Our curriculum planning includes emphasis on communication, problem solving and adaptability—throughout core subjects and each key stage. In Maths and Reading, you won’t just see calculation and comprehension objectives; you’ll also see explicit skill-based targets front and centre. Teachers integrate reasoning, curiosity, and perseverance into standard lessons, ensuring these essential skills cascade through the wider curriculum. We also bring these skills to life with subject-specific PowerPoints featuring real-life role models. For example, when learning about measurement in Maths, pupils see a local construction engineer explaining how he uses precision and teamwork on-site. These role models help pupils make direct connections between classroom skills and future careers grounding ambitions in lived experience. Across all age groups from Nursery right through to Year 6 children take part in Project Weeks, national Challenge Days, and employer-led events. In EYFS, younger children explore careers through imaginative role‑play: ‘I am a vet today!’ They practice communication, empathy and confidence in realistic settings. As they grow, pupils engage with authors, musicians, engineers, scientists and more, deepening their understanding of how essential skills like problem-solving, creativity and leadership are used in every profession. This progression ensures every child experiences skills in context reinforcing learning over time and building both

At Millbrook, skill steps known as targets are built into every lesson objective, combining academic and personal development. For example, a writing lesson might say: By the end, you’ll demonstrate communication by using varied vocabulary to persuade your reader. Pupils self-assess letting the teacher know how they have met the target. Teachers then evaluate whether students have demonstrated and mastered each step. This alignment between planning and assessment ensures lessons are pitched correctly to support each child’s growth. The Skills Builder Hub helps teachers ensure lessons are pitched at the right developmental level for the children and enables leaders to monitor how the children are progressing through their skills based learning.

Teachers start lessons by naming the skill focus, using the Skills Builder Hub to source relevant support materials such as Skill Stories and skills mascots. These ensure clarity and engagement. During plenaries, pupils are invited to reflect, based on the 8 essential skills. These routines build strong metacognitive awareness of essential skills. Each Key Stage is paired with a dedicated Skills Champion from our Senior Leadership Team—responsible for monitoring focus, coaching colleagues, and ensuring high expectations. This model supports consistency and a strong focus on quality: no matter the year group, pupils experience equally robust skill development opportunities. This helps us to sustain high-quality, measurable practice across the whole school.

While subject leaders map out which core skills are relevant to key topics, teachers take responsibility for delivering lessons that include a skill-step aligned to their lesson objective. This can be seen explicitly in our Maths skills progression document. As a Read Write Inc. model school, talking and listening skills are embedded daily. Visual prompts, paired discussions, and sentence stems support pupils in articulating ideas, building fluency and confidence in oral communication. We further enrich skill development by inviting external professionals to lead clubs and workshops. In coding sessions, ICT experts introduce logical problem-solving and perseverance; choir and ukulele bring confidence, self-expression and team awareness, PE coaches develop resilience and teamwork and DT specialists teach cooking skills while linking to planning and nutrition. Our Dojo Shop brings financial literacy to life: pupils earn rewards, make spending decisions, budget and manage virtual money, learning valuable numeracy and life-ready decision-making. This model ensures pupils both practise and apply essential skills regularly, in a variety of meaningful contexts blending academic and practical learning with purposeful. Our financial education programme enables our pupils to see how being financially capable in todays society is vital. Links with National banks and online programmes helps us to ensure pupils are given opportunities to aim and lead their own learning.

Our pupils apply their skills purposefully across a variety of experiences. Through our Careers Fair, Project Week, and regular employer visits, children understand how essential skills connect to the real world. Roles like School Councillor and Prefect give pupils space to demonstrate leadership, teamwork, and responsibility. We have introduced Financial Days, which immerse pupils in money management scenarios like shop role-play, budgeting, and enterprise. These sessions build resilience, decision-making, and forward planning—crucial for future success. To give the eight essential skills greater meaning, we have created school mascots, each representing a key skill. Designed by the children, these mascots are used in lessons, assemblies, and displays, bringing the language of skills to life in a fun and accessible way. We have also written bespoke social stories to support pupils particularly those with additional needs in understanding and applying the skills through relatable, real-life scenarios. These resources have become an important part of our inclusive approach. At the heart of it all is our pupil-led Skills Hub a space where children who aspire to lead support others in developing their essential skills. They help plan events, lead assemblies, and champion the vision. The Skills Hub reinforces that at Millbrook, pupils are not just participants they are leaders of change.