How it works

It’s career education, made easy

The Ponder Program is designed to seamlessly fit in with your curriculum, timetable, and resourcing – no matter how you like to do things.

See how it works:

Join Rob from Study Work Grow for a full walkthrough of the program, in just 12 mins.

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Ready, set, go...

We know you’re busy, so we’ve made Ponder as easy as possible for you to integrate into your existing programs and frameworks. That way, you can get Ponder set up and working, then focus on supporting your students and getting everything else done.

It takes our members around an hour per term to review the modules and units, make any localisations and/or adjustments for their teachers and students, and then share the resources with the right people.

Follow these steps

Step 1

Join the Program

It's quick and easy to join the program; once you've applied, we'll review your details and set everything up in the system for you.

Once you're ready to go, we'll send you an email to let you know.

Join the program here

Step 1

Step 2

Get set up

We'll send you instructions for accessing your account and the resources, and it should only take 15 minutes to complete. We find most of our schools like to spend some time browsing the resources at this point.

The great thing is, your team don't need to log in to the Ponder website to teach each lesson, and that's because we've created easy-to-use resources. See below.

Step 2

Step 3

Choose your resources

We've deliberately designed Ponder to contain enough resources to keep you going for years (we're big on overdelivering) so take some time to check out the resources and decide how you would like to use them.

To get started, many schools simply get the Teacher Resource Booklet for each term, add it to their Learning Management System (Google Classroom/Canvas/SchoolBox etc) for their educators to access, and then instruct them to follow each unit as it goes. There are four modules with ten units in each module, and each unit is structured to be able to be delivered independently. However the units work well when they are delivered sequentially. A unit can easily be integrated into a home group, PDHPE, Pastoral Care, or similar session and delivered by subject area teachers.

We want you to feel confident incorporating Ponder into your school, so please ask if you would like some help working out what to use and where to use it, or check out some of the ways other schools are using Ponder right now.

Step 3

Step 4

Tell your teachers

Ponder works really well when it is coordinated by a Career Leader and delivered by subject area teachers in your team. It's an excellent way of integrating career education into the curriculum, without taking time from key subject areas.

Share the Resource PDFs with your teachers - they contain rational and instructions, as well as links to the presentations and videos so the teachers will have everything they need at their fingertips.

Step 4

Step 5

Start using the units

Launch the Program and start using the units, and support your teachers if they are delivering the content on your behalf. We find that many teachers may have questions or ideas of their own to share with you, and that Ponder can have a flow on effect of elevating the role of the Career Leader within the school.

Step 5

The Three Phase Inquiry Model

Learning career management skills requires more than just rote memorisation, which is why we use a Three Phase Inquiry Model to structure each unit.

Students are guided through a process of discovering the concept or information, usually through a short, engaging, and relevant video, then they are given a chance to discuss and explore their ideas with a group, and finally they can move on to demonstrate their new skills and knowledge as they put them into practice.

Discover

Students are introduced to the topic and given a chance to learn about the concept before going further

Discuss

Once students and teachers have watched the Discovery video, they can discuss their thoughts and ideas

Demonstrate

Encourage deep learning and reflection with the activities and thinking points which accompany each unit

Promote reflection and deep learning for all students with a model that gets them thinking.

Got more questions? You might find the answers here:

How flexible is the Ponder Program?

Very flexible. We’ve done the hard work of creating a structured program with lots of content pre-prepared for you – but it’s entirely up to you as to what lessons you use, what order you do them in, or length/frequency of lesson. You know your students and what they need, so just choose a lesson (or lessons) and deliver them as you wish.

How long is the program and each weekly lesson?

The Ponder Program comprises 40 weeks of lessons that are designed to deliver career education for middle and senior school students. Each weekly lesson can be as quick as 5 mins for a non-careers teacher on your team to deliver, or as long as 20-30 mins per topic for a trained career educator. Feel free to do what works best for you.

Like to know more? See our Frequently Asked Questions

Want to learn more about how it all works?

We love talking about our mission, and would love to learn about your school, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to the team or apply to join today