In addition to key skills and thinking skills, pupils with learning difficulties will need to develop a range of skills which may form priority areas of learning in a range of contexts. While some of these skills are cross-curricular and may apply to pupils across the key stages, others are specific to individual pupils in a particular age group. Examples are:

• physical, orientation and mobility skills
• organisation and study skills
• personal and social skills, which include personal care and health skills, managing own behaviour and emotions
• daily living skills, which include domestic and community skills
• leisure and recreational skills.

Physical, orientation and mobility skills

Physical, orientation and mobility skills include:

• fine motor skills, for example, holding, grasping and releasing, manipulating
• whole body skills, including coordination of movement, for example, reaching, rolling, walking
• positioning skills, for example, head control
• managing the environment, for example, movement between rooms
• tolerating and/or managing mobility aids, for example, splints, rolator, cane, wheelchair.

Acquiring, developing, practising, applying and extending physical, orientation and mobility skills is a high priority for some pupils and takes up a large part of their learning time. For other pupils, these skills will be included in experiences and activities across the curriculum and therapies.

Sophia

Sophia is a year 1 pupil. She has complex learning needs exacerbated by cerebral palsy and a visual impairment. As part of her IEP, she is learning to use her sight and to turn her head towards those sounds, smells, textures and colours that she likes. She is beginning to show preferences for people, shiny, reflective surfaces and the colour red. In an art lesson, the class has been studying portraits. They look at their own reflections in mirrors that are flat, concave and convex so that they see several reflections of themselves. Sophia, wearing a big hat with red feathers, tracks the complex reflections of herself. She then works with her teaching assistant to create the images on a large silver, reflective board, positioned vertically beside her. Sophia turns towards the texture and colours placed close to her cheek and eye-points to her reflection. She adds materials such as netting and sequins to her hat.

Organisation and study skills

Organisation and study skills may be taught at each key stage and in all subjects. In later key stages, they can be incorporated in careers education as part of preparation for adult life. They include:

• attending to, and directing attention, for example, learning to listen to verbal instructions
• sustaining interest and motivation, for example, during extended periods of work
• selecting and organising the pupil's own environment, for example, decorating a locker or workspace with personal items
• managing their own time, for example, using a personal schedule independently
• completing a task, for example, laying cutlery and crockery for a stated number of pupils for lunch
• taking responsibility for tasks, for example, working independently to a certain standard once a programme of work has been agreed.

Personal and social skills

Personal and social skills have strong links with PSHE.

Personal care skills

Personal care skills include:

• dressing and undressing
• eating and drinking
• personal hygiene
• using the toilet
• medical routines.

For all pupils, acquiring, developing and practising personal care skills will be a high priority in the primary school, and for some pupils may take a large amount of time. As they grow older, most pupils will achieve independence and these skills will continue to be practised, generalised and extended. Some pupils with learning difficulties may remain dependent on adults for basic needs throughout their lives and, in such instances, personal care skills will remain priority areas of learning inside and outside school. Staff must make sure that pupils have as much control as possible over personal care and daily living activities.

Managing their own behaviour

Pupils with learning difficulties are no more or less likely to engage in behaviour that challenges as other pupils of the same age. Behaviour that challenges staff may, on the part of pupils, be unusual ways to communicate or interact. Such behaviour may include:

• self-injurious behaviour
• confrontational non-compliance
• extreme states of avoidance and withdrawal, often associated with obsessive and ritualistic behaviours
• avoiding tasks, behaviour which disrupts, being easily distracted or especially active or hyperactive
• aggressively inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Where behaviour like this occurs, staff should help pupils to recognise, manage and moderate their own behaviour rather than using external methods of control.

Nathan

Nathan is in year 4. He is developing a formal method of communication. He finds it very difficult to communicate his needs and, when staff members do not understand his idiosyncratic attempts to communicate, he becomes very agitated and dashes around the room screaming and flapping his hands. Recently he has started using a communication system which has led to more appropriate behaviour. A series of photographs showing familiar, desired objects and enjoyable routines is kept in his work tray. He is encouraged to select the relevant photograph and take it to a staff member so that his request may be more easily understood. If it is not appropriate for Nathan to engage in his chosen activity at that time, the photograph is placed on his symbol timetable, to be used at a more appropriate time. As well as controlling his behaviour, he is learning that if he cannot have a request straight away, his needs will be met later.

Managing their own emotions

Pupils with learning difficulties experience all human emotions. Since some of these pupils, because of their complex needs, appear to be at early stages of development, their emotional reactions to specific events and situations can be underestimated. Staff must acknowledge their pupils' changing emotions when they:

• experience change in their personal circumstances at home and at school
• are coping with frustration and failure
• are managing responses to new or difficult situations
• express extreme positive or negative reactions to other people
• are learning to live with loss, grief and bereavement
• are adjusting to adolescence and adulthood
• are experiencing low self-esteem.

Staff can use methods such as quiet places, nurture groups, circle time, tutorial support and group or individual counselling in response.

Kassim

Kassim has severe learning difficulties. He also has a profound hearing loss and finds it hard to communicate. As a teenager, he looks for new ways to show his changing and often turbulent emotions. Staff give him lots of opportunities to create his own patterns of activity. Kassim enjoys the increased sense of control and is responsible about making choices from a range of work and leisure options. When his anger and frustration do break through, Kassim is encouraged to do harmless cathartic activities that will release his emotions, like stuffing torn newsprint into plastic sacks. Kassim learns to use such activities when he feels the need. His disruptive, destructive and aggressive behaviours are dramatically reduced but, more importantly, Kassim is learning to become a young adult who can manage his own emotions.

Daily living skills

Daily living skills are about practical preparation for adult life. They include domestic skills and community skills. For pupils with learning difficulties, greater stress is placed on these skills in key stages 3 and 4 and post-16, in preparation for leaving school. Some aspects of these skills are dealt with regularly in familiar routines at all key stages, for example, making drinks and snacks.

Natalie

Natalie is a year 11 pupil. She is outgoing, sensible and has a pleasant nature. She also has severe difficulties in learning. All the pupils in her year can take part in a work experience placement and Natalie wants to work in a hotel. Her parents and the hotel management talk about it with her and she is offered a week's placement as a chambermaid. Working with the staff of the hotel, her duties include changing and making beds, tidying and cleaning rooms and clearing away breakfast trays.

After a preparatory visit to the hotel, she records the important parts of the placement to help her organise her work and remember her tasks, for example, when she needs to start and finish tasks, her specific duties and the names of the key staff. She and her teacher talk about how she will behave and how she will obtain help. She takes her record sheet home and talks to her parents about how she will go about the tasks.

At the end of the week Natalie talks to her teacher about her placement and they note what she enjoyed and what she found difficult. Natalie reported that she liked changing beds and that the staff were friendly and helpful but she found getting up at six o'clock to start work at seven very hard indeed!

Domestic skills

Domestic skills include:

• making drinks and snacks
• preparation of food, cooking and home management
• the ability to plan for a balanced diet
• following instructions and recipes
• cooking skills, for example, slicing, grating, whisking, chopping, mixing, pouring
• using appliances, for example, kettle, toaster, microwave, cooker, food processor
• understanding health and safety in the kitchen, for example, hygiene, safe behaviour and actions.

Community skills

Community skills include:

• developing a social sight vocabulary
• using different facilities and amenities in the community, for example, cafés, park, leisure centres, playground, library, public toilets
• getting to know a local area
• developing shopping skills, for example, locating the shop and items in it, the use of lists, checkout procedures
• using a telephone
• getting help, for example, from police, community nurse, doctor
• the practical use of money
• planning for and using public transport.

Leisure and recreational skills

Leisure and recreational skills include:

• communicating preferences and choices, for example, choosing between two familiar activities in school, choosing a game for the group in a club session, choosing from a wide range of local leisure activities
• making effective use of unsupervised time, for example, break time, lunch time, time at home
• becoming involved in social organisations, for example, Scouts, sports clubs, youth organisations
• using external amenities in local areas, for example, swimming pools, ten-pin bowling alleys, cinemas
• choosing, watching, listening to and evaluating media, such as radio and television.

Leisure and recreational skills are relevant across all age groups. Greater emphasis may be placed on skills for the use of community amenities in key stages 3 and 4 and post-16.