Mentone Grammar

CHT records a workplace training partnership with Mentone Grammar, a coeducational school in bayside Melbourne. On our own account the program ran with Year 9 students at the school's Greenways Campus, where students operate a student-run cafe, and it combined accredited barista coffee and food handling training with non-accredited employability content in hospitality, financial literacy, marketing and business management.

The original challenge, training and learning outcomes

The original Mentone Grammar case study describes the school’s challenge as giving Year 9 students employability skills through the student-run Greenways Café while fitting training into its curriculum. It says CHT’s industry trainers mentored students through hands-on learning, combining accredited barista coffee and food handling with hospitality, financial literacy, marketing and business-management experience. These are the source’s reported learning outcomes. It does not provide measured participation, assessment results or job-placement rates, so this page does not imply those results.

What follows is the transferable substance: what "accredited" actually buys a school student, what the two accredited streams require, and what a school needs to arrange before running a program like it.

The provider is RTO 3722, whose scope of registration carries 17 current qualifications, 81 current skill sets and 579 current units of competency, all at the extent "deliver and assess". Its CRICOS registration, provider code 04242E, covers three qualifications only and is not engaged by a domestic school program.

Accredited or not: the distinction that decides everything

A school hospitality program can contain two very different kinds of training, and they produce very different documents.

This is the question a school or parent should ask first, because "accredited" is not a synonym for "good" and "non-accredited" is not a synonym for "worthless". Financial literacy, marketing and business management content taught around a student cafe can be genuinely valuable while producing no national record. The accredited units are the part that follows the student for life.

One marker settles the question on any document. The Nationally Recognised Training logo must appear on AQF certification documentation issued by a registered training organisation, and must not appear on anything else — so a participation certificate carrying the NRT logo, or a Statement of Attainment without one, is defective. A third party may not issue AQF certification documentation, use the NRT logo or use the RTO's branding at all: the document comes from the RTO, not from the school.

Accredited units can support later study. We check equivalence and the requirements of the later qualification before granting credit. For nationally recognised training, a USI is generally required before a qualification or Statement of Attainment can be issued, unless an applicable exemption applies. See the official USI exemption guidance. A USI is free; recover an existing one rather than creating another. Your USI must not be printed on the credential.

What the accredited units actually require

A school setting does not soften the performance evidence. The units are the same units.

The accredited espresso unit

The accredited barista unit on our scope is SITHFAB025 Prepare and serve espresso coffee. Its performance evidence requires ten specified beverages, on three occasions each, prepared within commercial timeframes, and it requires the candidate to recognise and correct extraction problems when they occur rather than simply repeating a routine.

Thirty assessed preparations is a real workload for a school timetable, and it is the reason a student cafe is a good vehicle for it: the practice happens as part of running the cafe rather than as an add-on. Latte art and coffee appreciation are separate, non-accredited skill areas. See barista training and latte art.

The accredited food handling unit

The accredited food handling unit is SITXFSA005 Use hygienic practices for food safety. Its performance evidence requires, each on at least three occasions: correct hand-washing, appropriate use of uniform and personal protective equipment, effective personal health and hygiene practices, and hygienic food service. It also requires the candidate to follow procedures for reporting unsafe hygiene practices.

Note what it is not. SITXFSA005 is the personal hygiene unit. SITXFSA006 Participate in safe food handling practices is the whole-system unit, covering the control of food hazards at each of nine critical control points — receiving, storing, preparing, processing, displaying, serving, packaging, transporting and disposing — plus calibrating a temperature probe. The two together, not SITXFSA005 alone, are what a Food Safety Supervisor needs. See food handling and virtual food handling SITXFSA005.

What the Standards require when the learners are children

A school cohort engages obligations that an adult cohort does not, and they are worth naming because a school can reasonably ask a provider to evidence them.

Standard 4.3 of the Outcome Standards for RTOs requires that, where training is offered to students aged under 18, the RTO manages risks to their safety and wellbeing in accordance with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, taking account of the training content and the modes of delivery. This is a governance obligation on the provider, sitting alongside the school's own child safety obligations rather than replacing them.

Standard 2.6 requires wellbeing needs to be identified by reference to the training product's content — so a program built on a licensed-venue or commercial-kitchen unit has a different wellbeing profile from one built on business administration, and the provider is expected to have thought about which it is. Standard 2.5 requires a safe and inclusive environment, and one that is culturally safe for First Nations people.

One workforce detail follows from the cohort as well. Among the credentials the Credential Policy accepts for delivering and assessing is a secondary teaching qualification paired with a VET-delivered-to-school-students enhancement skill set, including TAESS00024. So a school-based program may legitimately be delivered by a teacher on that pathway rather than by a holder of TAE40122 — but the person making the assessment judgement still has to hold a credential that permits it, and someone delivering under direction may teach and contribute evidence without deciding competence. See trainers and assessors.

Funding: a school student is almost always fee-for-service

This is the point that most often derails a school program's budget, and it is a clause rather than a policy preference.

Under the Victorian Skills First contract conditions, a student enrolled in any school — government, non-government, independent or Catholic — is not eligible for a Skills First subsidy unless they are a school-based apprentice or trainee. They are not barred from enrolling; they are barred from being subsidised. So a Year 9 cohort at an independent school is a fee-for-service cohort, and any expectation of government funding should be tested before the program is designed, not after.

Two related rules are worth knowing in the same breath. Eligibility to enrol is not eligibility for subsidy — the provider determines eligibility and bears the evidentiary burden, and claiming a subsidy for an ineligible student is a recovery event. And students should obtain the total cost in writing. For a Skills First place, the 2026 rules require a clear refund policy before enrolment and, before training starts, written documentation showing that the program is subsidised and the total cost to you, including tuition after the government contribution and any concession or waiver, plus any other applicable fees for services, amenities, goods or materials.

No fee is published on this page. Confirm the current fee and the funding position with us directly.

Food safety law in a student-run cafe

If a school cafe serves food to the public, food safety law applies to the school as the food business, separately from the students' training. Standard 3.2.2A commenced on 8 December 2023 and it is worth understanding correctly, because three errors about it are widespread.

First, the categories are activity-based, not audience-based. A category one business processes unpackaged potentially hazardous food into food that is both potentially hazardous and ready to eat. The legal test is whether the business performs that prescribed processing activity; having a kitchen or cooking is only a practical clue. That includes restaurants, cafes, pubs, bakeries, hospitals, aged care, childcare and school canteens. Category two is the retail sale of ready-to-eat potentially hazardous food the business did not make — slicing, weighing, repacking, reheating and hot-holding do not count as making it. Delis and butchers sit there. A student cafe that cooks is category one, and only category one carries the records duty.

Second, food handler training does not have to be accredited. The law requires that a food handler has completed training covering safe food handling, food contamination, cleaning and sanitising of premises and equipment, and personal hygiene — or possesses skills and knowledge commensurate with the activity. A free, non-accredited course satisfies it. It mandates no refresher period, and the business is not required to keep records of it. The accredited unit SITXFSA005 buys portability and proof, not permission. The five-year clock belongs to the Food Safety Supervisor certificate, which is a different obligation entirely.

The alternative to completed training is skills and knowledge commensurate with the activity — not "supervised by someone who has completed training". That framing predates 3.2.2A. Supervision belongs to the separate Food Safety Supervisor tool and does not substitute for the food handler requirement.

Third, the records duty is specific and short. Category one businesses must keep substantiation records — receipt and storage at correct temperatures, process steps achieving pathogen reduction, cooling and reheating within specified timeframes, display and transport under temperature control, and cleaning and sanitising of food-contact surfaces — for three months after being made, accessible at the premises.

In Victoria, the Food Act 1984 class assigned by the local council sits alongside this. A cafe serving unpackaged potentially hazardous food is Class 2, which requires a Food Safety Supervisor. Councils classify on the highest-risk activity undertaken at the premises. Further reading: Standard 3.2.2A explained, who needs a food handling certificate in Victoria and how long a food handler certificate lasts.

The documentation a school has to arrange first

Our published enrolment conditions set a minimum age of 16 at course commencement, with additional documentation for learners under 17. These are provider and jurisdictional requirements rather than training package rules, and they need arranging before enrolment rather than during it.

Three further details about that exemption are worth knowing before a cohort is planned, because they change what is actually possible:

• An exemption from school attendance requires full-time training — at least 25 hours per week, excluding travel, term and public holidays — or training combined with employment. A few hours a week in a student cafe does not meet it, which is one reason a school program normally runs alongside enrolment rather than in place of it.
• The exemption must identify the provider and the training, and the provider must sight and retain it.
• There is an exit-notification duty: if an under-17 student on an exemption stops attending, or completes while still under 17, the provider must notify the Department of Education Regional Office and, where applicable, the student's previous Victorian school.

Confirm the current conditions with us before planning a cohort, since the age and documentation position is the provider's own and can change.

The alcohol trap in a school hospitality program

Enrolment age and the legal age to sell or serve alcohol are different questions, and both differ by jurisdiction. Merging them into a single rule is the mistake to avoid.

For Victoria the position is now clear from Liquor Control Victoria itself, and it splits exactly along that line: a person under 18 may complete RSA training in Victoria, but must be 18 to serve alcohol. So a Year 11 student can hold the training outcome and still be unable to work the bar. That is the cleanest illustration available of the general principle below.

Two other jurisdictions show how far the rules sit apart:

• Queensland sets no minimum age under the Liquor Act 1992. Under-18s may serve or supply alcohol in hotels, restaurants and cafes provided the venue holds no adult entertainment permit, and they still need RSA. The deadline is 30 days from starting employment.
• Western Australia takes the opposite approach on employment: a licensee who employs a juvenile to sell, supply or serve alcohol commits an offence carrying a $10,000 penalty under the Liquor Control Act 1988.

Those are different kinds of rule — one about a minimum age for the activity, one about an offence by the licensee — and they must not be merged into a blanket "you must be 18".

Note separately that a Victorian RSA certificate does not exist on completion of the unit alone. Victoria requires an LCV-approved provider and a second stage through the Liquor Control Victoria Learning Hub: a certificate number is emailed, the student creates a Learning Hub account and completes a pre-training survey, the Sexual Harassment and Assault: Recognise, Prevent and Respond module and a post-training survey, and only then can the RSA Certificate of Completion be downloaded. Without that, the student holds a Statement of Attainment that does not allow them to supply alcohol in a Victorian licensed venue. We appear on LCV's approved list for in-person one-day RSA delivery and are not on LCV's online provider list. See RSA in Australia for the state-by-state position.

The general principle is simple and worth making explicit to students and parents: holding a unit is not the same as being permitted to do the work. A licence, an age threshold or an employer approval may still stand in the way.

Why single units often suit a school better than a qualification

For a school program, individual units are frequently the better structure than a full qualification:

• they are achievable within a school timetable, where a 15-unit or 21-unit qualification is not;
• each produces a real nationally recognised outcome, a Statement of Attainment, rather than a partial enrolment;
• they credit-transfer into a qualification later, at any RTO, for whole units and with no reassessment and no fee to the student; We verify evidence of equivalent prior completion, check the training-product requirements and any licensing or regulatory restrictions, and document the decision before granting credit. See ASQA’s credit-transfer guidance.
• they let the school choose units that fit the actual facility. A cafe supports the espresso and food handling units; it does not support a commercial cookery core of twenty units.

The qualification level also carries its own expected duration under the AQF, independent of delivery mode: Certificate II typically 0.5 to 1 year, Certificate III typically 1 to 2 years. The volume must be sufficient for a graduate to achieve the learning outcomes, and the regulator names accelerating or shortening training without allowing time for skill development as a risk. A qualification squeezed into a single school term is the thing that provision exists to prevent.

Both Certificate II codes on our scope are current and are different qualifications, not two versions of one: SIT20322 Certificate II in Hospitality and SIT20421 Certificate II in Cookery. If a school wants a full qualification rather than units, confirm that it is on our national scope and that we currently deliver it in your state, since delivery reach is our own information and is not recorded on the scope register. See all courses.

Checks for a school or parent evaluating any program

See trainers and assessors for the credential and currency requirements, and policies for the obligations an RTO owes a student.

About us

We are Complete Hospitality Training, RTO 3722, CRICOS provider code 04242E. Level 3, 28 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, and 410 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010. melbourne@cht.edu.au | +61 3 9654 1554.

See workplace training partnerships, trainers and assessors, our story, policies, all courses or contact.

We link to the relevant course and regulatory sources in this guide. Check those sources for current requirements, and confirm course availability, delivery, fees and entry requirements with us before enrolling.

Source records and further guidance

We link the unit records and regulator guidance relevant to this page below. Check the current source before making an enrolment, licensing or employment decision.

• SITXFSA005 Use hygienic practices for food safety
• SITHFAB025 Prepare and serve espresso coffee
• SITXFSA006 Participate in safe food handling practices
• SIT20322 Certificate II in Hospitality
• SIT20421 Certificate II in Cookery
• Responsible Service of Alcohol training requirements (Victoria)
• Responsible Service of Alcohol training requirements (Queensland)
• Responsible Service of Alcohol training requirements (Western Australia)
• Food Standards Code — Standards 3.2.2 and 3.2.2A (food safety practices and food safety management tools)
• Skills First (Victoria) — VET Funding Contract obligations
• Outcome Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2025 (full text)
• Unique Student Identifier (USI) requirements for RTOs