Sixth form pupils at Truro School in Cornwall will head out into the world equipped to deal with student finance, first aid and car maintenance after completing a ‘Practical Life Skills Carousel’ course last month. Truro is among a growing number of schools in the UK that are adding independent living courses such as financial management, mindfulness, cooking on a budget and cleaning to their offer.
After years of being supported by teachers and pastoral teams, “It’s really important that when students leave school and they may not have that robust support, they know how to look after themselves and how to handle themselves,” commented Lucy Jupp, Truro’s co-head of sixth form.
“In the sixth form [teaching students aged 17-18], we seek to prepare students to go off to big cities, possibly even abroad, or into the workplace,” she added. “They need to know how to look after themselves and to have that resilience for the future.”
“The transition from sixth form to university or independent living can be daunting”
Truro is by no means the first institution to introduce courses targeted at preparing students for life beyond the school gates. Already mindful of their extra curricular USP – especially their focus on outdoor activities and leadership skills – independent schools are hoping these courses will be an added attraction for international students.
Wrekin College in Shropshire, the Royal Hospital School in Suffolk and Glenalmond College in Perthshire all spoke to The PIE News about their particular approaches.
Launched in 2013, Wrekin College’s ‘Our House’ program is designed to simulate life in student-style accommodation, by allowing students to spend a week in a secure and independent house on the school’s campus.
Students must cook, clean and look after themselves while keeping up with their school work. At the end of the week they have to host a dinner party for a member of staff to show off their culinary skills.
The program is “hugely popular”, according to the school’s international registrar, Daniel Rutter.
“The transition from sixth form to university or independent living can be daunting,” Rutter commented. “The skills learned within this program ease the transition to living independently and we hope, last for life.”
The program is especially beneficial for international students, who “face the added pressure of studying in an environment thousands of miles away from home”, he added.
“The ‘Our House’ program ensures that students are ready for the challenges of living independently in a higher education setting within a foreign culture.”
Royal Hospital School is another institution that aims to prepare its pupils for “life beyond school, wherever that may take them”, its director of communications, Sophie Braybrooke, said.
RHS offers modules including careers and HE guidance, money management, healthy eating on a budget, harnessing digital technology, and mental well-being and mindfulness. The RHS programme has been running for 15 years but this year was relaunched in 2016 as RHS+, “an integral part of our new sixth form curriculum”, explained Braybrooke.
“The skills learned within this program ease the transition to living independently”
Demand for independent living courses and the value that they add is tangible, according to Braybrooke.
“Many UK schools are recognising that young people need more than just academic guidance,” she said, “and we believe that we should help them to deal with the challenges of modern day life so that they find happiness and success in whatever career path they choose.”
Taking a more extreme approach to teaching life skills in a uniquely challenging scenario, Glenalmond College also targets sixth formers with its demanding Leadership Challenge.
During the three-day crisis simulation program, pupils undertake a series of tasks to save the college. Overseen by the Royal Marines, the challenge includes a climbing element, an 18 mile hike, a car crash first aid simulation, kayaking and open water swimming.
“This exercise was designed specifically to allow the school’s pupils from throughout the world a completely level playing field,” explained Andrea Goodall, head of Personal, Social, Health & Citizenship Education at Glenalmond.
“Emotional intelligence is instilled while pupils have to think for themselves in often challenging circumstances – utilising navigation skills, undertaking command tasks and team challenges, building their own night shelters, and allocating, sharing and preparing raw food resources.”
Though preparing students life beyond school through extracurricular courses is “very much part of the British independent school ethos”, Caroline Nixon, general secretary of the British Association of Independent Schools with International Students, said she has seen an increase in cookery and finance courses designed to help students thrive when they live independently.
She has also observed a “new emphasis” on mental health issues and mindfulness, she added.
