ASDAN

ASDAN is an Education Charity and awarding organisation whose curriculum programmes and qualifications transform life chances through learning.

PAACT (Parents and Autistic Children Together) have been working closely alongside ASDAN by providing some of their learning programmes for the last few years.

As an ASDAN Registered Centre, PAACT recognise that our children and young adults all learn in different ways. ASDAN enables the learning of skills to be flexible and tailor-made to all who participate. The learning fits in with the learner, their capabilities and pace, not the other way around. Courses are designed to foster personal, social, and work-related skills enabling learners to discover, develop and utilise their abilities.

Further Information

Through ASDAN, PAACT can access the Life Skills Challenge Programme as well as its Short Courses, both of which are inclusive, flexible, online, and portfolio-based designed to accredit activity and skills development across a range of topics and curriculum areas.

Ideal for families who are home educating
Suitable for families who are interested in extending their child/young adult’s development in life skills and the wider community

Families are encouraged to start with the Life Skills Challenge Programme and supported to work through their chosen challenge(s). PAACT recognise that many of our learners may not be ready to evidence their achievements and with the consent of ASDAN have now identified 2 Tiers to this learning approach:

Tier 1	Chosen challenges are used just as guidance to develop life skills-based learning without the need for collecting a portfolio of evidence for the ASDAN certificate
Tier 2	A minimum of 1 challenge to be documented and evidenced in a portfolio, meeting ASDAN’s requirements for the non-exam-based certificate

The Life Skills Challenge Programme is for 1 year (£20.00) but can be extended for a further year at a time (£11.00) which makes it a great, flexible educational programme. Learners can do as many challenges as they would like. There are over 1,000 challenges to choose from (https://www.lifeskillschallenge.org.uk/challenges), e.g., Cooking, Food Preparation, Personal Hygiene, Shopping, Using Public Transport, Animal Care, Gardening, as well as many topics within the National Curriculum subject areas.

ASDAN Short Courses (£9.95) are flexible (with up to 3 years to complete), portfolio-based programmes designed to accredit up to 60 hours of activity and skills development across a range of topics and curriculum areas. Short Courses are widely used in formal and non-formal settings, mainly by 13–19-year-olds. As they are multi-level, the focus is on completing challenges and skills development according to individual ability, rather than attainment at a specific level. All ASDAN Short Courses are available online via the ASDAN e-portfolio system. This online platform allows learners to complete their chosen Short Courses online by completing challenges, recording skills development, and uploading evidence.