Community Based Learning
Community based learning is an important part of the curriculum for many of the pupils who attend Nexus.
Community based learning provides pupils with the opportunity to acquire and practice meaningful life skills in a wide variety of places where s/he would most likely use them. For the pupils at Nexus this may include:
- Going to the supermarket to buy the food they need to make their lunch – pupils maybe required to find the items on their shopping list, learn to wait in a queue and to pay for the items they are buying
- Catching the bus to go swimming – pupils will be learning where they have to go to catch the bus, how to use a bus pass, where to get off the bus
- Going to a cafe for lunch – pupils would have to communicate with staff within the cafe about what food they would like to order and pay for the food
In addition to teaching pupils a range of functional skills within a variety of real life contexts the goal is to assist pupils to be as independent as possible.
For many of the pupils attending Nexus they need to be taught in a functional way in order to be able to transfer the skills outside of the classroom to other “real life” situations. Without this teaching many pupils find generalising the skills they have learnt within the classroom context challenging.
Other benefits of community based learning include:
- Increased motivation to learn
- Providing pupils with opportunities to develop social skills
- Preparing pupils for adulthood by teaching functional life skills
