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Lansbury Bridge School is a large special school located in St Helens, Merseyside, supporting pupils aged 4 to 14. We provide specialist education for learners with complex special educational needs, including moderate, severe, and profound learning difficulties, physical disabilities, and Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Guided by our whole-school motto, "Learn, Believe & Shine," our vision is centered around offering personalised, meaningful, and purposeful learning experiences that enable every pupil to thrive and reach their full potential for adult life.
We chose to partner with Skills Builder because developing communication, independence, and personal progress is at the heart of our individual education plans. For our learners, academic milestones are deeply intertwined with essential life skills. The Universal Framework provides a structured, progressive, and accessible breakdown of core skills which complements our multidisciplinary approach and our pupils' individualised targets.
By engaging with the Accelerator, we aim to embed a universal language of skills that transitions seamlessly from early childhood through to preparation for adulthood. This structured framework allows our staff to measure, track, and celebrate incremental progress in a tangible way. Ultimately, we wanted to build a cohesive strategy that empowers our pupils with the toolkit they need to confidently express their needs, foster self-belief, navigate the wider world, and shine brightly in school and beyond.
Overall impact
The Accelerator programme has provided a clear, structured pathway to support and celebrate our learners’ personal growth. For teachers, it has given them a consistent model to track progress and target their teaching to individual needs. For our students, they have gained a concrete language to understand their own strengths, manage relationships more effectively, and approach learning with increased resilience. Significantly and most importantly, these skills are supporting and empowering our learners to build their independence.
A highlight this year has been extending the approach to our KS2 classes through project-based learning, forming a brilliant foundation from which to build next year.
Keep it simple
To build whole-school awareness, Lansbury Bridge has integrated the language of the Universal Framework into daily practice, staff development, and student recognition. We have explicitly shown we value these skills by embedding them into our formal teacher lesson observation proformas, ensuring explicit skill instruction is a core expectation of daily teaching. For staff, expertise is continuously supported through targeted CPD, and skill development remains a standing agenda item in weekly updates and emails. To keep the framework visible for our learners, "Skill Focus Posters" are displayed on classroom doors, clearly highlighting the current skill in the spotlight. Finally, achievements across CEIAG are celebrated at the end of the year during our class Summer Assemblies, where learners' hard work in developing their essential skills is formally recognised and rewarded alongside academic and personal achievements. By connecting staff expectations, daily visual reminders, and celebratory milestones, the essential skills are becoming a natural feature of school life.
Start early, keep going
To ensure learners of all ages have regular opportunities to build their essential skills, Lansbury Bridge delivers a structured approach tailored across Key Stages 2 and 3. For our Key Stage 3 (Pathway 4) learners, the Universal Framework is explicitly taught through weekly, discrete lessons embedded within their dedicated Careers Sessions. For other learners across the school, including Key Stage 2, skill development is woven into hands-on enrichment, enterprise initiatives, and project-based learning activities. This blend of explicit instruction and real-world application ensures that all students, regardless of their educational stage, have consistent touchpoints to practise and strengthen their essential skills as they progress through the school.
Measure it
To track and understand our students' essential skills progression, Lansbury Bridge uses daily classroom formative assessment, as well as integrating the Skills Builder Passport into our Evidence for Learning (EfL) assessment platform. This allows staff to dynamically update and track live learner evidence in skill development. These insights help our staff to tailor daily teaching to individualised needs.
Furthermore, learners in Pathway 4 use a Skills Transition Passport to capture progress and support continuity of skill development as they transition to their KS4 setting.
Focus tightly
At Lansbury Bridge, a majority of learners benefit from regular direct instruction, with timetables explicitly structured to reflect dedicated skills teaching. Across Key Stage 3, Pathway 4 learners receive explicit skill instruction during their weekly Careers Sessions. In Key Stage 2, staff incorporate targeted skill teaching directly into their daily provision. To support this, teachers use immersive projects, like Ready Teddy Go. By embedding the framework into these project-based experiences, we ensure our primary learners receive the direct instruction needed to master specific skill steps in an accessible, hands-on way.
Keep practising
At Lansbury Bridge, students are given regular opportunities to practise their essential skills by embedding the framework across lessons and enrichment activities. To facilitate cross-curricular practice, the essential skills have been incorporated directly into key curriculum areas, including Maths and Science, allowing learners to apply their skills to real-world academic tasks.
Students practise and reinforce their skills through their enrichment schedule. The school hosts three dedicated Enrichment Mornings each week, where the essential skills are highly visible. A key highlight of this provision is the Sports Leaders Course, which provides a hands-on, practical environment for learners to actively demonstrate and master skills like Collaboration and Communication.
Bring it to life
To help students connect their essential skills to wider life, Lansbury Bridge provides a host of rich, inclusive opportunities rooted in real-life challenges and employer engagement. Learners apply their skills during experiences like our Christmas Enterprise Week and Dragon's Den competitions.
We also bring the world of work directly to our students through virtual industry workshops, including Careers Insight sessions. This exposure is strengthened by powerful community partnerships. Everton FC regularly delivers on-site enrichment opportunities, which will expand next year into workplace visits alongside planned trips to Novotel to help students explore diverse job roles firsthand.
Next year, for our Year 9 learners who take part in in-house Work Experience, we will use WEX Reflection Passports. This will allow students to track, evaluate, and see the value of their essential skills in the employment context, ensuring they understand how their classroom learning supports their transition toward adult life.
What's next
Looking ahead to next year, we plan to align all curriculum mapping documents with the essential skills to ensure a fully integrated framework. A primary focus will be driving consistency of delivery across Key Stage 2 and establishing firmer links with our partner school to support effective transition.
