Transition Times: If you think life after school is a doddle, try your hand at the Real Game. It's not easy, writes Louise Holden.

Modern life is curious. While some of us watch real lives on television, others live fantasy lives through computer games such as The Sims. Every day countless games consoles light up with the lives of fictional families and their fabricated careers, loves and losses. Now transition-year students are to be treated to a Sims-like fantasy universe in the classroom.

The Real Game is an idea that came from Canada when a father heard his daughter complain that classroom learning was irrelevant to real life. Bill Barry decided to invent a "slice of life" role-play game that would introduce students to the complexities of adulthood.

In the seven years since Barry invented the Real Game three million students across the world have taken on one of his invented roles and lived out an artificial existence in the microsociety of the classroom. The Republic, where seven schools are piloting the scheme, is the 12th country to create its own version of the Real Game.

The Real Game is not an amusing diversion between transition-year field trips. It has a serious mission to give students a flavour of what it's like to finance a car when you work on the minimum wage, to find a decent job when you flunked out of college or to hold onto your career when you become a single parent. Once students are given their Real Game role it's up to them to turn the tables and make good of their doppelgängers' lives.

"This is a perfect programme for transition year," says Brian Mooney, the Irish Times columnist and head of the Institute of Careers Guidance. "We're showering careers information on students all the time, and so much of it goes unread. The only kind of learning that stays with people is experiential learning. The Real Game experience can grab a student for life."

A cross between Monopoly, The Sims and a careers-guidance module, the Real Game is meant to be challenging. Students take on a persona, create a CV, find a job and build a life for their characters. They might be single mothers, wealthy graduates or early school leavers. A student might choose to go for a career as a forensic scientist only to find that his character left school early to work in a factory. The student's job is to pull his character back onto his chosen career path and to balance out the challenges of life.

When he researched the Real Game Mooney was amazed at what some of the students were learning. "In one Canadian town families were buying suits for their sons in preparation for the Real Game job interview," he says. Another student, who set out with a grudge against her parents for refusing to buy her a pair of trainers, was amazed by the end of the game that her parents were prepared to pay for any luxuries at all.

The Real Game comes to the classroom in a binder that includes all teacher and student materials, including overhead transparencies, posters and notes for photocopying. One binder will serve as many students as desired, and it can be reused year after year. Teachers can choose their own delivery schedules: the game can be as short as six weeks or as long as an academic year. There are extra components, such as community involvement, which can be cut from the game to keep it short.

Real Game players learn career-building concepts and vocabulary that will help them to write effective CVs, but that's just the beginning. Participants play life and work roles, operate within a simulated community, learn to research and use labour-market information, explore occupations and lifestyles, learn how to budget time and money and examine the relationship between school courses and future goals. They also experience realistic challenges such as job loss, financial pressure, unexpected pregnancy and illness.

Mooney says the Real Game shows students why they are learning. "They begin clearly to see why their maths, science and English lessons are important to their lives, not just to get over the next educational hurdle. In addition, other career and learning resources enjoy increased impact when used with the Real Game series. For example, when students have just received redundancy notices and lost their jobs in the game, they are more likely to take the issues of job search, resumé preparation and research of alternatives to heart."

The Real Game is a great fit in transition year because it can be applied by teachers from different subjects working as a team. Mary Lynch of St Claire's Comprehensive, in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, is getting help from the art department as she pilots the Real Game. "The students have physically designed the community they are playing the game in: it's a great opportunity for cross-curricular learning," she says.

Other subjects germane to the game include social studies, accounting, business, home economics, information technology, research skills, communication and geography.

When Mooney discovered the Real Game, at an OECD conference in Toronto last year, he quickly got the support of the Department of Education and Science to bring it to Ireland. John Dennehy of the Department immediately saw the game's value for transition year, and less than a year later the project is in full pilot phase, due for a national roll-out next September.

"The feedback from the seven pilot schools after just three months is terrific," says Mooney. "With this game we can bypass volumes of information that students were not interested in anyway and instead deliver learning that grabs the attention of the most disengaged student. It's the ideal programme for transition year."