By SLES Participants Jeremy and Hayden

We all went to Melton Collins St Workplace to complete work experience there for the day. When I first arrived at this place around 9:30AM thanks to my Mum for dropping me off there in her Car (I was late for the Minibus that the rest of the SLES group took because of the traffic). We put on our Hi-Vis and Boots and then we walked into the building. We went into a small room similar to the classroom back at Derrimut and we sat down for a bit. While the rest of the class walked out and started cleaning the front area, George and I stayed inside. Britany took some photos of us for promotional papers that are usually hung up on the walls around the building and other places. After that, we walked outside and joined the others for work. This continued until 10:45AM where we went back inside and had our snack until 11:00AM. Afterwards, we went back out and did more cleaning until 12:15PM. We took the Minibus to McDonald’s for Lunch. After that we went back to the Collins rd, and we played Kahoot on the computers in the classroom (I won BTW). Around 2:00 PM we got back onto the Minibus and we drove back to Mambourin where we got picked up by our parents and went home.

On Wednesday the 12^th of February, we did our first travel training for the year and we headed to the south Melbourne market. The SLES group caught a metro train from Sunshine Station to the South Melbourne Station. Our plan was to go to multiple shops and interview a worker at each. We visited many small businesses and asked many different questions and were given great responses from the staff.  The shops we were interviewing, was the South Melbourne Market Pet Shop, The Super Cool shop, Coconut Revolution, ATYPIC Chocolate and La Sierra. We were given heaps of information from the staff members. We asked questions such as when and how long is the shop open, how many workers are there, what products are being sold and how they are acquired. Also who their target audience is, how they deal with thieves and what risks they come across. These kinds of questions were asked to these workers at these shops. We looked around the shops/stalls for inspirations for our small business project. We ended up having a group photo that included participants, and the small business owners Vrinda, Bianca, David and Mika. After we went around to these places, we went to the food court and had our lunch (I (Hayden) ate chips from an Italian mini café. I (Jeremy) and my friend Georgia and I used our lunch session to look at more shops/stalls before going to Dianne’s shop to ask her questions about her business and I got a solo photo. After, we visited the Salvation Army near Southern Cross Station where Nat’s daughter worked and we asked her many questions about the shop. After that, we went to the shopping centre near Starbucks for a toilet break.  It was a very jam packed day, and we did a lot of travel training.

On Tuesday the 18^th of February which was yesterday. The SLES Group caught a metro train from Sunshine Station to the Parliament Station. We entered inside Parliament house where a woman gave us access. As we are walking in, we took a shortcut at the back where we witnessed channel 7 reporting live and then we entered a room to a machine that looked like an airport luggage scanner. We placed all our bags with belongings, and gadgets in a tub, and then a man scanned us for any metal and suspicious items, before taking the lift up with the crew. We were given a tour guide named Grace to show us around the building.  Grace toured and she shared information about the previous premier, Australian history, landmarks inside, showed us different rooms, talked us through the session times for politicians and visitors, and we got to sit in the politician’s seats. There is the big room with portraits and paintings of Premiers and other special people for the parliament, and even a marble statue of Queen Victoria is placed on a pedestal in the middle of the room. There are 2 parts of the whole house, the Red floor side and the Green floor side. We went to the green side and walked into a court room where laws and political stuff happens. Then we walked to the red side and in to another court room for similar reasons. The king is apparently not allowed to go to the green side for reasons I can’t remember. Also, we saw a man who was the speakers associate and we had to bow to him. After that we took the tram down to the town hall and we sat down outside for morning tea. Then we took the tram straight down to Melbourne Central for a lunch break. Finally, as a group we looked around at selected Japanese shops in bottom ground level, and Brittany shared some info about those small businesses.