6th-12th Grade Functional Life Skills Checklist, IEP Goals & Interventions Bundle

Description

The 6th-12th Grade Functional Life Skills Checklist Bundle helps secondary special education and transition teams assess student skills, identify specific needs, select targeted interventions, and develop measurable IEP goals. It includes separate resources for Grades 6–8 and Grades 9–12 so educators can use checklist items, interventions, and goals that reflect the student’s age, developmental level, and future needs.

Functional expectations change throughout the secondary years. Middle school students begin managing multiple classes, schedules, materials, relationships, and responsibilities. High school students face increased expectations related to employment, community access, self-advocacy, daily living, postsecondary education, and adult services.

One checklist cannot accurately represent all of those expectations. I created this bundle to give educators an organized way to assess and teach functional life skills across middle and high school.

6th-12th Grade Functional Life Skills Checklist Bundle

This bundle includes two complete grade-band resources:

6th–8th Grade Functional Life Skills Checklist

The middle-school resource focuses on skills related to:

• Managing multiple classes and teachers
• Following increasingly complex schedules
• Organizing materials and assignments
• Communicating the need for assistance
• Advocating for personal and academic needs
• Regulating emotions across settings
• Completing age-appropriate self-care responsibilities
• Making safe decisions
• Preparing for high-school expectations

9th–12th Grade Functional Life Skills Checklist

The high-school resource addresses skills connected to:

• Employability and job readiness
• Independent and supported living
• Self-advocacy
• Community access and safety
• Money management
• Personal health and self-care
• Postsecondary education
• Adult services
• Transition planning

The high-school resource also includes:

• Independent Track: For students working toward completing functional tasks with minimal support
• Supported Track: For students expected to continue using accommodations, prompting, structured guidance, or adult assistance

The two-track format recognizes that independence does not look the same for every student. A meaningful goal may involve completing a task independently, participating with support, communicating the need for assistance, or using an accommodation effectively.

Identify Specific Functional Skill Needs

A student described as “not independent” may understand part of a routine but need help with the remaining steps. Another student may complete a skill at school but not in community, home, or employment settings.

These informal functional skills assessments separate broad concerns into specific, observable abilities. Teams can then connect the identified need with targeted interventions and measurable goals.

Use the bundle to:

• Identify functional skill strengths and needs
• Establish informal baseline information
• Select instructional and transition priorities
• Choose targeted interventions
• Develop individualized IEP goals
• Document observations and progress
• Support IEP, BIP, MTSS, and transition planning
• Improve collaboration among teachers, families, service providers, and adult-support agencies

What’s Included

This bundle includes:

• One complete 6th–8th grade resource
• One complete 9th–12th grade resource
• Independent and Supported high-school tracks
• Fourteen functional skill areas in each grade-band resource
• Developmentally appropriate student skill indicators
• Targeted intervention ideas
• Measurable sample goals
• Notes and comments sections
• Optional progress-monitoring sheets
• Printable and digital tracking options

Both resources address the same 14 broad skill areas, but the individual skills, interventions, and goals are adapted for middle-school and high-school expectations.

Fourteen Functional Life Skill Areas

Each resource addresses:

• Community Navigation and Safety
• Daily Living Skills
• Employment and Job Readiness
• Independence and Self-Advocacy
• Meal Preparation and Nutrition
• Medical and Health Management
• Motor Skills and Safety Awareness
• Personal Finance and Money Management
• Play and Leisure Skills
• Pre-Academic and Academic Readiness
• Self-Care Skills
• Self-Regulation and Emotional Control
• Social Skills and Communication
• Toileting Skills

Looking across these areas helps teams consider the whole student rather than defining independence through one classroom behavior, academic expectation, or daily routine.

Targeted Functional Skills Interventions

Each checklist area includes interventions aligned with the assessed skills. Depending on the need, grade band, and anticipated adult supports, strategies may include:

• Explicit instruction and modeling
• Visual, written, or technology-based supports
• Organizational systems
• Task analysis
• Guided practice
• Prompting and systematic prompt fading
• Reinforcement
• Environmental adaptations
• Role-play and rehearsal
• Self-monitoring
• Community-based instruction
• Supported decision-making
• Self-advocacy practice
• Job-readiness instruction
• Emotional-regulation supports

The intervention lists provide practical starting points. Educators can select and adapt strategies based on the student’s needs, environment, preferences, and future goals.

Measurable Functional Life Skills IEP Goals

The sample goals connect directly to the checklist skills. Teachers can adjust each goal’s setting, prompting level, frequency, performance criteria, and expected degree of independence.

Goals may address:

• Daily living routines
• Communication
• Self-care
• Safety awareness
• Emotional regulation
• Social participation
• Self-advocacy
• Organization and responsibility
• Money management
• Employability and job readiness
• Community navigation
• Independent or supported adult functioning

Because the checklists, interventions, and goals are aligned, teams can explain what the student needs, why a goal was selected, and how the skill connects to life beyond the classroom.

Support Students Across the Secondary Years

This bundle is useful when:

• You teach students across middle- and high-school grade levels
• Your students demonstrate a wide range of developmental abilities
• A student is transitioning from middle to high school
• You need age-appropriate functional IEP goals
• You support both academic and transition-focused programs
• Your team wants a consistent assessment and planning process
• You need to monitor increasing independence over several years

Who This Bundle Is For

This resource is designed for:

• Secondary special education teachers
• Self-contained classroom teachers
• Transition coordinators
• Behavior specialists
• School psychologists
• Interventionists
• Occupational therapists and related-service providers
• Vocational and community-based instruction programs
• IEP, BIP, MTSS, and transition teams

It can be used in self-contained, resource, inclusion, vocational, community-based, and transition-focused settings.

Important Assessment Information

These resources are informal educational assessment and planning tools. They are not standardized, norm-referenced, or diagnostic assessments. They do not replace a formal evaluation, functional behavior assessment, comprehensive transition assessment, or other individualized assessment when one is required.

The checklist items, interventions, and sample goals should be individualized according to the student’s needs, baseline performance, environment, transition pathway, preferences, and required level of support.

The purpose is not to hold every student to one definition of independence. It is to help the team identify meaningful next steps and plan instruction that supports participation, self-determination, and the greatest appropriate level of independence.