Developing life skills

The school setting is the ideal place for children to learn about and practice developing essential life skills and the opportunity to do this can be integrated in to the school curriculum through lessons and activities. The possibilities to do this are enormous and enable staff to be creative in their approach along with providing a template for developing and managing relationships. Qualities such as honesty, tolerance, compassion, courage, patience etc. can all be integrated in to the curriculum and develop resilience and other skills. It is important not to make assumptions about the skills that a child may have as this will depend on their external experiences. Children can be helped with skills such as organisation by involving them in working with other children and planning an event such as an end of term party. This is also useful for children who find it hard to work other people and may find it difficult not being the centre of attention. Working with an adult such as a teaching assistant or learning mentor around a task like this can enable children to develop these skills or expand on existing ones.