By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyse site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information.
The Inclusion Service in Dumfries and Galloway supports children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural needs through the stages of P1-S4 who experience barriers to inclusion. We provide a service that offers pupils and their families a short-term intervention with a focus on nurture and building skills. Through multi-agency working, we aim to provide learners with a personal learning pathway which offers opportunities in and around their local community, which will help to reignite their love for learning, promote success and develop lifelong skills thus enabling learners to reach their full potential. The core purpose of the Inclusion Service is to provide children and young people who are identified at Stage 3 or 4 of The Stages of Intervention, with opportunities which enables them to access a curriculum that meets their needs, develops their full potential and self-worth, is pupil centred, challenging and promotes aspirations and opportunities within their local community. Skills builder has brought education to life for most of our young people. Our pupils are more aware of what their focus is, why they are learning and how they can transfer their skills to everyday life, in turn giving them a sense of achievement and opening more pathways for positive destinations.
Overall impact
The Skills Builder Framework has provided our service with a way to work in a multi-agency capacity whilst being able to track and monitor skills development on one platform. Working in partnership with professionals and third sector to provide learning opportunities to meet the developmental needs of individual learners whilst exploring their local environment, can be challenging. However, this platform presents a way for all partners to work collaboratively. All members of the team and partnerships have a good understanding of the 8 essential skills and share these regularly throughout each session the pupils. Most of our curriculum is provided through outdoor learning experiences and exploring their local area, having access to short lessons and workshops provided a way for our outdoor educators to think creatively. Online sessions were provided whilst driving to local destinations, skill logos were displayed in all vehicles, and displays in the Inclusion Hub enticed discussions with pupils and partners. Skills builder is written within our policy and procedures, making it increasingly clear that the 8 essential skills are at the centre of our practice. All pupils have their own profile on skills hub that are referred to regularly and used during reflection sessions. There skill levels are also compared to careers explorer when setting goals, reflecting on their learning and planning future activities. Padlet has been an effective tool in sharing pupil voice, parental information and partnership working, this has been particularly helpful when reflecting on their dedicated skill. Overall, we have seen a huge increase in confidence, self-worth and knowledge in language used around the essential skills.
Keep it simple
We started out by supporting all partners in developing their understanding of the essential skills and the skills builder hub with the Inclusive Learning pack. This was disseminated with the wider team, in Primary and Secondary Inclusion. The essential skills were allocated to those working in partnership with the pupils and the Skill Icons were then linked to the pupil's personal pathway timetable. Visuals are referenced during all sessions taking place, whether that be in cars, on a clipboard or an iPad. The skills builder framework is referred to in child planning meetings, where all partners to the plan come together and discuss what is working well and what needs to get better. This also presents as an opportunity to share pupil voice around their innovative curriculum. To share and celebrate the success and achievements of the pupils developing their skills we held a weekly Teams meeting for the children and young people to share their experiences and what their next steps are. These are also shared on Padlet and through their 4 contexts of learning report.
Start early, keep going
The nature of our offer provides learning opportunities for children and young people to consistently use and develop their 8 essential skills through outdoor education, experiential learning and teamwork. Most pupils referred to the service are part-time between home, school and Inclusion, primarily having contact with all multiple agencies across their academic week. Pupils have access to family support workers, community police officers, health and wellbeing practitioners or outdoor education officers once a week, working on developing their allocated skill (discussed through team meetings). Upon reflection and through pupil voice it was evident that social interaction and collaboration was a missing piece of the pupil's week. Therefore, to show progression and breadth across the curriculum and skills-based framework we have incorporated small group sessions; skills being consolidated throughout the week with the wider team and communicated on Padlet (a platform to support multi-agency communication), the pupils can see how far they have come and that skill building in an ongoing progress. For example, some of our pupils go kayaking, they start off small by dipping their toes in the water, risk assessing the situation and practise putting on equipment. This extends to getting in and out of the boat, encouraging others and finally kayaking the length of the Loch. This gives them the motivation to “keep going”, pushing their boundaries in safe and nurturing environment.
Measure it
The Inclusion service has been creative in establishing a comprehensive assessment system, we currently do this in several ways, and these can be adapted to meet the needs of the learner: 1. A pre-assessment is completed by the pupils, before the learner engages with inclusion to give us an understanding of their identified skill set. 2. The skills builder hub is used by all agencies to measure the progress of all pupils. Each learner has two profiles one completed the teacher on the hub and the other by the pupil on printed copy of the framework. 3. The data overview is used to compare the information gathered at the beginning, middle and end of the pupil's input/placement. This provides insights on progress and development. 4. Students complete daily and weekly reflection logs which identifies and celebrates success and next steps. 5. Students use passports for goal setting and reflection. 6.The lead has dedicated time each week to review, see impact and address support. 7. Data is shared with schools at child planning meetings. Finally, our weekly multi-agency meeting allows for students and partners to share practice and learning opportunities. Our next steps are to utilise the spreadsheet to collate the data for the essential skills.
Focus tightly
95% of our targeted teaching for skills happens on a journey to their destination where the learner's activity will take place. This approach involved tailoring lessons to meet the specific needs, strengths, and learning styles of each student matched with their specific skill. These are then consolidated through other areas of their academic timetable either with parents or mainstream school with the use of click to build it resources and sharing advice. Weekly skill challenges are shared with students via Padlet to reinforce independent learning and can share their answers for partners to comment. Having the logos on display in vehicles, key areas and on their timetables makes them easily accessible so they can be referred to regularly. As previously stated, we also have weekly reflection sessions where they can discuss what skills they have used and how they used them. For example, one of our pupils came to the end of a 12-week intervention, during her 10th week of reflections she shared how skills builder has helped her to focus on skills that will help towards moving on to college. She had no idea they were interested in mechanics until they had been given the opportunity of experiential and applied skills. Moving forward, we would like to support other professionals and mainstream schools with wider awareness of Skills Builder Partnership.
Keep practising
There are opportunities for children to re-enforce and consolidate all skills when working with each agency, beyond the focus skill. For example, bushcraft involves an array of problem-solving activities from building hammocks, risk assessing before setting fires for cooking a bacon roll and being safe when using knives and saws. The eight essential skills are integrated in all aspects of the curriculum and the opportunities provided allow them to apply what they have learned in real-life contexts. The reflection log allows the pupils to explore what skills they have been focussing on and share examples of their success. These conversations, reflections and learning will be captured on the Padlet and multi-agency meetings. Project based learning provided experiences to transfer their skills in a classroom setting with a small group of people and support transition sessions to secondary school. To enhance our curriculum further, we plan to timetable career slots, giving our young people the chance to explore a variety of careers, CV developing, mock interviews and a space for professionals to share their job role and the skills needed to inspire positive destinations.
Bring it to life
Skills builder played a crucial role in supporting transitions from P7 to S1 and our outdoor education curriculum. We made sure that the skill icons were visible around the hub, attached to policy and in all vehicles transporting pupils to encourage learning conversations and reflection. The use of Padlet to share communication between all agencies allowed us to spread the word with partnership schools. Most recently, we have been sharing skills builder and its potential to educational psychologists, youth justice workers and social workers to develop an understanding of the 8 essential skills whilst providing a purpose to an alternative curriculum and the development of life skills. Pupils often get the chance to apply and showcase their skills development through participating in volunteering and participating in activities in their local communities. As previously mentioned, we will target skills during our Carer sessions and work experience for S4 pupils and provide enterprise opportunities through using the extended projects.
What's next
Our journey will be to continue to support learners who find mainstream education challenging and who are at risk of exclusive. This is through an alternative curriculum and therapeutic approaches with the framework of skills builder. The feedback from our multiagency providers has been incredibly positive, expressing their interest in using the framework to support their children and young people to provide a platform that measures success and achievements. We aim to maintain sustainability and keep the team motivated in using the resources to enhance learning experiences. One of our young people this session, was shocked at the level of skill he had achieved. He compared his data to carers explorer of his chosen profession and said, “Oh wow, I am actually doing quite well, aren’t I?” demonstrating the positive impact this has on pupils' self-worth and confidence. The focus will be consistency and ensuring the initiatives are embedded throughout our service.
