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.
We have been working with Skills Builder for two years now, after hearing about the partnership through one of the schools in our Trust, Kingsbury Green Academy. We were keen to embed essential skills into our careers provision to prepare our students for future success.
Overall impact
The programme has been really effective in creating a shared language for staff and students to talk about their essential skills. It has been great to hear such positive feedback from staff, who are really bought in to the programme and are keen to embed essential skills into everything they do, rather than it simply being a 'bolt-on'. By embedding essential skills into all our careers events, we have helped students to see the importance of these skills for their future success.
Keep it simple
We have built a common language to talk about the skills through assemblies, displays and rewarding students who demonstrate the skills. Each term, each year group focuses on a particular skill. Skills have formed part of our staff CPD programme this year, are explicitly referred to in our careers strategy and throughout our work experience challenge days and other careers events.
Start early, keep going
Last year, we ran a small pilot with Year 7 students and some tutor groups from Year 8 and Year 9. This year we have successfully rolled out to the whole of Key Stage 3, with all students in Years 7-9 receiving regular focused teaching of the essential skills.
Measure it
We have been using the Hub assessment tool to monitor student progress in the skills and identify the correct starting points for each tutor group. Tutors update their assessments in year team meetings and we use this data to identify our next focus areas. Next year, we are really keen to tighten up our assessment routines to ensure this is happening regularly.
Focus tightly
Focused teaching has been a huge success at Lawn Manor: our staff have used almost 200 resources on Skills Builder Hub this year! Every student in Key Stage 3 benefits from a fortnightly Skills Builder session, which is delivered in our careers slot. We have had really positive feedback from staff and students on these resources.
Keep practising
In the Spring term, our Education Associate delivered some training on 'quick wins' to link essential skills to the wider curriculum. We had really positive feedback on the session, with more staff regularly referencing the skills through praise and rewards, and even embedding them into learning resources. The English department has taken the lead in embedding the essential skills into their learning resources, for example including skill objectives on lesson slides. We have started to embed essential skills into some of our sports enrichment activities, with PE teachers handing out Teamwork certificates to students demonstrating this skill.
Bring it to life
The essential skills run through every part of our careers programme. Our regular Employer Challenge Days are launched with an introduction to essential skills, and guest speakers from the Department for Transport have discussed how they use essential skills in their roles. In Summer 2 we ran a really successful Challenge Day for our Year 7 students, who enjoyed the opportunity to apply their essential skills to create their own businesses.
What's next
Next year we are keen to build on our successes on the Accelerator+ programme. In particular, we would like to refine our assessment processes, introduce more awards for essential skills and embed skills further into the written curriculum.
