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Our school is an inclusive church school guided by the vision of ‘living life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). We serve a diverse community, with a high proportion of vulnerable and disadvantaged children, as well as many children from overseas and those with English as an additional language. In addition, we have a significant number of children with SEND and social, emotional and mental health needs. As a result, we are deeply committed to ensuring that all children can succeed, not only academically, but more widely in developing the skills they need for life.
We deliver an enquiry-based curriculum, with a strong emphasis on values, global awareness, and spiritual development. However, we recognised the need to further strengthen how we explicitly teach and develop essential life skills, particularly for children who may struggle to demonstrate success through traditional academic measures.
We chose to engage with the Skills Builder Accelerator Programme because its framework aligns closely with our vision and existing curriculum approach. It provides a clear, structured way to teach and embed essential skills such as listening, speaking, teamwork, creativity, and resilience across all areas of learning. This is particularly important for our children, as these skills help to break down communication barriers, support access to the full curriculum, and enable success beyond data-driven outcomes.
We are especially keen to adopt an approach that would support children with additional needs in recognising and celebrating their achievements. The Skills Builder framework enables us to do this, ensuring that all children develop the tools they need to flourish both in school and in their future lives.
Overall impact
The Skills Builder Accelerator programme has had a significant and positive impact across our school community. For children, it has provided a clear and accessible framework for understanding and developing essential skills. We have seen increased confidence, particularly among children who find academic learning more challenging, as they are now able to recognise and celebrate their success in a wider range of areas. Children are increasingly able to articulate the skills they are using, and there is a growing sense of pride in their achievements.
For staff, the programme has brought greater consistency and clarity in how essential skills are taught and discussed. Through CPD, teachers are developing confidence in using the language of the Universal Framework and beginning to embed it more meaningfully across the curriculum. It has also strengthened our strategic approach, particularly in supporting children with SEND, by providing measurable and transferable skills that underpin learning and enabling them to demonstrate success.
For the wider community, including governors and parents, the programme has helped raise awareness of the importance of essential skills in preparing children for life beyond school. While parental engagement is still developing, opportunities such as project exit points and communication through newsletters are beginning to strengthen this link.
A particular highlight has been seeing children apply their skills in real-life contexts through enquiry-based learning and external partnerships, demonstrating teamwork, creativity, and leadership with confidence. Overall, the programme has supported us in bringing our vision of ‘living life in all its fullness’ to life in a practical and meaningful way.
Keep it simple
We have developed a robust plan for 'keeping it simple' to ensure a consistent and shared understanding across our school community.
The language of the Universal Framework is now fully embedded: skills are displayed in all classrooms and the main hall, referenced in curriculum rationale statements, and explicitly taught through weekly sessions for every class.
Assemblies, including class-led sessions, regularly highlight specific skills, and essential skills are a regular agenda item in staff meetings to enable staff to discuss their implementation in the wider curriculum.
We promote consistency by modelling and reinforcing the language across teaching, planning, and informal interactions, including playtimes when we find them useful to reference as part of our restorative conversation behaviour management approach.
While staff confidence continues to develop, all children are increasingly able to articulate and apply the skills.
Governors receive regular updates, and parents are informed through project-based ‘exit point’ events, although this remains an area for development.
We demonstrate that we value essential skills by celebrating them verbally in lessons, linking them to our school vision, and recognising pupil achievement through teacher assessment and child self-assessment. Our ongoing review of whole-school values will further align essential skills and British values.
Start early, keep going
We 'Start Early and Keep Going' by implementing a whole-school approach across all year groups.
Every pupil from Year 3 to Year 6 participates in a planned, weekly essential skills session, ensuring all learners have regular and explicit opportunities to build and practise these skills over time. These sessions are carefully sequenced using the Universal Framework, allowing skills to be revisited, developed, and strengthened as children progress through the school. They are integrated into our long term curriculum map and there is a focus skill for every curriculum project.
In addition to discrete lessons, teachers provide opportunities for learners to apply their skills across the wider curriculum, particularly through our enquiry-based approach. This helps children consolidate their learning in meaningful, real-life contexts and ensures that skill development is continuous rather than isolated.
As SENCO, I work closely with staff to ensure that all learners, including those with SEND, are able to access and succeed in developing these skills, with specific steps sometimes incorporated into individual personalised targets.
While parental engagement is still developing, we plan to create more opportunities to help raise awareness and reinforce the importance of essential skills beyond the classroom.
Measure it
We 'Measure I't by developing a consistent and manageable approach to assessing and tracking essential skills across the school. We have used the Skills Builder Hub assessment tool to establish clear baselines for all children, allowing us to identify strengths and next steps. As SENCO, I have worked with each class teacher to ensure a shared understanding of pupil starting points, creating a holistic picture of need and progress.
Assessment is ongoing, with regular opportunities for staff-led reassessment to demonstrate progress over time. For children with SEND, specific skill steps from the Universal Framework are incorporated into individual targets, making progress measurable and meaningful. Skill Passports are also used to support pupil reflection and encourage ownership of their development.
This approach ensures that assessment is not isolated but directly informs teaching and interventions. We are developing staff confidence so that all teachers can use formative assessment more consistently within their classrooms and LSAs in interventions.
By tracking and celebrating progress in essential skills, we ensure that success is visible for all learners, particularly those who may not always demonstrate achievement through traditional academic measures.
Focus tightly
We are proud to 'Teach Directly' by providing all children with regular, structured opportunities for lessons in essential skills. Each class has a timetabled weekly session, delivered using the Skills Builder Hub, where specific skills are explicitly taught in a clear and progressive way. These sessions are led by myself and a colleague, ensuring consistency and a high-quality approach across all year groups.
Lessons follow the Universal Framework, breaking skills down into manageable steps so that children can clearly understand and practise what success looks like. We focused initially on the skills of Listening and Speaking, with further skills introduced in a sequenced and purposeful way.
To support this teaching, we use a range of Skills Builder Hub resources; visual skill icons displayed in classrooms, stories and short lessons included. These help to provide a consistent approach.
Keep practising
We 'Keep Practising' by ensuring that children have regular, meaningful opportunities to apply their essential skills beyond discrete lessons. Our enquiry-based curriculum provides a strong foundation; each year group works on an ‘Essential Question’ that drives learning and explicitly links to key skills such as creativity, teamwork, and problem solving. Each essential question has a Skills Builder step linked to it, which children self-assess at the end of each unit.
Through these projects, children apply their skills in real and purposeful contexts. For example, learners have led fundraising events, organised charity stalls, and worked collaboratively on enterprise projects, allowing them to practise communication, leadership, and teamwork. We also provide wider enrichment opportunities through partnerships with organisations such as the Lions and Rotary Club, where children take part in challenges that require them to use and reflect on their skills in unfamiliar situations.
In the classroom, all staff are increasingly encouraged to reference and reinforce essential skills to build on the weekly taught sessions. This is still an area of development and ongoing support is planned to help staff embed this.
Bring it to life
The essential skills are 'Brought to Life' by ensuring children can see the relevance of essential skills beyond the classroom through meaningful, real-world experiences. Our enquiry-based curriculum provides regular opportunities for children to apply their skills in authentic contexts, linked to each year group’s ‘Essential Question’.
Children engage in a range of practical and purposeful activities, such as organising charity events, leading fundraising initiatives, and taking part in enterprise projects. For example, children have planned and run stalls to support causes such as WaterAid, applying skills such as teamwork, leadership, and problem solving. These experiences help children understand how their skills can be used to make a positive impact.
As already mentioned, we also work with external organisations, including the Lions and Rotary Club, and Women in Engineering events to provide wider opportunities for children to present ideas and work with others beyond the school community. These experiences give children a broader understanding of how essential skills are used in real-life situations.
Through these opportunities, we help learners to recognise the value of essential skills, building their confidence and preparing them for future education and life beyond school.
What's next
Building on our successes, a key priority is to continue developing staff confidence so that the language of the Universal Framework is used consistently across all lessons, not just within discrete skills sessions. We will support this through targeted, regular staff discussions, and sharing good practice. The implementation of assessment rubrics linked to our project based enquiry questions, which incorporate an essential skill, will further support this.
We also plan to strengthen how essential skills are recognised and celebrated, for example through half-termly focus skills in whole-school assemblies and more structured approaches to rewarding pupil progress. Alongside this, we will align our updated school values with the essential skills to create a clearer, unified language for children to articulate their development.
We are also considering how we can more successfully involve our families, ensuring that we communicate the value of essential skills beyond the school gates.
