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At Coppice Primary School, our vision is to develop children who are not only academically successful but also equipped with the essential skills, character and confidence to thrive throughout their lives. We recognise that future success depends on more than academic achievement alone. Children need to communicate effectively, solve problems, work collaboratively, demonstrate resilience and become confident, independent learners.
We chose to implement the Skills Builder Universal Framework because it provides a clear, evidence-informed approach to explicitly teaching these essential skills across our curriculum. It has given staff a shared language and consistent progression model, ensuring that essential skills are taught, practised and celebrated alongside subject knowledge rather than developed by chance.
Skills Builder is embedded across all curriculum areas, enabling children to apply essential skills in meaningful contexts while strengthening learning in subjects such as geography, history, science and design technology. A particular priority has been developing oracy, with increased opportunities for pupils to discuss, justify their thinking, collaborate and present their ideas confidently across the curriculum.
As a school committed to equity and inclusion, Skills Builder plays an important role in raising aspirations, particularly for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils. By explicitly teaching the skills valued in education, employment and life, we are helping every child to recognise their strengths, broaden their ambitions and believe in their future potential.
The framework has also strengthened our school culture, promoting greater resilience, independence, collaboration and positive attitudes towards learning. Skills Builder is now an integral part of our whole-school approach, supporting our curriculum, enriching personal development and ensuring that every child leaves Coppice prepared for the opportunities and challenges of the future.
Overall impact
The Accelerator Programme has had a significant impact on pupils, staff and the wider school community. It has provided us with a clear, consistent framework for explicitly teaching the essential skills, enabling staff to intentionally plan opportunities for pupils to develop and apply them across the curriculum. This has enriched learning by helping children understand not only what they are learning, but how the skills they are developing will support them in school and beyond.
One of the most noticeable impacts has been on pupils' confidence. Children are increasingly able to articulate the skills they are using, reflect on their strengths and explain how these will help them in future education, employment and everyday life. They are demonstrating greater resilience, collaboration and independence, alongside more positive attitudes towards learning.
The programme has also strengthened our curriculum by creating meaningful links between subjects and ensuring that essential skills are embedded rather than taught in isolation. Importantly, the shared language of the Universal Framework provides continuity beyond Key Stage 2, preparing pupils for a successful transition to secondary school and supporting lifelong learning.
A particular highlight has been seeing pupils confidently apply the essential skills in authentic experiences such as the Tenner Challenge, leadership opportunities, employer encounters and community projects. These experiences have raised aspirations, given learning greater purpose and strengthened connections between school, families and the wider community.
Keep it simple
At Coppice Primary School, we have embedded the language of the Skills Builder Universal Framework across school life to ensure pupils, staff and parents recognise and value the eight essential skills.
The skills are displayed in every classroom and support area, with icons and definitions providing a consistent visual reference. They are also linked to curriculum displays, helping pupils make connections between subject learning and essential skills. A dedicated Skills Builder display celebrates pupils demonstrating the skills through photographs, examples of learning and pupil voice.
The framework is reinforced through assemblies, where themes such as aspiration, resilience and leadership are regularly linked to the essential skills. Every Friday, each class nominates a pupil for a Leadership Award, celebrating those who have demonstrated outstanding leadership. Skills Builder language is also embedded within our Class Dojo reward system and included in one-page profiles for pupils with SEND.
Parents are engaged through weekly newsletters featuring Skills Builder icons and examples of the skills in action, alongside a dedicated page on our school website.
This whole-school approach was recognised during our recent Ofsted inspection, where inspectors noted pupils' use of essential skills. As a result, the Universal Framework is now embedded across teaching, rewards, assemblies and communication with families.
Start early, keep going
At Coppice Primary School, we have adopted a whole-school approach to developing the essential skills, ensuring that every pupil has regular, planned opportunities to build and apply them throughout their time with us. Following our initial launch, we built on the strong foundations established by our infant feeder school, providing continuity in the development of essential skills as pupils transition into Key Stage 2.
The Skills Builder Universal Framework has been embedded across all year groups, with teachers planning opportunities for pupils to explicitly learn, practise and reflect on the essential skills within lessons across the curriculum. This ensures that skills are developed progressively and consistently, regardless of age or starting point.
To further personalise this approach, every pupil has a one-page profile that highlights their strengths and development, including references to the essential skills. These profiles are shared with parents, helping families understand the skills their child is developing and providing a common language between home and school.
By embedding Skills Builder across every year group and involving parents through shared pupil profiles, we ensure that all children have continuous opportunities to develop the essential skills needed for success in education, employment and later life, meeting the needs of pupils at every stage of their learning journey.
Measure it
At Coppice Primary School, we use the Skills Builder Hub to assess and monitor pupils' progress in the essential skills. We began by establishing a baseline for Speaking and Listening across every class before reassessing pupils before Easter and again during the summer term. This consistent whole-school approach enables teachers to accurately track progress and identify next steps for individual pupils and classes.
Assessment information directly informs teaching and learning. Teachers use the outcomes to select appropriate resources and plan activities that target the next steps within the Universal Framework, ensuring pupils receive the right level of challenge and support. This has helped us make the explicit teaching of essential skills more purposeful and responsive to pupils' needs.
To provide a broader picture of each child, essential skills are also included within pupils' one-page profiles, which are shared with parents. This celebrates strengths, identifies areas for development and encourages meaningful conversations between school and home.
Alongside assessment data, we maintain an evidence portfolio containing photographs, examples of pupils' work and wider evidence of skills in action. This allows us to monitor implementation, celebrate impact and share progress with governors, ensuring that the development of essential skills remains a key whole-school priority.
Focus tightly
We identified time within the curriculum as a potential barrier. Staff meeting time was dedicated to reviewing class timetables and identifying where the Skills Builder Universal Framework could be explicitly taught within existing lessons. This whole-school planning ensured that every class had regular, planned opportunities to develop the essential skills while maintaining full curriculum coverage.
Each year group has dedicated weekly time to explicitly teach the essential skills, with teachers using the Skills Builder 16-step Framework to build on pupils' prior attainment and ensure clear progression. Teachers who assess the skills also deliver the sessions, allowing assessment outcomes to directly inform future teaching and next steps. Assemblies are also used to reinforce the essential skills and celebrate examples of pupils demonstrating them.
Pupils then apply these skills in meaningful learning experiences. During the Tenner Challenge, pupils used skills such as Planning, Problem Solving, Adapting and Leadership to develop and refine their business ideas. Skills Builder icons were embedded into workbooks, helping pupils identify the skills they were using, allocate team responsibilities and reflect on their development during midpoint reviews.
By allocating dedicated curriculum time and ensuring skills are explicitly taught, practised and reflected upon, we have embedded a progressive approach to developing essential skills across the whole school.
Keep practising
At Coppice Primary School, we ensure pupils have regular opportunities to apply and refine the essential skills in meaningful contexts across the curriculum and beyond. Rather than teaching the skills in isolation, staff use the Skills Builder Universal Framework as a lens through which learning is planned and delivered.
The essential skills are embedded across a range of subjects and projects. For example, during No Outsiders lessons, pupils drew upon their Speaking and Listening skills to discuss sensitive topics such as disability respectfully and confidently. During a STEM challenge, pupils worked collaboratively to design and build structures to protect an egg when dropped from a ladder, developing Problem Solving, Creativity, Teamwork and Aiming High.
Larger projects further strengthen the application of the skills. Year 6 pupils complete the Tenner Challenge, while Science Week, Sports Day and our Celebrating Local Communities project all provide purposeful opportunities to develop and reflect on the essential skills.
Staff consistently reference the Skills Builder language during lessons, assemblies, newsletters and social media, ensuring pupils recognise and transfer these skills across different subjects, experiences and real-life situations.
Bring it to life
Our personal development curriculum explicitly links the Skills Builder Universal Framework to future careers, with employers such as Jaguar Land Rover visiting the school to work alongside pupils on real projects, including creating a sensory room. These experiences enable children to see how the essential skills are used in the workplace.
Pupils also apply the skills through practical challenges. During the Tenner Challenge, pupils used skills such as Planning, Creativity, Problem Solving and Leadership to develop business ideas, while an engineering challenge required pupils to design structures to protect an egg dropped from a ladder.
Beyond the classroom, pupils develop the skills through leadership roles, residential visits and community projects. During the Blackwell Residential, pupils reflected on teamwork, resilience and leadership, while members of the School Council collaborated with pupils from other schools, presented to six School Councils and visited London to see leadership and democracy in action. Through our 'My Voice is My Power' initiative, pupils are encouraged to use their communication skills to influence change, including writing to their local MP.
These experiences help pupils recognise that the essential skills are transferable and prepare them for future success.
What's next
As we continue our Skills Builder journey, we are committed to embedding the essential skills even further across our curriculum by identifying additional opportunities for pupils to explicitly develop and apply them in meaningful contexts. We will continue to strengthen links between curriculum subjects, enrichment activities and real-life experiences, ensuring the Universal Framework remains central to teaching and learning.
We also plan to work collaboratively with other schools to share best practice, champion the Skills Builder approach and learn from others' experiences. By developing these partnerships, we hope to contribute to a wider network of schools committed to preparing young people with the essential skills they need to succeed in education, employment and life.
