By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
A BERWICK high school has continued to lead the way in teaching hospitality, with its students recently catering for hundreds of people at this year’s AIDS conference.
VET hospitality students from Kambrya College prepared 500 cakes and pastries for the delegates who attended the July conference, an incredible achievement according to teacher Melanie Reynolds.
“What my students did is they actually made 500 cakes and pastries that were transported up there and they were actually given to the delegates with a tea or coffee when they had their relax time,” Ms Reynolds, a trade qualified chef, said.
“It was also in partnership with a student of mine who’s now at William Angliss who does events management. So that was actually his event, and it was a pretty important one.”
Kambrya has run its VET hospitality program for close to a decade, allowing students from a range of local schools to complete a certificate II in commercial cookery.
The school has its own hospitality centre, which includes a 25-seat dining room and a function room, where students carry out their lessons.
“It’s really important for students to be involved in it because it actually gives them an opportunity to get a jump start or a head start in a career in hospitality,” Ms Reynolds said.
“If they want to be a chef, they do the first two years of an apprenticeship, so they’ve done the trade school part of it and they can do this in conjunction with a school-based apprenticeship.
“Or they can do it as a stand-alone VCE subject where they actually use it to go towards their VCE study school.
“Or it can be used in conjunction with a part of VCAL, which is their applied learning pathway.”
Alkira Secondary College in Cranbourne North, St Peter’s College in Cranbourne, Berwick Secondary College, and Narre Warren South P-12 College are just some of the schools involved with the Kambrya program.
“We’re looking to build on the partnership with the schools in the area.
“We had a finger food function the other night where we invited the principals and VET co-ordinators from the other schools and we had St Peter’s come down,” Ms Reynolds said.
“Hopefully, we’ll develop those relationships with the other schools and get more students in and keep building the program.”
