has strengthened our connection to industry.

[music plays over google earth zoom in to Cobar, transitions into a drone shot of Cobar High School and close up of the Cobar High sign]

Cobar is a really isolated school, so travelling to anything or being able to bring people to talk about industry or to give experiences for students to go and do work experience is very limiting. The funds have really benefited us with travel and accommodation. So we increased the number of students that could go on the excursion to Sydney. [3 Pictures of students standing of the deck of a Royal Australian Navy ship] Also being able to engage with industry in order to broaden the students knowledge for their career paths.

Andrew Coffey: The initiative definitely has broadened the horizon because we do have a lot of really good opportunities. But not everyone wants a career in the mines so it's really good for students to see a major city, see an actual university, go and see different fields, and it gives them more information, have more confidence as well.

If they want to, you know, they can go get a career elsewhere. And if they still want to come back to town, they have all the skills and the training that will allow them to have a really successful future.

Sarah: The experience has made me think more about where I want to pursue my job and what I really want to do. Some include going away to learn more about hairdressing, but then I'd love to come back to Cobar and open up my own salon.

Indy: During the excursion, it made me think that I might want to be in the Army. I feel like a more inspired now to pursue different careers.

Sophie: It definitely opened up my eyes about what there is and that there's more than just the jobs in Cobar, there's a lot more out there. I learnt different options of what there is I could be when I’m older.

Piper: With in such a small town, we don't know what's out there and that shows us how much is available to us.

[music plays over panning shot of mine workers and mining equipment]

Erika Muldoon: The initiative has allowed us to build strong connections with industries within our communities and encouraged people to come into our school, see the skills that we're teaching to our students, and allow the students to show members of our community what we can do.

Megan Nicholson: We have so many people in our community that want to be part of our programs. They are willing to give opportunities for students. They engage students in work experience, school based apprenticeships.

We’re trying to sustain things that don’t cost us a lot of money, trying to make connections and network with industry in order for them to want to come here and want to work with our students. Those industries are increasing in our community because they want to be with our students, and I think that's really a wonderful thing.

Piaf Rengger-Thorpe: During this process of creating the community markets, it has really helped within the community for students to understand their value and to have those community connections and how they all work as one. And I would say that the students can understand that because it's a practical thing rather than the conceptual idea of a career.

Our school’s initiative with the community markets that we're running is to build the idea of a sustainable future within our community for students.

We see the need for students to be able to build skills within school where they can leave and understand how they can employ them within our community and be able to have a sustaining future.

Bridie: For the market stall, I will be selling pot plants with plants in them. Nimbin Central School is trying to get the community down, and we're going to try to get more involved in the community. So, we have community members walk down, visit the stalls, and hopefully buy some stuff and help out the students.

Eden: Through this experience of just even selling cookies. I think that I have learnt quite a few skills into the entrepreneurial world, like learning how to budget things correctly, factoring in labour and of course royalties.

Livio: Just the skills that I learnt with it. Firstly, collaborative and communication

skills along with various soft skills and critical thinking and a lot of innovation was needed to get this off the ground and risk taking. It all worked out really well in the end.

Tina Cudmore: I would highly recommend this initiative. It is an incredibly positive experience to have been a part of. There's a lot of peer leadership involved. There's a lot of peer learning and support to definitely teach the children that they are absolutely capable of producing something that is worthwhile.

Eden: Overall, I reckon this experience has definitely taught us a lot and I will be excited

to use this knowledge in my future career

Bridie: For students looking to start their business, I would suggest to speak to your careers advisor and get them to look up what grants are available for you.

Piaf Rengger-Thorpe: The grant itself gave us the ability to be able to create infrastructure to keep this as an ongoing thing. So, we've bought a range of marquees that will be able to be continually used for the markets.

Everyone's been really happy to promote and to support our students in where they're going to go in their future.

There's a lot of hard work, but there's so much value in it and making those community connections and the school and students. It is the heart of what education needs to be.