Last year, I wrote a series about vocational jobs in the classroom. To read the series, click the links below.
Vocational Job Series Part 1: Stocking How-To and Freebie
Vocational Job Series Part 2: Filing Tasks How-To
Vocational Job Series Part 3: Miscellaneous Tasks How-To
BONUS: Vocational Job Series Part 4: More Vocational Jobs in Your Classroom
BONUS: Vocational Job Series Part 5: More Vocational Jobs in Your Classroom
BONUS: Vocational Job Series Part 6: More Vocational Jobs in Your Classroom
My community puts together a Job Olympics for our area high school and 18-21 program students in special education to show off their vocational skills in a competition format to promote transition and employability skills. The event concludes with an awards ceremony to recognize the participants. The event takes place at a local community college, and surrounding districts come to participate.
With the implementation of many excellent vocational and life skills in our special education classroom, a few of my colleagues and I had the idea to allow our middle school students to demonstrate their skills. We decided to implement our First Annual Middle School Job Olympics for two specialized special education programs in our school district this spring.
This series will detail how to create this opportunity for your students, from the first steps to the behind-the-scenes and, finally, the highlights from the event day.
First Steps
Writing a proposal to present to Special Education Administrators was our first step in getting this idea up and running.
The following information was shared:
- Purpose
- Potential participants
- Location, date, and time (with included timeline)
- Events
- Budget for the event
- Staff needed to help run the event (i.e., judges, awards, etc.)
- Information regarding the set-up of the event
Once presented and approved, we were ready to work behind the scenes to prepare for the event.
