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Spalding St Paul’s School is a slightly smaller-than-average-sized primary school for both boys and girls aged between 3 and 11.
We are a one-form entry school (30 children per year group) and can take up to 210 children. We also have a Pre-School provision attached. We take pupils into our Pre-School who are eligible for the 15hrs and 30hrs funding
Spalding St Paul’s Primary school, falls into South Holland District Council and is ranked 5,487 out of 32,844 of the most deprived nationally. This is amongst the 20% most deprived neighbourhoods in the country (Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI))
At Spalding St Paul’s Primary school, because of our school context, everything that we do is centred on the whole child. We ensure our children are delivered a broad and balanced curriculum, and we recognise the importance of providing our pupils with all of the skills they need to lead successful lives now and that are need to succeed in life beyond school.
Our school Value of ‘Learning for Life’ is centred around this.
This quickly became a driving force for us, as we developed our school values to reflect the eight essential skills: we aim to be Confident Communicators (Speaking and Listening), Resilient Researchers (Creativity and Problem Solving), Aspirational Ambassadors (Aiming High and Staying Positive) and Collaborative Citizens (Teamwork and Leadership), Aspirational Citizens () and Resilient Learners
We began our Skills Builder Journey in September 2024. We were keen to get involved with the programme because we wanted to equip our children with the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their goals in life, throughout their school journeys as well as when they enter their working lives. We felt that the Skills Builder Programme would integrate well into our existing curriculum and support our staff with ways in which to embed the essential skills into all aspects of pupils learning, across the whole school.
Overall impact
The Skills builder programme underpins all our school values which has given us a sense of purpose. These skills can then be taught alongside curriculum areas to give the children life long skills. The accelerated programme has enabled us to develop how we teach these skills and how the children can develop them as they progress through the school. We have used the hub resources to support the teaching of the skills from Pre-school up to Year 6.
A particular highlight is seeing how the children use their skills in everyday life and apply it to their work everyday, not just when we do a special event.
Keep it simple
All classrooms have the essential skills / our School values on display so that they can always be referred to.
We have all the Skills Builders displayed in our school hall with relevant information attached to them.
The essential skills are embedded within our curriculum plans across the school. Our medium-term planning indicates which skills are being focussed on each half term. This is then added to weekly planning with a focus the skill and skill level.
The skills used in lessons are included on the learning objectives, which provides the children with a visual reminder of the skills they are using.
Our dojo points reward system is linked to the 8 essential skills, so that children are rewarded points when they are demonstrating good use of a particular skill. Children get to spend their DOJO rewards at the end of each term.
Each assembly focus on one of the core values and each week in Celebration Assembly a child is rewarded for showing that value for that term.
Start early, keep going
At Spalding St Paul’s Primary School, our essential skill teaching includes all of our pupils, from Early Years right through to Year 6. This is done via mini lessons in the classroom, assemblies as a whole school and teacher assessments which inform the next steps. Reference to the skills is part of our school culture and children of all ages can discuss the skills they are using in their tasks, using the skill specific vocabulary we teach and model.
Measure it
Teachers assess termly their pupils on the eight essential skills.
We track progress over time using the Hub. We assess the success we see in all areas of the curriculum e.g. PE lessons-working on group tasks. We discuss with the children what skills they are using and how they need to improve.
Focus tightly
Time is prioritised in our curriculum to explicitly teach essential skills using resources from the Hub, which is supported during assemblies too.
All curriculum documents contain the focus skill for each lesson, meaning that every lesson has a skills focus alongside the learning intention. Skills are also referred to in celebration assemblies, including the weekly Pupil of the Week through the Headteacher Award.
Keep practising
The whole curriculum incorporates the eight essential skills and with a skill included in every lesson, including Core and Foundation subjects, the children have regular opportunities to practise their essential skills across the wider curriculum and in different subject areas.
The skills are displayed on teaching slides with a focus on what level they are and what level they are working too.
The Essential Skills are used daily for positive rewards via our DOJO system.
All extra-curricular activities provide opportunities for the children to practise their essential skills.
The school have used trips, projects and challenge days, as well as developing the essential skills in off timetable days including world book day, Spots Day…..
Bring it to life
Off-timetable days offer amazing opportunities such as World Book Day, Challenge Days and Sports Days; the essential skills are linked tightly to these opportunities, so children discuss and reflect on their achievements positively using these key skills.
Special visitors have been invited into school talk about their careers and how the essential skills are used. We have had a police, firefighters, Shine Mental Health
The weekly newsletter has the link to our values
The learning icons are in the weekly homework and the activities encourage the skills.
The children are encouraged to share their activities outside of school and these are shared in an assembly linked to the essential skills.
Some children visited a local care home when all the skills are used.
Children are rewarded for demonstrating their skills daily and weekly.
What's next
We would like to have more explicit teaching of the skills builder to link to our PHSE curriculum and have more curriculum enrichment days linked to skills builder.
