Carenne Public School - Senior School

Topic Index

• General Information
• Functional Academics - Curriculum Outline
• Recommendations
• Functional Reading and Writing
• Curriculum Subjects

1: General Information

The High School at Carenne caters for students from 12 years to 19 years of age. The High School programs continue the curriculum commenced in the Junior School with the emphasis moving from a development approach to a Functional Approach and an increasing focus on Vocational Education.

2: Functional Academics - Curriculum Outline

" In selecting functional academic tasks, the emphasis is on survival in community life" ( Wehmann, Renzaglia and Bates p 232) Therefore "students need to learn skills to be competent family members, workers, consumers, users of their leisure time and citizens" (Pollaway, Payne, Patton and Payne p440).

To ensure that students with special needs will become as proficient as possible in basic skills which will allow them to satisfactorily function in the community and society, the teaching of functional academics is particularly important (Bender, Vallelutti, Bender).

All students with special needs are:

• residents of a home;
• learners in school settings;
• participants in leisure experiences;
• individuals who move about and participate in community life;
• individuals who will become workers or be involved in and contribute to community activities;
• consumers of goods and services;
• pedestrians who use public transport and may/may not drive.

3: Recommendations

The functional programs are most effective if they are based on local content to promote meaningful learning and generalisation of the learnt skills, that is the skills taught in the classroom will be able to be used in community settings. To guide the development of an appropriate functional program detailed information from the student�s environments is required.

These include:

• list of places in the community in which the student carries out activities;
• list of functional reading, language, writing and maths activities which form individual student�s priorities for learning.

Skills are selected that assist the student to function as effectively, efficiently and safely as possible.

4: Functional Reading and Writing

Using local content presents high interest materials which are relevant to all students and functional in nature. Writing is an important social skill which "conveys status to peers and adults". (Bender, Valletutti, Bender p23). "Using a variety of reading and writing instructional methods which can be adapted to suit individual student learning needs, promotes functional skills that can enhance future job and community involvement.

Evaluation should demonstrate a student�s ability to comprehend and generalise learned skills to functional situations." (Bender, Valletutti, Bender p23). Functional reading can incorporate skills which develop reading ability.

These skills include:

• to read written material;
• to comprehend;
• to use word recognition skills;
• to establish sight word banks (core of known words);
• to use word analysis skills (phonetics, contextual clues);
• to practice the early learning skills of matching, discrimination, labeling.

5: Curriculum Subjects

5.1 Maths

Functional maths needs to include activities which use numeration including counting recognition and sets, money, time, simple shapes, signs + - = , calendar, measurement and comprehension. When using money for activities, real money should always be used.

Measurement is sometimes an area which is overlooked. Activities for measurement include cooking, work, buying clothes, consumer activities with goods and services, weather (temperature), travel, weighing and measuring as well as other everyday activities.

5.2 Consumer Skills

These skills should be taught as part of the total school program and in functional situations. (Bender, Valletutti p25). Together with banking and budgeting, students need to be taught selective purchasing based on need and budget considerations. Assisting students to know about consumer "rights" is also desirable.

5.3 Community

The functional aspects of community involvement include:

• Interpreting information, signs and symbols;
• paying for goods and services;
• interpreting street and safety signs, schedules, time tables, store directories;
• using public telephones;
• making appointments;
• completing forms;
• accessing service agencies;
• collecting information.

5.4 Work

Academic skills from work sites need to be incorporated into individual students programs. These could include time, money, numerical, reading, word recognition, writing, language and communication and matching and discrimination skills. Students who are involved in work site programs also need training in job seeking skills including interview and form filling.

5.5 Leisure

Leisure and recreational pursuits not only help stress, fitness and foster relaxation (Bender, Valletutti p223). They also include functional reading, writing and maths components which help to facilitate learning.

Reading writing and maths skills are included in:

• playing games;
• sports and physical fitness;
• camping and outdoor activities;
• nature study;
• hobby activities;
• art activities;
• craft activities;
• music activities;
• entertainment and cultural activities