Every year, we work with hundreds of schools and colleges to support thousands of educators to build essential skills with their learners. We know that while learners in primary settings often make over half a skill step of progress per year, this momentum can stall during the transition to secondary school. To address this "drop off," we undertook a research project focused on how essential skills can act as a golden thread across educational settings, providing learners with the confidence and self-efficacy needed to embrace new challenges. This included a webinar, featuring schools leading in best practice in this area. 

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In this webinar: Joining up the Journey

This session was a deep dive into how essential skills can reduce anxiety and improve peer interactions during pivotal transition periods. We heard from educators at three schools, who shared how they have embedded essential skills into their transition offers:

• Bex and Laura from Barnton Community Nursery and Primary School
• Matt from Blythe Bridge High School
• Gemma and Nathan from Ormiston Bushfield Academy

The session was hosted by Daniel Langford, Education Associate at Skills Builder UK, who spotlighted key resources, including the Transition Resource Pack and the Universal Framework, to support the transition process. 

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Top tips from educators on supporting effective transitions:

Principle 1: Keep it simple

• Make it visual: Start by introducing the skills through posters, communal displays, and icons in classrooms. This ensures that new learners become familiar with the imagery and names before moving on to more complex steps.
• Make resources easily accessible: Build a shared folder with downloadable resources, such as Skill Icons, so staff can easily access and insert them into transition lessons.

Principle 2: Start early, keep going

• Intervention can start early: We know that transition activities can start as early as Year 3. Embedding essential skills into primary outreach work, such as taster lessons in feeder schools, helps build long-term familiarity.
• Extend connections: Ormiston Bushfield and Blythe Bridge use the summer term after exams to host subject-specific challenge events for primary learners, focusing on subjects like Maths and ICT. This helps to build excitement for the subjects themselves, along with the essential skills that learners will be building through them.

Principle 3: Measure It

• Evidence skill use: Provide learners with a "skills postcard" during their transition days (available in the Transition Resource Pack). Staff can sign off skills as they see them demonstrated, creating a "competitive edge" that motivates Year 6 learners to engage with the Framework.
• Visualise progress: Use reflection resources such as Skill Passports so learners can highlight steps as they are used during the transition experience, providing a starting point for a clear record of growth.

Principle 4: Teach directly

• Embed into themed lessons: Barnton Community Primary have mapped the  "Be Awesome, Go Big” project resources against specific skills such as Planning, Adapting and Creativity. This helps demonstrate how the skills can be applied to help manage specific transition scenarios.
• Make the skills practical and usable: Run workshops where learners must apply their essential skills to real-world transition anxieties, such as using their Problem Solving skills to find their way around their new school.

Principle 5: Keep practicing

• Reward skill use: Encourage staff to track where learners have demonstrated essential skills during transition days; this could feed nicely into an achievement event at the end of the day.
• Include time to reflect: When learners return from transition days and events, hold a reflective session where they identify which skills they observed or used during their time at the new school. This could tie in nicely with resources such as “Be Awesome, Go Big”.

Principle 6: Bring it to life

• Provide leadership opportunities: Blythe Bridge High School empowers older learners as "Skills Champions". Having Year 9 learners design and deliver  transition workshops and support transition days allows them to model the skills while gaining valuable leadership experience.
• Link to future interests: Use resources like My Learning, My Future to help learners see transition as the first step in their long-term career journey, using essential skills to link subjects to future aspirations.

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 How to use the Transition Resource Pack

• View it as a menu: The pack is a guide, not a checklist. Pick resources that fit into your existing provision to avoid overwhelming staff.
• Utilise the Classroom Welcome Pack: Activities like "Bingo Icebreakers" and "Learner Profiles" are excellent for helping learners settle into a new environment during transition days and those first few weeks.
• Consider a Challenge Day: These fully resourced, off-timetable days are a powerful way to bring the whole school community together while focusing on all eight essential skills.They are a great way of getting to know learners as individuals by focussing on their skills and interests.

Download the Transition Resource Pack

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Watch the webinar

By joining up the essential skills journey across educational phases, we can ensure that every student has the language and self-belief to navigate this change with confidence.

You can find out more and watch the full discussion in the webinar recording below.

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Ready to take the next step in joining up the journey at your school? Applications for the Skills Builder Accelerator are now open!

‍This flagship programme provides the dedicated support, training, and resources needed to embed essential skills across your school or college. Find out more and apply here.