By Derek Schlennstedt
Sherbrooke Community School is looking to the future to help ensure its students gain skills in jobs that will be relevant in the next decade.
As part of their VCAL program, students are being taught barista and food preparation skills to help obtain jobs.
The program involves students working at a fully functioning cafe called Sherbean, located on the school grounds.
The students run the cafe as a business, and Sherbrooke Community School principal Sue Holmes said that although the program was in its first year, it had shown promising results, with one student even gaining a part-time job at a nearby cafe.
“It’s a more hands-on approach,” Ms Holmes said.
“We have a beautiful machine that was donated to us, and we train the kids so they can then run it on production nights and, of course, during the day.
“At lunch break and in the afternoons, parents and students can come and purchase tea, coffee, hot chocolate and more.”
Each VCAL student has been trained by experienced baristas in the city, and it is also their responsibility to run Sherbean as a business, including the management of finances.
The school decided on the barista VCAL program after determining which jobs would be least affected by automation in the future.
“We feel that through this program we’re providing them with the skills to be able to get a part time job in something that, we believe, will still be around in the future,” Ms Holmes said.
There are also plans to further expand the program, with the school hoping to build a pizza oven so students can also gain more experience in food preparation and handling.
VCAL program student Charlie Dredge said the skills he learnt had helped him get a job.
“I’ve learned a lot of skills that I wouldn’t normally have learnt in traditional learning methods,” he said.
“We have to create a lot of different types of coffee; we have a lot of lactose intolerant people, so we have to cater for all sorts.”
“It’s really good, and because of it I was actually able to get a job at a cafe.”
