Aims of the Café

The aims of the café are to promote key life skills for both those attending and those working in the café.

In Lisanally we place great emphasis on the development and mastering of Functional Life Skills which will help our young people to prepare for adult life after school. Through carefully planned programmes, we endeavour to provide each pupil with opportunities to develop social, emotional, intellectual and practical skills which promote as much independence as possible.

Lisanally Special School’s policy on the development of Functional Life Skills hinges around the development of good relationships within and outside the school and home so that skills can be taught in real environments/situations. In our café environment the term ‘Functional Life Skills’ covers a wide range of skills including personal hygiene, dressing skills, the importance of personal appearance, eating, cooking, taking customer orders, preparing orders, serving customers, clearing tables, recycling waste, cleaning up after café sessions and handling money. Functional Life Skills also include communication and the social skills necessary to perform as independently as possible in our ever-changing society, to help support communication needs Speech and Language Therapists play a huge role in preparing visual resources for café and supporting the pupils during their work and visits.

Curriculum Links

Literacy/English

Communication

• Workers: meeting and talking to customers; taking food and drinks orders from customers; communicating food and drinks orders to other workers.
• Visitors: ordering food and drinks; talking to their friends.

Mathematics

• Appropriate use of spatial awareness when moving within the café environment, setting up customer tables with the correct number of chairs, handling money; calculating number of plates, drinks etc.

ICT

• Use of powerpoint on interactive whiteboard with photographs and names of workers in the café enabling new or temporary staff visiting the café to get to know the pupils.

LLW

• Functional Life Skills covers a wide range of skills including personal hygiene, dressing skills, the importance of personal appearance, eating, cooking, taking customer orders, preparing orders, serving customers, clearing tables, recycling waste, cleaning up after café sessions, using the washing machine to wash aprons, tea-towels etc. and handling money.