All year groups and classes have regular, planned opportunities to learn, develop and practise essential skills. Teachers are encouraged to use resources from the Skills Builder Hub, including the Skills Builder Framework steps and supporting materials, within their lessons to explicitly develop students’ skills alongside subject knowledge. Form tutors also use these resources during Aspire AM sessions, providing further opportunities for students to reflect on and practise key skills. Staff training has encouraged colleagues to work collaboratively within subject teams and share ideas across departments, ensuring that everyone understands how essential skills can be developed within their own curriculum area. All subjects have embedded references to essential skills within their curriculum intent statements and schemes of learning, demonstrating that skills development is an integral part of curriculum planning rather than an additional activity. To create a consistent whole-school identity around skills, we have incorporated the Skills Builder icons across many aspects of Academy life. Careers Weeks within each subject area include a focus on relevant skills, with the associated skill icons also used in communications shared with parents to reinforce the importance of skills beyond the classroom. Students, staff and visitors see regular reminders of the value of essential skills through large displays around the Academy, which highlight their importance in preparing young people for future success. In addition, the Aspire Theme of the Week provides a planned whole-school focus on one particular skill each week, creating regular opportunities for discussion, reflection and application.

At the start of our journey, we explored a range of approaches to measure students’ progress in essential skills. Students were provided with Skills Builder Framework ladders in their planners, ensuring they had regular access to the steps and expectations for each skill. Staff were also provided with bespoke stickers, created by the Academy, which could be used to recognise when students had demonstrated achievement of a particular step. Following a period of trialling different approaches, we identified that the most effective method was to use essential skills as part of our rewards system. This approach allows us to recognise where students are successfully demonstrating skills, monitor patterns across the Academy and identify areas for further development. For example, analysis of the data highlighted that Leadership was an area requiring greater focus. As a result, we introduced additional opportunities and emphasis on developing this skill across school life. We have also introduced a new curriculum subject, ‘Achieve’, designed to support students in becoming self-regulated learners through a range of project-based activities. These lessons place significant emphasis on developing essential skills, with students regularly reflecting on how they have applied and improved these skills throughout their learning. Students have also begun recording their skills development through the Unifrog platform, creating a personal record of when they have demonstrated particular skills and their level of achievement. This provides students with greater ownership of their development and helps them recognise the progress they are making in preparing for future pathways.

All teaching staff have access to Skills Builder icons and step descriptors, which are incorporated into lesson resources to support explicit teaching of the skills. Every lesson includes a ‘Go Further’ objective linked to essential skills. This is a whole-school non-negotiable and forms part of our teaching and learning policy. As a result, students encounter and practise essential skills in every lesson they attend. With approximately 29 lessons per week, students repeatedly hear a common language around skills and are supported to develop them in a wide range of contexts. To reinforce this message, we have made the skills highly visible across the school through large displays highlighting each skill and its importance. Many teachers have also created classroom displays, including large skill icons that are regularly referenced during lessons. Our Aspire AM programme provides further opportunities to discuss, practise and reflect on essential skills. In addition, our Achieve curriculum places the development of self-regulated learners at its centre, with transferable skills embedded throughout project-based learning activities. Students are explicitly taught how to demonstrate and apply these skills effectively. We also introduce the Skills Builder approach during Year 6 transition, with new students receiving a Skills Builder induction before joining Southmoor. This ensures that students begin secondary school with a clear understanding of the language and expectations surrounding essential skills.

We are committed to embedding essential skills across every aspect of Academy life. Each curriculum area delivers its own annual Careers Week, with a focus on the essential skills that are most relevant to the subject. Information is shared with parents throughout the year, and our school website provides resources to help families understand and support the development of these skills at home. Essential skills are also integrated into our extensive extra-curricular programme, enabling students to develop and apply them in a wide range of contexts beyond the classroom. Through employer encounters and workplace visits, students see first-hand how essential skills are valued in employment, helping them make meaningful connections between their learning in school and future careers. For example, our Year 12 students take part in an annual visit to the PwC offices in Newcastle, where the programme is explicitly designed around the development and application of essential skills. Experiences such as these reinforce the importance of transferable skills in professional environments and help students understand that these skills are vital for success beyond education. Our commitment begins before students join the Academy. As part of our Year 6 transition programme, pupils receive an introduction to the Skills Builder approach, ensuring they are familiar with the language and expectations before starting secondary school. The Skills Leader monitors the quality and consistency of skills development through lesson observations, book scrutiny, learning walks and pupil voice. This evidence informs ongoing evaluation and helps ensure that essential skills remain embedded consistently across teaching, learning and the wider life of the Academy.

Beyond the curriculum, students have many opportunities to develop and apply essential skills in authentic, real-world contexts. We have redesigned our Work Experience Journal so that students reflect on how they have demonstrated the essential skills during workplace visits, recording specific examples that they can later use in applications, interviews and personal statements. Essential skills are also a central focus of our Year 10 and Year 12 Mock Interview programmes. Visiting employers are encouraged to ask students to provide examples of how they have demonstrated the skills. Before beginning our Skills Builder journey, many students found it difficult to articulate these experiences. Now, students are far more confident in explaining how they have developed and applied essential skills in a range of settings. Students regularly demonstrate these skills when working with external organisations through employer encounters, enrichment activities and workplace experiences. They apply skills such as speaking, listening, teamwork and problem solving in meaningful situations, reinforcing the relevance of classroom learning. Each year, our Year 8 students take part in the Skills Builder Challenge Day during Aspire lessons, where they work collaboratively to develop enterprise skills through creating and pitching a business idea. We are also fortunate to work with a wide range of employers and alumni who consistently reinforce the value of essential skills. For example, a Southmoor alumnus who is now the CEO of a local company and Chancellor of the University of Sunderland regularly speaks to students about the importance of transferable skills, emphasising that they are often just as important as academic qualifications. These authentic messages reinforce our own values and help students understand why developing essential skills is fundamental to their future success.