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We strongly believe that our young people deserve the best opportunities in life and education, and we sit in the unique position to be able to offer this. Providing an inclusive, trauma-informed education for all our young people underpins the values we hold here at Futures. Essential skills fit perfectly into this, as they make sure that our young people are happy, safe and that they are achieving success in all areas of their journey with us.
Overall impact
This integrated approach, combining hands-on enterprise projects with tools like the Careers Explorer and career-focused courses, truly helps students connect their developing essential skills to their own future paths, making their career aspirations feel much clearer and more achievable.
Keep it simple
Essential skills are deeply embedded across the school's curriculum, documentation, and physical environment, with consistent language and visual cues used in classrooms, staff rooms, and hallways. All staff receive training and consistently use this language daily, significantly enhancing students' understanding and appreciation of these skills. Individual student successes are regularly celebrated and linked to specific essential skills through rewards and reflection.
Start early, keep going
This has been rolled out with all the staff and students at Educates U Futures and is part of the onboarding process for new staff/students.
Measure it
At the beginning of the year, students were temporarily assessed using printed Expanded Framework passports for self-reflection. Now, all students are regularly assessed each term using a RAG-rated Expanded Framework spreadsheet, following an "assess, plan, review, and adapt" ethos to aid future planning. Additionally, long-term learners are now utilising Benchmark to spark discussions and provide a comparative perspective to teacher assessments, which has also helped build familiarity with essential skills through its videos. Finally, essential skills are incorporated into every student's progress overview to celebrate achievements and plan next steps.
Focus tightly
Skills Builder is integrated into "PGP and essential skills," ensuring dedicated time for personal, social, and career development. Initially, Hub resources like workshops were taught in 20-minute sessions, separate from enterprise time. Now, skill-specific teaching is delivered through one-to-one guided learning, adapting content to the audience, and supported by the use of skills diaries during planned sessions. Explicit teaching time for essential skills, typically 5-10 minutes, is also built into existing lessons as part of everyday practice, reflecting learner needs.
Keep practising
Essential skills are comprehensively referenced throughout the curriculum, including subjects like English, Maths, Hair and Beauty, and Enterprise. Visual cues such as posters and passports serve as reminders and allow learners to exemplify their use of these skills across both curriculum and wider school activities. Thematic planning explicitly incorporates essential skills, with all curriculum documents mapped accordingly, guiding staff while remaining flexible to student needs. Additionally, dedicated 5-10 minute slots for explicit skill teaching are now a regular part of existing lessons, and extra-curricular activities also consistently use the language of essential skills.
Bring it to life
Students engage in a termly enterprise project where they create businesses based on different themes, naturally and explicitly building essential skills through assigned roles, such as the upcoming summer plant sale. They also utilise the Careers Explorer tool to identify essential skills required for various jobs, and clear links to these skills are made through career-focused courses.
What's next
To continue building essential skills with everyone at our provision.
