Knowing what kind of work suits this particular person — their strengths, interests, energy patterns, social preferences, sensory needs, ambitions, and constraints. The discipline of not generalising about adulthood but instead working out what this young person’s adult working life can look like.
For NEO’s EBSNA / SEMH / neurodivergent learners, this strand is more important than for a typically-developing cohort, because:
- The default assumption (“any job will do, just get out there”) is often the wrong starting point
- Burnout, masking, sensory overload, social exhaustion — these aren’t theoretical for many of NEO’s learners
- The work that suits a young person is the work they can sustain, not just the work they can do for a fortnight
What this includes
- Strengths and interests inventory (less about ranking, more about noticing)
- Energy patterns — when in the day, with whom, in what kind of environment, doing what kind of work
- Social preferences — solo / pair / small group / large group / public-facing
- Sensory and physical considerations — light, noise, movement, predictability, transitions
- Values — what work feels meaningful; what work feels demoralising; why
- Ambitions — naming what’s wanted, including ambitions that haven’t yet had permission to be named
- Constraints — health, geography, family responsibilities, financial reality
Tested by
- ASDAN Employability (regulated qualification — self-evaluation portfolio component)
- ASDAN PDP (personal-effectiveness modules)
- ASDAN Lifeskills Challenge
Cross-curriculum links
- Relating Intelligently — Module 1: What Is Intelligence, Really? (the intelligence-is-relational frame applies directly to thinking about one’s own working strengths)
- Relating Intelligently — Module 3: How to Stay Coherent (the coherence frame as a way of evaluating fit)
- GIGF — Module 6: Green Skills and Future Jobs (mapping own strengths onto sectoral need)
- KS4 English — Spoken English (talking confidently about oneself is a learnable skill, not just a personality trait)
Suggested evidence types
- Strengths-and-interests reflection (revisited at intervals — Discovery Phase, half-termly review, end of programme)
- Energy / environment / sensory profile written in the learner’s own voice
- Conversation log with practitioner about what the learner has learned about themselves through doing work-experience tasks
- Values reflection — what kinds of work feel meaningful, what kinds feel demoralising, why
Mastery descriptors
- emerging — names some interests with prompting; struggles to articulate why
- developing — articulates strengths and interests; recognises some patterns in own working preferences
- secure — fluent self-knowledge across strengths, energy, sensory needs, values; uses this to evaluate options
- mastering — sophisticated self-awareness; integrates self-knowledge into pathway decisions; can articulate fit and trade-offs to others