Try-A-Trade

The program is designed for school students in Years 9 and above, as well as school leavers and mature age job seekers who have an interest in exploring construction careers. Try-A-Trade is the perfect stepping stone to starting an apprenticeship and helps you to gain insight into the construction industry.

Each course runs for between one and three days. Participants must be able to attend all required days.

Try-A-Trade is fully funded by the Construction Training Fund (CTF) in Western Australia.

There are no fees for participants or schools.

The program is designed to give participants a taste of a day in the life of different construction roles. One of the biggest benefits of our Try-A-Trade program is the advice and insights participants gain about different career options. This allows them to explore the skills required and learn about the pathways they can take to work in specific trades within the building and construction industry.

 

Participants find themselves in a better position to make educated decisions about their careers.

Other benefits of our Try-A-Trade program are:

• Hands-on learning
• The opportunity to try a trade before you commit to a long-term apprenticeship
• Learning about the variety of roles available within the construction industry and the skills required
• Meeting, talking to and learning from trade professionals, lecturers and local industry people
• No cost

Click on the buttons above to complete an expression of interest. You can participate through your school or if you are over 18, register your details so we can let you know when a public course is running.

Courses are in extremely high demand, so we have revised the process for allocating courses.

 

• Once you express your interest to be on our mailing list, we will include you in offers for available courses. These are usually released once per semester. You only need to register once – you will remain on the mailing list until you email us to advise that you wish to be removed.
• When courses become available, priority will be given to schools and groups who have not yet had a Try-A-Trade opportunity. Applicants will be able to select from a list of courses available. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate specific requests for providers, trades and dates.
• If there are still courses available, we continue to work through the mailing list, considering factors such as number of previous opportunities, the number of students at the school, and feedback from training providers on student conduct. We often have cancellations or places available to top up programs, so we will also continue to offer these to you.
• Courses negotiated directly with a Training Provider will not be funded by CTF. Schools may make arrangements directly with a training Provider, to secure courses that suit their preferences regarding trades and dates. However, these will be conducted at their own cost. 
• Schools and groups who have already registered their interest in the last 12 months will be automatically included on the mailing list. Please let us know if you wish your email to be removed or if your contact details for your school have changed and we can update accordingly.

Participants can take part in as many Try-A-Trade programs as they like, subject to availability. We encourage participants to attend as many as practical. This way, they can get a taster of multiple trades before making a career decision.

CTF selects and funds a range of Registered Training Organisations across Western Australia to deliver the courses.. We currently offer Try-A-Trade courses through:

• Carey Training
• Cartec Training Solutions
• Central Regional TAFE
• Motivation Foundation
• MPA Skills
• North Metropolitan TAFE
• Skill Hire
• South Metropolitan TAFE
• South Regional TAFE
• Western Training
• Yalagan Registered Training

 

Note: You must apply and be selected to participate through CTF. Do not contact training providers directly to apply. Courses negotiated directly through a training provider will not be funded by CTF.

Each course can have up to 16 participants.

 

The total number of courses available is currently impacted by trainer availability. As apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship sign-ups have significantly increased in the last few years, training providers (like everyone else) are super busy! We will be working with training providers to make as many courses available as possible throughout the year, in all of the regions across WA.

 

Try-A-Trade is delivered at an RTO’s training facility or a Trade Training Centre.

Some training providers are able to deliver the Try-A-Trade program at school sites; however, they are not permitted to participate in ‘live works’. This is because  the intent of the CTF Try-A-Trade program is to give students a chance to get hands-on experience with  the typical tasks undertaken in a construction role. It is a short introductory program and has no assessment requirements, allowing students to have a go and not worry about making mistakes. As such, the quality of the work cannot be guaranteed, and any projects assembled should be disassembled and removed at the end of the course.

 

Live works may cause issues with insurance and meeting the relevant building standards. This is not the responsibility of CTF or the Training Provider. The funding of Try-A-Trade is not intended to supplement schools’ capital works and maintenance programs; it is a career taster experience. Even if schools are willing to fund the cost of materials, the CTF Try-A-Trade course must not be used in this way, for the range of reasons listed above.

We ask for schools to:

• Assist in promoting construction careers to students and parents as a possible pathway for all, particularly focusing on increased participation from females and diverse groups
• Select and refer suitable students to participate in the program
• Encourage students to attend the CTF Construction Futures Centre before applying for the program (where possible) – schools who have attended will be given preference to access places in the program
• Advise students of the program expectations, including the requirement to provide their own steel toe cap safety boots where required
• Provide us with feedback on the program, the administration processes, and the training providers, so we can continuously improve the program
• Provide a teacher to supervise students during the program if requested by the Registered Training Organisation

Expressions of Interest are now taken through the Construction Training Fund (CTF) website.

 

The process has been revised for a number of reasons:

• To give CTF a clear picture of how much demand there is for the program
• To make it fairer for schools to apply – expressions are collected over a set period, so it is not a first-come, first-served approach
• To give students access to a broader range of opportunities to try different trades. Under the previous arrangement, some schools were often restricted to the same one or two trades.
• Schools can apply all year round.

 

Students from Years 9 and above can participate.

The program used to only be open to Years 9 and 10, but now applications are open to Years 11, 12, and even post-school leavers – because it’s never too late to change your mind and give construction trades a go!

 

The range of trades available has been expanded.

Construction is a huge industry with a lot of diverse roles. We want students to be able to see roles from a range of industries including construction roles in the resources sector and more paraprofessional roles involved in design, drafting, scheduling and surveying. CTF will try to offer trades where there are skills shortages or local needs for future pipelines of work.