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We are an alternative provision school based in Barking and Dagenham, east London. We provide full-time education and support from Years 7 to 11 (reception to Year 11 via our Access to Education Service - formerly the Home Tuition Service) for 11- to 16-year-olds who have had difficulties with their learning and behaviour in mainstream school. Some students are with us for a few months, others throughout their secondary schooling. At Mayesbrook Park School, we aim to give all our students the necessary skills to move forward successfully into the next phase of their lives, be that reintegration into mainstream school, further education or employment. Through our balanced curriculum, personalised support, and enrichment activities, we encourage students to engage with their studies. Through our team of skilled teachers and learning support staff, we help reduce their barriers to learning. And through our high expectations, we challenge our students to succeed. Skills Builder allows us to focus our students on a specific skillset and support them to actually apply their essential skills.
Overall impact
We feel that our initial journey toward the Gold Award was focused on the primary implementation of the programme. This time round it has become fully embedded within every aspect of our school life; from detentions to rewards to reintegration to mainstream.
Keep it simple
We have replaced our old reward monitoring system with using the specific Skills Builder categories for the tickets. If anyone gets all eight, they are then put into an additional draw. Each member of SLT also has their own area of responsibility from the eight essential skills and they all hold their own keyring which is on display on their school keys. We have also addressed a missing point within our OAA trips, where when an essential skill is relevant we do additional work around it linking both real life experiences to that of school and Skills Builder.
Start early, keep going
The Skills Builder programme is accessed by all year groups and all classes have regular, planned opportunities for the learning and practising of the key skills. This happens consistently across the school, and it's regularly monitored by the Skills Builder Leaders and wider members of the Senior Leadership Team. All staff have access to resources and are involved in drop down days, but we have two dedicated slots per week for us to work on essential skills with our tutor groups - we change the essential skill focus half termly.
Measure it
We have used a variety of techniques to measure progress in the skills, including providing the ladders from the Skills Builder Framework in every classroom. Staff were provided with individual tickets representing each of the key skills, however this has now been migrated onto SIMs - which staff give to the students when they were demonstrating that they have achieved a particular step. Students were then responsible for ensuring the ticket goes to the safe space for counting and then we tally them up and the tickets are pulled at the end of half term in a raffle draw.The raffle draw remains but has been bought into the 21st century now! We also use the Skills Builder Hub as a way of measuring progress against the eight essential skills, so we can pitch teaching at the right level for groups of learners.
Focus tightly
Students have dedicated Skills Builder slots weekly in order to achieve progress within the essential skills. This repeated format with dedicated skills for specific subjects has really changed the way in which students are now able to focus solely on the skills and are repeating the format enough to be able to recognise and now apply the skills. Additionally, applying the skills to my OAA trips that has really been powerful and is something that is going to be applied to the whole school.
Keep practising
Following on from focus tightly, the students then go on a weekly reward trip which reflects the eight essential skills. This allows them to fully apply their skills to external experiences as well as seeing what it is like to be taught by someone else - especially given the nature of our students in alternative provision, who are not used to being in larger settings. Students practice listening and following instructions from others who they may not be confident with. Students also have the opportunity to practise their essential skills in wider curriculum areas, as subject teachers provide links to the skills within their lessons.
Bring it to life
We bring it to life with a combination of everything that we do. By having Skills Builder quite literally embedded in every single lesson, it has allowed each student to fully recognise the benefits and essential skill terminology, widen their own vocabulary and apply the skills in many aspects of their everyday life. Staff who lead on work experience ensure that the skills are embedded into placements, with preparation and reflection. We have also taken part in careers insight weeks with Skills Builder, where students have been able to speak to professionals about how they use their skills in the workplace. The skills are also fully embedded into our trips and extra-curricular activities, which has given them a structure and focus, whilst allowing students to apply their skills in lots of different scenarios.
What's next
We want to build on our success! This model is going to be applied to two of our other school sites. I have recently introduced it so they have a good basis on which to follow! I also want to build on the success of using the skills to structure and deliver our trips, as this has had a huge impact this year.
