In Year 10, when preparing for the final years of high school, my daughter opted not to do ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank) and decided she would do nursing.
I had read that many homeschooled students go on to university level study and successful careers, so my question was:
How do you become a nurse if you homeschool and have no plans to do ATAR?
We chose a VET/TAFE pathway to nursing, starting with a Cert II General Education for Adults with South Metropolitan TAFE. At the time it was offered online on their eCampus and enrolment was on a term-by-term-basis (it has since changed to semester-only enrolment). She enrolled in the last term of Year 10, and she managed her time well to complete it right before the start of Term 1 in Year 11. This certificate gave her an official ‘entry ticket’ into any TAFE pathway towards whatever she wanted to do.
Next, in Year 11, my daughter enrolled in Cert III Health Services Assistance (Assisting in Nursing Work in Acute Care) with Health Science Hub (HSH) part time, completing the qualification in three terms. We picked the optional upgrade with units in ‘Assisting in Nursing Work in Acute Care’. This certificate not only provides a pathway into nursing and midwifery in WA, but it also trains the student as an Assistant in Nursing (AIN) with the additional Acute Care units. This qualification has a work placement requirement (Acute Care units), which she completed in an aged care facility. Completing the course in Year 11 has allowed my daughter to subsequently find well-paying work as an AIN at the local hospital wards, working alongside enrolled nurses (ENs) and registered nurses (RNs).
Finishing the Cert III Health Services Assistance (assisting in nursing work in acute care) is a prerequisite to enrolling in the Diploma in Nursing (EN course) at our local South Regional TAFE Bunbury campus. My daughter sat a TAFE numeracy and literacy assessment as part of her application. However as there is a greater demand for places in our regional campus, the TAFE entrance points cut off was too high for my daughter with only a Cert III. This was when she decided to enrol in the Cert IV Preparation for Health and Nursing Studies at TAFE instead for the first half of Year 12, with the view of applying for the Diploma in the second half of Year 12.
In hindsight, the Cert IV was a great decision to fully prepare my daughter for tertiary study. She gained more insight into full-time academic study, and laid a foundation of Human Biology studies.
In the second half of year 12, we were thrust back into homeschooling for the term. Long story short, when my daughter applied to Diploma of Nursing, somehow the application had omitted her studies in her Cert IV as she was still completing it, so it was not accounted for in her TAFE enrolment. By the time we resolved the error it was too late: her points met the cut off and her application was put on the waitlist, but the offers for placement had already gone out and were all taken.
But not to worry, we had a plan B: apply again in the next year, while homeschooling the final 6 months of Year 12, focussing on knowledge gaps my daughter found during her Cert IV studies — Anatomy and Physiology, and Writing/spelling skills.
I found a fantastic in-depth anatomy and physiology course called ‘Mapping the Body with Art’ by Ellen McHenry and used The Writing Revolution templates to create comprehension sheets based on the course.
In the meantime, my daughter had looked into other ways to get into nursing the following year, and had put in an early application directly to the nursing (RN) programme at Edith Cowan University Bunbury campus (as a backup to the Diploma application), using her Cert IV qualification. The university offer for nursing arrived soon after all the entry requirements were met. The ECU direct application platform was easy to use and would prompt for additional documents to fulfill the entry requirements. In her case, she needed to supply results for OLNA/NAPLAN Year 9 (did OLNA in September of Year 12) and fulfill the English requirement which she did by passing the STAT (Written English only) in early January right before uni started.
By the time she finished Year 12, my daughter found a job as an AIN at the local hospital, received an offer to study nursing at university, and well on her way to becoming a nurse.
Leave a Reply