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St Vincent de Paul Primary School is a vibrant single-form entry primary school in Liverpool dedicated to fostering a nurturing yet highly aspirational environment for all our pupils. Guided by our school mission, “Serving with Love, Striving for Excellence,” we aim to provide an education that fosters the growth of the whole child.
Operating within a diverse community with varying socio-economic backgrounds, we joined the Accelerator programme with the aim of levelling the playing field, and raising student aspirations. Ultimately, we want all of our learners to leave us with the confidence to articulate their abilities, hold themselves with pride, and possess both the knowledge of diverse career pathways and the absolute self-belief that these opportunities are within their reach.
Overall impact
Across Year 6, the Accelerator programme has boosted student confidence and communication skills, empowering learners to articulate their ideas and engage more thoughtfully with their learning. The structured Year 6 pilot demonstrated the framework's tangible impact, building strong staff buy-in to be able to roll this out to more learners across the school.
Keep it simple
To build long-term success and strong staff buy-in, we took a measured, sustainable approach to introducing the language of the essential skills. During our Accelerator year, we launched a targeted pilot across the Year 6 cohort. The Skills Builder framework was first introduced to our Year 6 learners through a class assembly, and the essential skills were made explicitly visible using display icons in class. Throughout the pilot, staff informally recognised and celebrated students for demonstrating these essential skills.
Having established a successful foundation, the initiative was expanded to the wider school community during the summer term through targeted staff training about the Skills Builder framework and methodology. Since this training, staff across all year groups have been exploring and testing out resources within their own classrooms, as they work towards a school-wide launch in the new academic year as part of the Accelerator Plus.
Start early, keep going
Year 6 learners have been at the forefront of this year’s programme, engaging with structured, sequential opportunities to build their skills and confidence.
As a result of this pilot, a foundation has been laid across the rest of the school to prepare for a wider rollout. Learners in other classes have engaged in touchpoints with the framework as staff actively explore the Hub's resource bank. Teachers have successfully trialled Short Lessons and Career Cards with their learners to introduce key skill steps and link them directly to the wider world of work. This exploratory phase has allowed staff to test out the resources in a manageable way, ensuring they are well-prepared to deliver the programme impactfully in the upcoming academic year.
Measure it
Formative assessment has been used effectively during the pilot phase to identify the starting points and progress made by Year 6 learners. We are seeing our learners better able to resolve conflict and express themselves, as well as being more ready to engage with learning. As we move into our Accelerator Plus year, scaling this process will be a key priority.
Focus tightly
Dedicated skill teaching has been embedded through a combination of structured lessons and exploratory practice. Throughout the pilot, Year 6 learners have received explicit, standalone short lessons designed to break down and support their progress through specific skill steps. Meanwhile, across the other year groups, staff have actively trialled Hub resources to give their learners valuable exposure to the essential skills. This approach has laid the groundwork for consistent and explicit skills teaching across the whole school next year.
Keep practising
In Year 6, the essential skills have been referenced across the curriculum giving them opportunities to practise their skills. Bringing this principle to life school-wide will be a key focus of the upcoming Accelerator Plus year. As part of this progression, we are eager to align the Universal Framework directly to curriculum mapping documents. This will ensure that reinforcing essential skills becomes an intuitive, natural part of teaching across all subjects as the programme expands.
Bring it to life
We have a host of enrichment opportunities for pupils to apply their essential skills beyond the classroom, like school trips and residentials. Moving into next year, the focus will shift toward making these application opportunities explicitly intentional and outcome-focused. We are also hugely excited to use the skills Challenge Days with our learners.
What's next
Moving into the Accelerator Plus year, the primary focus is to scale the successful Year 6 pilot school-wide. To ensure consistent delivery, discrete skill sessions will be formally timetabled across all year groups, supported by a unified tracking system to monitor progress from Years 1 to 6. As well as this, staff will integrate the Universal Framework directly into curriculum mapping documents, making skills instruction an intuitive part of every subject. Finally, the school aims to make out-of-class opportunities, such as trips and residentials, explicitly intentional and outcome-focused so learners can deliberately apply their skills in real-world settings.
