From supervised practice to shopping alone

Daily-living skills are taught in the classroom, but the real test is a real shop: an unfamiliar layout, a queue, a cashier who speaks quickly. That step — from a rehearsed exercise to doing it alone — is where students in special education most often get stuck.

Teachers can take students out, but only in small groups and only occasionally. Each student needs many more repetitions than staff time allows.

We started by observing, not designing: sitting in on lessons and joining shop visits with the teachers, to understand where students actually lost confidence rather than where the curriculum assumed they would.

With the teachers and therapists, we built a training system that let students rehearse the trip in small, repeatable steps, and gave staff a clear view of each student's progress.

Then we tested it in the shops students would really use, and revised it based on what happened there — not on what worked in the classroom.

Students progressed from supervised practice to buying what they need at convenience stores and supermarkets on their own.

The school runs the training itself. We handed it over with documentation and staff training, so it can be extended without us.