Life Routes schools
award 2006
Why are you teaching life skills?
The school is working towards Healthy
Schools status, tackling physical and
emotional health and well-being
alongside academic success. The lifeskills
activities in Life Routes are a way
of linking head and heart and are an
excellent support for Healthy Schools
outcomes. It’s not ‘cool’ to talk about
emotions and interdependence, but a
healthy school needs young people and
adults who can express their emotional
needs. For example, a lot of young
people lose their temper really easily
and think that turning to violence is the
right answer. If we can identify what
makes them lose their temper, then we
can work on other ways of responding.
I’ve used activities from Life Routes as a
doorway into exploring these issues.
How did you start?
Last year, my predecessor planned some
life-skills activities into the first term of
the PSHE and Citizenship curriculum for
Years 7, 8 and 9. One of the Life Routes
team ran a training session for form
tutors on developing young people’s life
skills. This year we have worked to
synchronise PSHE around the school.
By using the Life Routes resource, I can
ensure that all the students are
developing the same skills from Year 7
to the beginning of Key Stage 4. The first
and second terms were primarily
life-skills work, integrated with
Citizenship where appropriate. Going
into depth seems to me to be more
important than fitting in lots of content.
How has it worked for form tutors?
Each form has one 50-minute lesson a
week. I make sure that at the beginning
of every half-term all the form tutors
have their scheme of work, lesson notes
and the photocopying and resources
they need. Staff without much time to
prepare can deliver a successful lesson,
but teachers who wish to can make it
their own. The great thing about Life
Routes is that it’s not prescriptive; it’s a
tool for the teacher.
How do you evaluate?
By listening to students talking and
looking at the work they do, as well as
staff feedback. Writing things down can
be difficult in PSHE, as the students get
so involved with the activities. But
reflection is important, so it’s one of the
things we’re working on, with students
spending the last 10 minutes of a lesson
writing down how they felt before,
during and after the activity. We are
just bringing in formal evaluation and
I’m planning for students to write an
evaluation of themselves and the
lessons every term.
OFSTED are really into group work across
the board and we reinforce that in PSHE.
A lot of the students are now happier to
listen to other people without judging
them. They develop class charters about
how everyone should behave. The
students decide themselves what is and
what isn’t acceptable. Young people
being autonomous and self-governing –
that’s PSHE, Citizenship and life skills.
Top tips for developing a life-skills
approach:
• get the school behind what you
are doing – PSHE cannot stand
alone
• treat young people as rounded
individuals, not grade-making
machines
• look for every bit of help you
can get
• embrace Life Routes and go for it!