Preparing special education students for life after school
27 August 2021
Ysgol y Deri, Britain’s biggest special education school, views its pupils’ futures as a big priority and is working to provide them with the necessary skills to find employment after school and live independent lives.
“For us, the most important thing is destinations,” said headmaster Chris Britten. “I happen to think that it ought to be the most important thing for every school. Where do the pupils go? Be it university, be it the world of work, be it college – I actually think destinations is a better measure of a school than examination results.”
Life Skills
Ysgol Y Deri provides their students with the necessary skills to find employment.
One initiative that the school has introduced to achieve this goal is the implementation of a commercial kitchen on site. Giving students work experience in a proper catering environment, it also teaches them various skills to enable them to lead independent lives.
“Here at Ysgol y Deri we’ve got a sort of traditional home economics room, but we’ve also got a fantastic commercial kitchen that was deliberately set up so that our pupils got a sense of what it was like to work in a real catering environment,” said teacher Sue Williams.
“The statistics are frightening. Only 6% of people with additional learning needs actually get any kind of employment,” she continued.
“There’s some research done recently by the Welsh government and in the top five things that young people with additional learning needs wanted was their own front door and a job.
“And I think that’s something that people forget – that they expect people with additional learning needs to be looked after and supported throughout their life. But in reality, what those young people want is to be independent and to live independent lives.
“We want to show employers that actually, there’s a whole pool of people out there that they’re missing, that they should be taking on and supporting,” she says.
In addition to preparing everything from toasties and sandwiches to paninis and jacket potatoes, the kitchen also acts as a functioning café where students can gain work experience behind the till serving customers.
Jamie, a student at the school, shares, “It helps me learn for the future. When I get my own house, I want to be able to cook, so I’ve got to learn new skills.”
