Preparation for Adulthood/SEMH

The SEND department at the Beacon of Light School is committed to providing a curriculum that is challenging and fosters a curiosity and passion for participating fully within society once the students leave us. We match our curriculum to the abilities, interests and aspirations of our students, to give every young person the opportunity to strive for personal excellence through carefully designed and continually updated schemes of work.

The PFA (Preparation for Adulthood) outcomes are used as the basis on which to develop the intervention to ensure that all students, regardless of their SEND leave the Beacon of Light School with the age-appropriate skills they need to make a successful transition into adulthood.

The intervention has outcomes that focus on functioning within the real world and raising aspirations and expectations and encourage thinking about what the future might look like for children from an early age. The intervention addresses the four areas of the PFA outcomes:

• Employment
• Independent living 
• Community inclusion 
• Health 

The students initially take part in a unit of work based on the Money Management and Budgeting, which forms part of the independent living strand of the PFA outcomes, during this time the students work closely with their teacher to identify the areas of the PFA they need to develop.

Then the sessions are personalised to the specific needs of each cohort. This may also include looking at gaps in the PFA outcomes from previous stages, which will need to be addressed and filled to allow them to leave at the age-appropriate stage and allow them to develop the appropriate skills to function in society and within their Post 16 destination. 

Within the intervention, it is important to acknowledge that young people develop at different rates. For some young people indicators included in early childhood may continue to be outcomes they are progressing toward, as they get older. Therefore, it is important that each new age/stage continues to develop and build on the previous ones.

The PFA outcomes are revisited at the end of the intervention to allow the progress made by the students to be assessed and any future intervention can be allocated as appropriate.