Many of the modules taught at Harding House are delivered in the local community. Students are encouraged and supported to be as independent as possible in their own communities. Students work on using information sources to find out about community facilities, the travel skills needed to access them, identifying individual responsibilities in the community and effective community action.
Students access a wide range of community facilities. They use supermarkets and local shops as part of their Home Management programme and investigate local facilities in vocational modules - Retail, Travel and Tourism, Sports and Leisure, Catering, etc. In their Leisure and Community sessions, students use the cinema, theatre, bowling alley and swimming pool etc.
In Practical Work Skills, students work on their independent travel and road safety skills, using pubic transport, as well as visiting local places of work and local facilities.
Students are also involved in finding out about and meeting people who serve in the local community. Community visitors include Police Comminity Support Officers, St Johns Ambulance workers, local councillors, local businessmen, voluntary sector co-ordinators and trainee professionals.
We have excellent community links with Aylesbury High School and the Grammar School. Through these links, students have the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of social, educational and recreational activities with their peers in mainstream schools.
Students are involved in voluntary work – current projects include providing a range of services and activities in a local sheltered housing scheme and other environmental initiatives.
Students also plan and carry out fundraising activities to support others in the local community and national charities. Activities include sponsored events and mini enterprise ventures. We have raised money for the Samaritans, MacMillan Nurses, Salvation Army, Children in Need, Comic Relief and other national appeals. For many years we have held events to raise money for Aylesbury’s Florence Nightingale Hospice.
Employability group students also volunteer at Waddesdon Manor, working in the house, the restaurant and the shop. They also run a weekly cafe and drop-in centre at the local Scout Hall.