Children with disabilities being exposed to real-world skills

By Sheria Brathwaite

The Irving Wilson School is on a mission to close the education gap for children with disabilities.

The school is rolling out a number of new programmes that would make the students more independent, boost their confidence, provide them with real-world experiences and strengthen their employability skills.

This revelation was made on Tuesday during a kite-flying activity at the Pine Plantation Road, St Michael.

Teacher Juna Wiltshire told Barbados TODAY that the Independent Living Skills Programme was about teaching students 13 and over how to do everyday things, such as packing one’s lunch bag and school bag, making simple meals, getting dressed, making up beds; using a washing machine, hanging clothes out to dry and sorting, folding and ironing them.

A section of the school’s garden.

Another aspect of the course focuses on time management, budgeting, writing a supermarket list, learning how to use public transportation and grocery shopping. 

“This programme will give them self confidence. It makes them realise they don’t have to depend on anyone and this is an area that we have realised needed to be worked on as some children would graduate and still be dependent on their parents.

“We want to give them a real-world experience, as much as possible and take the classroom to the real-world setting,” she said. 

Senior teacher Cindy Brown said that the programme started last year but there was a need to build out the initiative. She said the prefab building where the course used to be facilitated needed more equipment. She said private individuals and organisations have been donating items but the school also needed a pantry, cooking utensils and appliances.  

Brown explained that six students were also enrolled in the Food Preparation and Cookery Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) programme, which would be the school’s first cohort of pupils to take part in this way. She said they will learn how to make pastries and other baked goods that do not require much preparation. 

She hoped this would stimulate the students’ entrepreneurial drive and that they could eventually go on to establish their own business.

Students in this programme will also be using vegetables grown in the school’s V.I.H.I. garden, which refers to those students who are visually-impaired, hearing-impaired and autistic. 

The Irving Wilson School also has five students enrolled in an Information and Communication Technology CVQ programme. Information technology coordinator Tara Durant outlined that these students will be going forward as the school’s first set of students to be assessed in this subject area. She added that the school had a Coding and Robotics Club and there are students from each department who have created games via code and built and coded VEXX robots with minimal teacher assistance. 

Meanwhile, guidance counsellor Jennifer Goodridge said that the Ministry of Labour was collaborating with the school to ensure students with disabilities were exposed to job opportunities.

She said this partnership would be facilitated through the school’s School to Work programme, in which five students were enrolled. She said that over the years there were other initiatives aimed at giving students work experience but this partnership would expand the possibilities. She hoped that the business community would be willing to let disabled people put their skills to the test. 

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb