Planning Your Future

Going from elementary school to secondary school is an exciting time. As a grade 9 student, you will experience new routines, new roles, new relationships, and mentors to assist  you in preparing for your high school experience. And, we’ve got you covered! There are many opportunities for you to become involved, or find the right person to help you so you feel comfortable, safe, and prepared for your future.

We want to help you in every way possible to make sure that you are successful, so we encourage you to visit the Education and Career Pathways site for more information and resources!

Individual Pathways Plan (IPP)

The Creating Pathways to Success program is a pilot initiative that will begin in some of our schools in September, 2014.

As you progress through school and life, you will need to make many choices about your education and career path. Beginning in grade 7, you will create an Individual Pathways Plan (IPP) and start reflecting on the following four questions:

1. Who am I? (Knowing Yourself)
2. What are my opportunities? (Exploring Opportunities)
3. Who do I want to become? (Making Decisions and Setting Goals)
4. What is my plan for achieving my goals? (Achieving Goals and Making Transitions)
   
   By completing and reflecting on your Individual Pathways Plan as you transition through grades 7 to 12, you will have established a clear plan for your initial postsecondary destination – whether it be apprenticeship training, college, community living, university, or the workplace – and with the confidence that you can revise your plan as you, and the world around you, changes. This vision sees you as the architect of your life.

Knowing Yourself

To help answer the question “Who am I?”, students will:

• identify the characteristics that describe who they are, and create and maintain a personal profile that reflects those characteristics (e.g., interests, strengths, intelligences, accomplishments, values, and skills, including the learning skills and work habits evaluated on the provincial report cards and the Essential Skills described in the Ontario Skills Passport);
• identify factors that have shaped who they are and that are likely to shape their profile over time;
• reflect on how the characteristics described in their profile influence their thoughts and actions, and how those thoughts and actions may in turn affect their development as a learner, their relationships, and their education and career/life choices.

Exploring Opportunities

To help answer the question “What are my opportunities?”, students will:

• explore the concept of “opportunity” and how the choices they make can open pathways for them;
• identify co-curricular and community-based opportunities (e.g., recreational, social, leadership, volunteer, part-time employment);
• investigate a variety of fields of work, occupations, and jobs, as well as the potential impact of local and global trends (e.g., demographic, technological, economic, social) on the opportunities available to them;
• investigate the preparation required for a variety of co-curricular and community-based opportunities, occupations, and jobs (i.e., acquiring the necessary experience, education/training, and specific skills, including the Essential Skills and work habits documented in the OSP) and how this preparation can be obtained.

Making Decisions and Setting Goals

To help answer the question “Who do I want to become?”, students will:

• identify the demands, rewards, and other features of the various opportunities they have explored, and reflect on the fit between those features and the characteristics they have described in their personal profile;
• based on the connections they identify, use a decision-making process to determine personal and interpersonal goals as well as education and career/life goals;
• review and revise their goals in light of any changes that may arise in their personal profile and in the opportunities that are available to them.

Achieving Goals and Making Transitions

To help answer the question “What is my plan for achieving my goals?”, students will:

• create a plan that identifies in detail the steps required to achieve the goals they have set;
• identify the resources required to implement their plan;
• identify potential obstacles and challenges they may encounter in implementing their plan, and devise possible solutions.