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King's Lander Primary Academy is a primary school in Liverpool. A key priority for our school is ensuring that all children have the skills they need to meet their full potential, which is why we work with Skills Builder.
Overall impact
The children really enjoy the skill builder challenge days and really love getting involved and putting their skills into action. We've been able to see how motivating and exciting learning about and using the skills are for the children to the extent that all staff and pupils talk about their skills all the time. Having clear points throughout the year where we focus on building the essential skills and completing assessments ensure that teachers get a really clear insight into which skills the pupils need to develop further.
Keep it simple
Our approach has been to embed the Challenge Days into the school events throughout the academic year. We ensure that all pupils access, enjoy and develop their essential skills during three Challenge Days that take place every term. The pupils really look forward to these days and get so much from them! We use assemblies throughout the year to promote the language and develop pupil understanding of why it is important to build their essential skills. We celebrate skill achievement through rewards and house points and share updates on the school's social media for families to see the work their children have been doing to develop their skills during the Challenge Days. We regularly run staff training to support teachers to run the skills sessions and these are now a big part of our school life. Every classroom has the skill icons displayed and all staff and pupils are familiar with the skills. The pupils recognise the icons and are able to talk about each skill they are using, and the teachers refer to the skills and displays throughout lessons across the academic year. The language of the Universal Framework is fully embedded into the school life, with everyone familiar with and discussing the skills all the time.
Start early, keep going
All pupils from Nursery through to Year 6 have opportunities to build their essential skills during the Challenge Days throughout the year. All classes have the skills icons on display throughout the year and these are referred to across the different learning contexts in each key stage. The families also receive updates within the Trust's newsletter about Skills Builder.
Measure it
We baseline the skills for each class in the school from Nursery right through to Year 6 before each Challenge Day, to ensure that there are three clear assessment points throughout the year. The skills are re-assessed at the end of each term the skills with time allocated to teachers for completing this. Teachers use this data to plan opportunities for developing skills as needed, which may include interventions. Teachers have weekly drop in days with families and this is an opportunity for teachers to discuss with parents any concerns which could include skill development and strategies that might support developing those skills.
Focus tightly
All pupils from Nursery through to Year 6 have regular opportunities to build their essential skills through the Challenge Day sessions. As the children are so familiar with the skills and regularly use the language throughout the year, the Challenge Days offer opportunities to more directly teach the skills. The pupils are baselined and re-assessed to ensure that the skills are pitched at the right level for their learning needs.
Keep practising
The language of the skills is fully embedded and staff know to refer to the skills throughout wider curriculum lessons, and will signpost what skill is being discussed or practised using the displays and visuals. We are also building the skills and skill steps into wider curriculum lessons through the slide planning templates, by showing a starter slide to recap the focus skill and skill step and then showing a reflection slide to discuss progress against the skill and skill step. House points are rewarded to students for demonstrating the skills throughout the school day and this helps to reinforce the value of building the skills. The language of the skills is fully embedded within our school, so that during extra-curricula activities such as football and netball the staff know to reference Teamwork skills.
Bring it to life
All learners have access to three Challenge Days per year, where they can develop and apply their skills. We have found that the skills work really well to reinforce the Oracy framework. We have also run Drama workshops from Year 1 to Year 6 where the pupils applied their Speaking, Listening and Teamwork skills. We have held Recycling workshops from Year 1 to Year 6 where the pupils used their Problem Solving and Creativity skills. During our Careers Day professionals came into the school to discuss their career and answer questions the pupil had, for example an Architect came in to talk to Year 2 about their job and the children were able to listen and ask questions. Finally, Year 6 were supported to apply and practise their Speaking and Listening skills during a Spanish exchange trip.
What's next
We want to continue to embed our Gold Award by embedding the direct teaching of the skills into the curriculum further through the slide planning and ensure that is really consistent across year groups and capture this within our Skills Builder Policy.
