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Bridgewater High School is a mainstream 11-16 High School in Appleton, Warrington, Cheshire. We are part of The Challenge Academy Trust or TCAT, and along with all the other school's in the trust, incorporated Skills Builder as a way of delivering an Essential Skills Framework to all of our pupils.
Overall impact
The accelerator programme has been a a great first step for Bridgewater into delivering an essential skills framework that should help to prepare all young people for the world of work.
Keep it simple
The language of essential skills is used in aspects of school life at Bridgewater. For examples, at events like the upper school Careers Fair and during assemblies, we make reference to the essential skills to frame the purpose and direction for the students. Some teachers have recognised and rewarded student effort and achievement in relation to the essential skills.
Start early, keep going
Our year groups have regular and planned opportunities to learn and practice the essential skills, in the form time sessions. Years 7 to 10 are having skills sessions 2 or 3 times per term.
Measure it
During the upcoming Virtual Work Experience day, students will be asked to reflect on how they have used essential skills in their work during the event.
Focus tightly
Year leaders have been choosing the starting point and then sending the lessons out to form tutors to deliver during form time.
Keep practising
Careers is embedded in all schemes of work, and the essential skills are now starting to filter through into lessons especially during specific times of the year. One example of this is during National Careers Week, where all speakers are asked to talk about the essential skills needed in their workplace.
Bring it to life
For the Careers Fair this year, I incorporated Skills Builder and the essential skills into a Skills Bingo worksheet for Years 9-11. Students were asked to tick off when they had learnt about, or had mentioned an essential skill.
What's next
We plan to start using the hub platform more, and monitor more closely the progress of students and individual classes. At the upcoming INSET day, we have a Skills Builder slot where an Education Associate will deliver information to teachers on how to improve and embed Skills Builder to a greater extent across the whole school.
