Michelle is one of the students attending our college for 19-25 year olds with PMLD
Twenty year old Michelle loves relaxing listening to music, choosing clothes and playing on the Nintendo Wii. She also enjoys going to college and looks forward to seeing the friends she has known since school.
Michelle attends The College for Profound Education, one of the few places in the UK tailored to young people aged 19 to 25 with profound and multiple learning difficulties. It allows learners like Michelle to follow The Profound Education Curriculum to develop their independence and learn important life skills. Set within the familiar surroundings of the school she has attended since she was 11, Michelle enjoys the freedom of being a college student. She is able to pick her own subjects according to her interests and spend free periods in the common room. Although she has severely impaired sight, autism and can have seizures, Michelle still enjoys being able to continue her education.
“When Michelle was 17 I started looking for a post-19 placement which would meet her needs but there was nothing appropriate for her,” explains her mum Debbie. “Without The College for Profound Education I don’t know what I would have done.”
The College is supporting Michelle’s transition into adult life and applying the skills she has already learnt to new situations. As she communicates non-verbally, she is learning through the curriculum to use her voice in different ways to interact with her peers and she has excelled at overcoming her anxiety when faced with unfamiliar situations. “Michelle is very sociable and personable and she is learning all the time,” explains her teacher Anna. “She is great at using the laptop and enjoys choosing pictures and music to make presentations which she controls using a switch to change the slides.”
With her own individual timetable Michelle is able to choose whether or not she wants to participate in sessions, although with a love of hydrotherapy, ‘rebound therapy’ on the trampoline and music therapy, she is rarely away. She especially enjoys the college’s Thursday evening social activities with her peers which include dinner at the pub and karaoke.
“The College really values her for who she is: an individual,” says Debbie. “She would really miss out if she wasn’t there.”
