Life Skills

Life Skills Curriculum

The Life Skills Programme at The Abbey School is designed to prepare students for life after secondary school by providing them with the fundamental skills, knowledge and understanding needed to become responsible and independent members of the community. Our learning journey enables students to explore a variety of opportunities that will help them reach their potential and live a fulfilling life. 

Across their five years at The Abbey, students will be introduced to and then build and develop a variety of skills that cover all aspects of life after The Abbey. 

Students are introduced to the core life skills in year 7 which are then recapped, built upon and developed further throughout their time at The Abbey to give students the opportunity to develop their independence in a range of life skills. 

The ambitious curriculum has been designed for students to develop:

• The ability to look after themselves physically and mentally

• Independence through cooking

• Independence through travel

• Independence through personal organisation

• Responsibility through understanding how to be a good citizen

Supporting Reading

1. Subject disciplinary literacy is taught explicitly in Life Skills with key words identified and introduced at the start of topics and revisited regularly to aid retention. Specific key words are highlighted in green to give focus in each lesson. Words mats, matching words, supporting images and examples are all used to introduce key vocabulary. Repetition of new and key vocabulary is used to support learning and to give students context to use these words.

2. In Life Skills, the ‘incidental teaching’ of phonics using Abbey Phonics supports both decoding and encoding. Scripts are used to give a consistent approach across the school. 

3. Where possible, stories are used to bring ideas to life, to give context to learning and to support retention. 

4. Widgit symbols are used in addition to text to support comprehension for students when reading.

5. In Life Skills, we provide regular opportunities for students to read a range of different texts. We encourage students to read for learning, moving beyond the mechanics of reading to gathering meaning and information from the text. We also give recommendations of reading materials to encourage reading beyond the classroom.

6. Reading is a Life Skill and is explicitly taught in Year 8/9 and promoted through all lessons. For example, instructions, recipes, maps, timetables, labels etc. 

7. Students have access to headsets & Chromebooks where they can use the dictation feature or use the Select to Speak tool, reading selected text to the user.

Year 7 Overview

Taught on a rotation:

Year 8 & 9 Overview

Cycle 1

Cycle 2

Year 10 & 11 Overview

Year 10

Year 11

KS4 Independence Group Overview

Cycle 1

Cycle 2

Assessment

• There is no formal accreditation.

• Students are regularly given the opportunity to demonstrate a life skill and all teaching staff monitor their independence and progress. This might be in a classroom or on a trip.

• Photos & Videos are used to record and evidence practical life skills.

• Students are encouraged to regularly evaluate their performance in various practical skills and activities.

• AQA Unit Awards are used for applicable topics to track student progress in specific skills.

Enrichment Opportunities

• Life Skills is practical and brought to life with real world scenarios. All lessons are linked back to where this topic or skill is needed in the real world.

• Students have the opportunity to go on regular trips to practise the skills discussed in the classroom; public transport, leisure facilities, shopping, post office etc.

• Every year students complete Travel Training and have a visit from Surrey Choices Travel Training in KS4.

• Life Skills Curriculum Days

• Focus on careers in KS4  and what skills are needed for specific jobs and wider life skills required for these jobs. Students have the opportunity to visit various jobs with tours and opportunities for Q&A with employees. Where a visit is not possible, guest speakers are arranged to come in and talk about their careers.

• Regular use of the catering room and other facilities such as washing machines, irons and ironing boards, beds & bedding, CPR dolls available for students to use to ensure learning is as close to real life as possible.

• Students are encouraged to practise life skills learnt in school at home through a ‘diary/timetable’ tracking system.