James Sheahan Catholic High School, year 12 student, Emily Vardanega has won the Western Region NSW Training Awards - VET in School, Student of the Year for 2020.

Emily is undertaking Certificate II in Kitchen Operations through VET Hospitality and after being nominated by the school, Emily completed a 2000-word application and participated in a Zoom interview to kick off the initial process. “I found out that I was a Regional finalist via email, I was pretty excited; I did not expect to be a finalist at all,” said Emily.

“Due to Covid we were told we could not have the special dinner/evening to present the award. So, the school decided we could watch it together at school and it would be a bit more special than watching it at home, so on Wednesday night my family came and watched it with me, it was pretty special.

The whole thing was live streamed, and they said ‘the moment you’ve been waiting for is here,’ as they announced my name as the winner and my photo came up on screen, everyone cheered,” Emily smiled. “So, it was pretty exciting.”

Emily recognised her passion for Hospitality pretty early on and in doing so, after applying, she was accepted into the Australian Airforce as a Chef from 2021.

“I’m excited, I’m so ready,” Emily laughed. “Cooking comes pretty naturally to me, everyone in my family cooks and bakes so it was a natural progression for me to do it as well, though no one in the family has taken it as far as me.”

The VET course I’m completing has definitely helped me and in turn it’s helped my application for the Air Force as well. I always considered the Air Force/Navy/Army options as a job, but I didn’t really know what I would do in it. When I found out I could be both a Chef and in the Air Force it was more appealing moving away from home and doing a bigger range of things.

“I’d like to thank my Teachers, and Mrs Kingham for helping me with my application, for nominating me for the award in the first place, and thanks to my family for supporting me in all that I do.”

Pathways Coordinator, Joanne Kingham added, “We are very proud of Emily, it’s great to recognise students in VET and Emily deserves to be recognised for all of her hard work and achievements.”

Emily will now progress to the State Finals on October 9, held at Town Hall in Sydney.