Developing and assessing life skills for students with SEND

Schools are required to develop a 16-19 curriculum that ‘provides progression, stretch, mathematics and English skills, as well as work experience or industry placements and non-qualification activities’ (Ofsted Framework 2019).

For a special school or a school with a high level of SEND students, the post 16 curriculum must embrace these elements while having a clear focus on the needs of the students to allow them to live their adult life as independently as possible with a good quality of life.

What makes a good life skills curriculum?

The essential ingredients of a life skills curriculum must reflect the needs of the cohort. Therefore, the curriculum offer should link directly to the aspirations for the students within the school. It is important to marry high expectations with a realistic approach to the life skills individuals will require.

Although these are broad-based headings, each programme of study should be individually crafted for each student.

Objectives

The curriculum should have well formulated objectives for each section. These objectives can then be broken down into learning steps.

Example objective: to travel on a familiar vehicle safely and appropriately

1. To get into a vehicle
2. To find a seat
3. To accept a seat belt
4. To clip seat belt
5. To keep seat belt on
6. To remain seated for journey
7. To accept vehicle stopping (at lights, traffic etc.)
8. To accept end of journey
9. To allow seat belt to be unclipped
10. To remove own seat belt
11. To get off vehicle without support and stand safely outside

Implementation – learning that sticks

The implementation of a life skills curriculum is equally as important as getting the right content.

Students with SEND find it far more difficult to generalise their learning, so learning general rules and then applying them to different situations can be non-productive.

Learning in context, learning the routines and then slowly introducing highly similar contexts which slowly progress the skill forward works and results in the acquisition of life skills.

Loddon School case study

The Loddon School uses their PLLUSS curriculum (Personalised Learning for Life Using Supportive Strategies). This curriculum draws upon the framework for adulthood and includes three key areas.

1. Life skills - personal care, dressing, cooking, household chores, shopping, travelling, healthy living, and self-occupancy skills.
2. Vocational skills – work experience including gardening, animal care, recycling, helping in school café and tuck shop, community work experience delivering magazines and litter picking. Mini enterprise through the horticultural work of the school allows students to be involved in small scale enterprise selling produce and seeds.
3. Enrichment skills – experiencing sports, art, dance, music, gardening, minibreaks, leisure activities.

Through all aspects of the curriculum the functional skills of literacy and numeracy are interwoven, concentrating on those skills required for everyday living and enrichment.

Discovery session

A recent discovery session focused on personal care and hand washing. The students had a multi-sensory exploration using a variety of cleaning substances to investigate washing away germs.

The lesson progressed to watching a video of hand washing as the students stood and copied the actions. This was a highly fun and multisensory lesson which engaged students and provided in context learning of safe hand washing.

Measuring the impact

The most productive way to measure the impact of a life skills is through student-centred targets. At the Loddon School each student has a target for each area of the PLLUSS curriculum.

These short-term targets form part of their framework for preparing for adulthood.

The targets can be levelled to identify the changing levels of support that the student requires to complete the various skills.

• Level 6 – no help required.
• Level 5 – spoken or signed prompts.
• Level 4 – gestural prompting.
• Level 3 – physical prompting (hand over hand guidance).
• Level 2 – sensory experience – engagement in a sensory way rather than completing task/skill.
• Level 1 – experience recorded – student is present but no physical engagement.

Each skill can be recorded and the progression with the prompt level also shown.

Skills will have to be repeated many times until the student become proficient. Due to their needs, some students may be able to do certain life skills at level 6 but others to level 3.

Traffic light system

If each skill within the curriculum is tabulated, the level of proficiency can be recorded, and a summary traffic light system can be used to show the progress within each level as well.

At the Loddon School a colour coded system of targets is used.

• Black – achievement at a particular prompt level is below 40%.
• Orange – between 41-60% is achieved.
• Green – 60% and above is achieved.

Above 60% would be deemed a correct level to move on to a higher prompt level, and the use of photographs or film clips can be used to record the skills.

Using external qualifications like the AQA unit awards of the ASDAN programme is important as it provides external validation for the student and also allows for continuation of skill development beyond 19 if adult placements.