Learning for life.
Connection. Purpose. Independence.
Our students’ dreams and goals for the future are as unique as they are—but they all share a desire for connection, purpose, and independence.
While some of our graduates choose to pursue a college degree, others opt to enter the workforce right after high school.
Orchard Friends’ Transitional Learning Program is designed for these students. We not only prepare them to navigate the working world with confidence, but also ensure they have the skills they’ll need to navigate daily life as young adults.
Offered to 15-to-21-year-old Orchard students as an alternative (or supplemental) track to our K-12 academic track, our Transitional Learning Program teaches the real world in real-world contexts.
We combine in-class lessons with coached work hours, internships, and volunteer opportunities to build critical on-the-job and life skills. Creating positive experiences in the workplace and in the wider community helps our students to lay the foundation for future goals—putting their dreams within reach.
Bringing the world into our classrooms.
We want to give our students the world—full, free, and confident access to everything life has to offer. This begins with bringing the world into our classrooms, where we practice the skills our students will need as young adults through interactive lessons built around real-life scenarios.
For example, in math class, our students learn to save and budget by managing a bank account run through our school, while in language arts, we practice skills like speaking appropriately to a manager, interviewing for a job, and engaging with customers.
Preparing for life after graduation also means mastering a variety of practical life skills, from balanced eating to time management to health and hygiene. For this reason, we also offer classes explicitly focused on these topics.
This might look like meal planning—making a list, navigating to the grocery store, buying ingredients, and preparing a recipe together in our school kitchen—learning to work the washer and dryer in our laundry facilities, or calling to make a doctor’s appointment.
By practicing these skills together, we break down the daunting transition to young adulthood into manageable, approachable lessons that set our students up for success in work and life.
“In our Transitional Learning Program, every in-class lesson is paired with hands-on practical application. The result? Not just learning for life–learning that comes alive.”
— Pam Carpenter, Teacher
The real classroom
is the real world.
Coached Work Experiences
Four afternoons a week, we transport our students to coached work experiences at Milanese Pizza, Shoprite, and the Riverton Public Library. Onsite, our students are stocking shelves, fulfilling online orders, baking cookies, planning activities for library patrons, assisting customers, and more! We are always on the lookout for new community partners to give our students as many different work experiences as possible, especially if a student has expressed an interest in a particular field.
The same faculty who teach our students in class act as coaches during their work experiences. Having familiar teachers nearby helps to ease anxieties in new settings and positions our faculty to reinforce in-class takeaways in real time, helping our students to internalize these critical skills.
Coached work experiences are a vital opportunity to put all of our in-class lessons to the test in a safe, supported, and confidence-building way.
Field Trips and Volunteering
Just as we do with our coached work experiences, we pair in-class topics with field trips and volunteering opportunities inspired by our students’ interests.
Our students recently took a trip to Bordentown on the light rail. In just one outing, we practiced math skills (allocating funds for tickets and lunch and calculating trip times), social skills (ordering at the restaurant, buying tickets at the train station, and spending time in new public spaces), and executive functioning skills (developing an itinerary, navigating to our destination, and time management).
By linking these lessons to trains–a particular area of interest for many of our current students–we generated an additional layer of excitement and engagement that ensured our students will remember both the trip and the takeaways for years to come.
Managing Our School Store
Last year, we started a school store, and since then our TLP students have been managing every aspect of it!
They maintain a spreadsheet tracking orders and make regular trips to Walmart and Target to buy t-shirts, hoodies, stainless steel tumblers, and other items to brand. The students are also making their own merchandise, using our Cricut machine’s software to create their designs and its cutting machines and heat press to apply the OFS logo.
All the proceeds from school store sales are deposited into a bank account to give our students additional practice managing money— they are currently saving up for a special class trip! Please reach out to Pam Carpenter if you would like to place an order for Orchard Friends merchandise.
Every student in our Transitional Learning Program graduates with an achievable, actionable plan in place that aligns with their interests, needs, goals, and abilities.
This is one of the most important things we do for our students. As neurodivergent individuals, our students are higher risk for isolation and mental health challenges, and support programs and services drop off sharply after age 17.
Our TLP faculty and staff work with parents and students to create a post-graduation plan that bridges this gap. This can include assistance with filling out applications for jobs or vocational programs, help finding an apartment, or securing an apprenticeship to pursue a trade.
Teaching our students how to stay connected, how to manage social anxiety and defend against isolation, and how to find and keep meaningful employment protects against depression, boosts self-esteem and self-efficacy, and helps to create a strong social support network.
Taking on the world.
“Cole knew he wanted to enter the workforce after he graduated high school, and my husband’s friend who owns a bakery and knew that Cole loved to bake, reached out and said ‘I’ll hire him!’ We were so excited; it was the perfect opportunity. It was important to us that he go through the interview process: to have Cole dress professionally and go to the store to formally interview for the position—and he did!
Orchard Friends really built up Cole’s self-confidence. They showed him that he is capable of doing anything. There is such a need for this school. Cole wouldn’t be where he is today if it wasn’t for Orchard.”
–Pam, Cole’s mom
TLP on the road.
