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 are a small rural village school, and like many schools, we’ve seen the lasting impact that COVID-19 has had on our children—particularly in terms of their resilience, confidence, and ability to work collaboratively. Many of our pupils found it harder to bounce back from challenges and needed more support in developing essential life skills such as speaking, teamwork and problem solving.
As a small school with limited resources, we were looking for a simple, structured way to develop and embed these skills consistently across all year groups. When we were introduced to the Skills Builder Accelerator, it felt like exactly what we needed. It was clear, easy to follow, and gave us a shared language for teaching essential skills in a way that made sense to both staff and pupils.
Being offered the programme for free was a huge bonus for us—it meant we could access high-quality training and resources without putting pressure on our budget. It’s helped us take a more intentional approach to skills education and has given our children the opportunity to rebuild their confidence and resilience in a supported, structured way.
Overall impact
The Skills Builder Accelerator programme has had a positive impact across our school community. For teachers, it has provided a clear, easy-to-use framework that supports consistent teaching and assessment of essential skills, boosting confidence and collaboration across year groups. Students have shown noticeable progress in areas like communication, resilience, and teamwork, becoming more aware of their own learning journeys.
A particular highlight has been the introduction of the Skills Builder Bear—a motivational tool where each class works as a team to earn points linked to their current step on the Hub’s dashboard. This friendly competition encourages teamwork and keeps essential skills front of mind. Each term, the class with the most points is celebrated in our whole-school assembly, which builds excitement and reinforces the value of these skills.
Beyond the classroom, parents and visitors have become more engaged with the skills focus, helping to create a shared language and community-wide commitment. Overall, the Accelerator programme has helped us embed essential skills deeply into school life, making a real difference to our children’s confidence and readiness for the future.
Keep it simple
At St Helen's Primary School, developing essential skills is now embedded in our planning and whole-school approach. We have integrated the Skills Builder framework into key policies and curriculum planning, ensuring that the language of essential skills is consistent and used across subjects and year groups.
Assemblies regularly focus on a specific essential skill, helping children understand its importance and how it applies to their learning and life beyond school. We also celebrate pupil achievements in these skills during weekly celebrations, reinforcing their value. All staff consistently recognise and reward effort and progress in essential skills, using the shared language from the framework.
Classrooms feature visual reminders—Skills Builder posters and displays—which help keep the skills front of mind and support pupil reflection. Parents are also involved in the process; during parents’ evenings, we highlight which essential skills their child is developing well and which ones need more focus. We also signpost families to the Skills Builder HomeZone, so they can continue building these skills together at home. This shared approach has created a strong, positive culture where essential skills are valued and developed throughout our school community.
Start early, keep going
At our school, the development of essential skills begins right from the Early Years Foundation Stage and continues consistently through to Year 6. We believe that building these skills early sets a strong foundation for lifelong learning, confidence, and success.
Each year group has regular, planned opportunities to learn and practise the eight essential Skills Builder skills. These are embedded across the curriculum and clearly identified in teachers’ planning wherever relevant skill steps are being taught. This ensures progression and consistency, with each year building on the last.
Each class displays the specific step they are currently working on for each skill, making it easy for teachers to refer back to throughout the day. This helps reinforce the focus and ensures children understand exactly what they are developing and why.
Whether it’s problem-solving in maths, teamwork in PE, or listening in circle time, staff intentionally model and highlight the skills being used. As a result, children can clearly identify what skill they are working on and how to improve it. This structured approach ensures every child follows a clear Skills Builder journey from EYFS to Year 6.
Measure it
All our class teachers are set up on the Skills Builder Hub, which allows them to regularly assess and track their pupils’ progress in essential skills. Each term, teachers use formative assessment tools within the Hub to evaluate where their class is in relation to the specific skill steps.
These assessments help teachers identify which skills each child has mastered and which areas need further development. This ongoing insight enables teachers to prioritise their planning and tailor their teaching to meet the individual and group needs more effectively.
By reviewing the progress termly, teachers can celebrate improvements with their pupils and adjust their approach to ensure continued growth. This cycle of assessment, reflection, and targeted teaching has become an integral part of how we embed essential skills across all year groups, ensuring that each child’s Skills Builder journey is monitored and supported throughout the year.
Focus tightly
At our school, all teachers actively engage in focused and explicit teaching of essential skills, ensuring these are a clear part of their planning and timetables. Teaching is carefully pitched at the right level for each year group, allowing children to build on prior learning and develop their skills progressively.
We dedicate specific time each week to embed these skills across all subjects, making them a regular and intentional part of our curriculum. To support this, we hold fortnightly assemblies that focus on one essential skill at a time. During these assemblies, we highlight the importance of the skill and connect it to real-life examples, helping children understand how to apply it.
Each assembly also references the specific step that each class is working on, reinforcing the shared language and keeping the focus consistent across the school. This approach helps to create a strong, school-wide culture around essential skills, encouraging pupils to practise and improve regularly, both in the classroom and beyond.
Keep practising
All of our teachers provide regular opportunities for students to practise essential skills across the wider curriculum, ensuring these skills are developed in a variety of subject areas. Our planning explicitly references how and where essential skills can be embedded and practised throughout different topics and lessons.
Teachers consistently use the Skills Builder steps within their planning, making sure that the teaching of essential skills is purposeful and tailored to the level their class is working at. This clear integration helps pupils see how these skills connect across subjects, from problem-solving in maths to teamwork in group work or communication in English lessons.
In every classroom, displays show the current Skills Builder step the class is focusing on, which teachers frequently refer to during lessons. These visual reminders support both staff and students in keeping the essential skills front and centre of their learning, encouraging continuous practice and improvement across the curriculum.
Bring it to life
Our school actively provides opportunities for all students to apply essential skills through a variety of enriching experiences. Each year, we host a Science Week and Arts Week, which involve external speakers, project-based learning and collaborative activities that encourage teamwork, creativity, and problem-solving. We are also preparing for an upcoming Careers Week, during which the External Partner Skills Builder introduction is shared with all visitors. This ensures that anyone coming into school understands the Skills Builder framework and can connect their discussions and activities to the essential skills.
Our careers long-term plan includes skill-focused questions embedded across the curriculum, helping teachers to link essential skills to everyday learning. It also provides connections to volunteers, workplace visits, and trips, giving teachers a range of opportunities to enrich students’ experiences.
Additionally, all children from Year 1 upwards participate in external sporting events. These outings give pupils practical chances to develop skills like teamwork, communication, and resilience in real-world settings, reinforcing their learning beyond the classroom. This broad approach ensures essential skills are developed through diverse, meaningful experiences.
What's next
We will continue embedding essential skills across the curriculum and daily activities, using the Skills Builder Hub to track progress and celebrate achievements. Engaging parents and the community remains important to support this work.
Our main focus now is to increase opportunities for practising essential skills through extra-curricular activities. We aim for most, if not all, clubs and groups to include skill development explicitly. Staff will be supported to use the Skills Builder framework and consistent language during these activities.
This will give pupils more chances to build confidence, teamwork, and problem-solving skills beyond the classroom, preparing them for future challenges.
