Three school-based trainees qualified as Assistants in Nursing before Year 12

At the Queensland Training Awards North Coast regional final on 31 July 2026, Harmony Lakatos was named School-Based Apprentice or Trainee of the Year and Taylah Gela won Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student of the Year. Genevieve Jimmy was a finalist in the school-based category. Harmony and Taylah both progress to the Queensland state finals on 19 September.

What stands out is not the trophies but the timing. All three had already completed their Certificate III in Health Services Assistance and all 50 days, or 375 hours, of practical workplace experience the qualification requires. That combination qualifies a person to work as an Assistant in Nursing. Before Year 12 was over, all three were employable in the Queensland health system.

How the traineeship works

Getting in is competitive. Selection runs in the second half of Year 10 through a written application and a series of interviews, and in a typical year around 400 students from the local region apply for roughly 20 positions. That ratio does more than fill a cohort. Students who make it know they earned a place hundreds of others missed, and they carry that in from the first shift.

Enrolment, orientation and onboarding follow at the start of Year 11. Before students set foot on a ward, SWC briefs them on the scope of their role, what is expected of them, and exactly what the Certificate III involves in theory and assessment work.

The qualification is then delivered in four stages across two years: three in Year 11, one in Year 12, with four units of competency in each. The design decision that makes it work is where the assessment happens. Workplace competencies are signed off in the workplace, by each student’s own mentor, as they learn and practise the skills. Nothing is deferred to a classroom exercise that approximates the job. The job is the assessment.

By the end of Stage 4, in the first half of Year 12, students hold both the qualification and the full 375 hours: a year of real shifts behind them before final exams.

Program at a glance

Program type	School-based traineeship (SBAT)
Qualification	HLT33115 Certificate III in Health Services Assistance
Year levels	Years 11 and 12 (selection in Year 10)
Structure	Four stages, four units of competency each
Workplace experience	50 days (375 hours)
Career outcome	Assistant in Nursing (AIN)
Region	Queensland North Coast
Training organisation	SWC Training, RTO 4567
Host employer	To confirm

The trainer behind the cohort

Brad Lowe is SWC’s Training Manager for the Northern Region and the trainer who takes this cohort through all four stages. In practice that means facilitating education days, working through the theory with students, and completing workplace theory and practical assessments alongside their mentors and workplace coordinators. When every competency in a stage is verified, it is signed off and the student moves on.

Alongside that availability sits deliberate flexibility. Qualification expectations, theory deadlines and assessment activities all move so school commitments come first, the goal being to stop the traineeship becoming overwhelming or a distraction from schooling.

Running through both is a firm line on conduct. Students are held to professional, adult standards from their first education day, which is what turns a traineeship into a supported transition into working life rather than just a certificate.

That combination matters most early on. Most students take around three months to settle into the workplace, and the first stage is the hardest to carry alongside school. It is where cohorts are lost. Realistic timeframes, one-on-one guidance through assessment tasks and steady encouragement at that point are what separate a withdrawal from an award nomination two years later.

What Harmony, Taylah and Genevieve ended up sharing was not something a Year 10 interview could have predicted: confidence communicating with patients and colleagues of every age, a proactive approach on the floor, genuine detail in their assessment work, and the time management to carry the traineeship and school at once.

Why employers host

For the students, the traineeship did what no school subject can. It let them find out which areas of nursing appeal to them and what a health facility actually feels like to work in, while earning a qualification that lets them start immediately.

For the host employer, the return on training and supporting a trainee is a team member who integrates quickly and already knows the building, the team and the work.

That is the reframe worth keeping. A school-based traineeship is usually pitched as a student opportunity. On a ward that has spent several years short-staffed, it is also a workforce pipeline.

Traineeship pathways in health

The Certificate III behind these awards is one of several health qualifications SWC delivers as a school-based traineeship. Each is a genuine entry point to a career rather than a taster.

• HLT33115 Certificate III in Health Services Assistance
  The qualification Harmony, Taylah and Genevieve completed. Leads to Assistant in Nursing roles across hospital and health service settings.
• HLT33021 Certificate III in Allied Health Assistance
  Supporting physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech pathology teams under the direction of an allied health professional.
• HLT37121 Certificate III in Hospital/Health Services Pharmacy Support
  Pharmacy support roles in hospital pharmacy departments, covering dispensary support, stock management and ward distribution.

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