ISF Life Skills Course prepares students for life outside the classroom
ISF Life Skills Course prepares students for life outside the classroom
In January 2019, we commenced our ISF Life Skills Course, a pilot project, with the intent of preparing our students for life beyond school and to impart capability in the form of the required skills, knowledge, experience, judgement, temperament and values for them to succeed in life.
A core group of our teachers and social workers were selected as facilitators to support the course and underwent initial facilitation training over two half days before the course commenced. The course currently takes place two Sundays per month and is preceded by teacher/social worker specific training, usually on the Friday beforehand in order to ensure consistency and standardisation of content and delivery across the course at our two education centres.
To date, we have ran 11 workshops with students and our staff have been also been attending regular training under the guidance of an expert consultant in the field. Our course combines expository instruction but focusses on experiential learning to provide the foundation that will enable students to learn the skills necessary for them to succeed beyond the classroom environment and into adult life.
On completion of the course, student participants will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the life skills necessary for them to succeed in life after school and to gain productive employment. The course is based on three broad themes:
- Knowledge and Understanding – the Head,
- Values and Attitudes – the Heart, and
- Practical and Work Skills – the Hands
These themes have been further classified into requisite Life Skills and Work Skills. Life Skills focus on self-awareness and working with others whilst Work Skills focus on the practical aspects of life beyond school.
Currently, the course is made up of three tiers based on age and school progression level and each tier has specific identified Life and Work Skills components:
- Life Skills: the emphasis initially will be on individual Self-Awareness and progressing through to Working with Others,
- Work Skills: will stress requisite Social Skills and progress through to more specific Vocational Skills – those skills required for employment.
Participating students’ progress through a tier or step over a twelve-month period. Thus, a student beginning the course at Tier 1 level will take three years to complete the full course. However, as this is still a pilot project, the structure and plan may change subject to review at the end of the year.
A student validation and evaluation questionnaire was administered at the conclusion of the second workshop and it is intended that follow up questionnaires and assessments will be conducted after three months and again after six months respectively to gauge progress and to ensure that the program continues to deliver a high standard of learning opportunities and meets student needs and expectations. We look forward to seeing where these new skills will take our students.
