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The Springboard Project is an innovative specialist provision based in Oldham, providing high-quality alternative education for 14 to 19-year-olds with Social, Emotional, and Mental Health (SEMH) needs. We deliver a flexible, nurturing curriculum that is designed to re-engage young people, supporting them to develop their emotional resilience and gain vocational qualifications and skills for life.
We partnered with Skills Builder to integrate the Universal Framework across our provision and establish a structured and consistent foundation for essential skill development. For our young people, developing their essential skills is key to building their confidence, independence and ability to navigate challenges positively. The programme aligns with our motto ‘Creating meaningful futures’ and helps us fulfil our commitment to equipping all of our learners with the skills required to transition successfully into their next steps.
Overall impact
Engaging with the Accelerator programme has helped us establish a clear roadmap for our learners’ skill progression, supporting their self-regulation, confidence, and independence. A key highlight has been seeing learners begin to use their Cultural Capital Passports to track evidence of their skills and experience clear success from their efforts.
For our staff, the framework offers a shared vocabulary that they can use consistently across form time, Cultural Capital sessions, and the wider curriculum, which has helped build their confidence in explicitly teaching and supporting learners to develop their skills.
Keep it simple
At The Springboard Project, building a shared language around essential skills has been key to supporting our learners’ progress. Dedicated corridor and classroom displays ensure skill icons and step descriptors are constantly visible to pupils throughout the day.
To introduce and reinforce key concepts, staff deliver targeted form-time assemblies to launch each new focus skill. We are beginning to weave the language of the essential skills into daily interactions, particularly during our Cultural Capital sessions, where learner progress in the skills is verbally recognised and celebrated.
To engage parents and carers in this journey, we have embedded the skills across our Earwig platform, which allows our staff to capture and share evidence of student skill development directly with families.
Start early, keep going
The programme initially launched with a small, targeted group of learners on the Community Learning Pathway to pilot impact. However, we quickly scaled our model to ensure the framework reaches every young person across the provision.
To provide consistent, planned opportunities for practice, essential skills are now integrated through weekly 'Cultural Capital' sessions held every Friday afternoon. This ensures that all learners have regular, dedicated touchpoints to build and practise their essential skills.
Measure it
To help our learners take ownership of their personal growth, we have introduced Cultural Capital Passports. These passports empower learners to track their individual skill progress across Friday sessions and record tangible examples of their skills in action.
At a staff level, baseline assessments were established using the Skills Builder Hub assessment tool to identify clear starting points for each cohort.
The skill steps and building blocks have also been integrated into the school’s digital assessment platform, Earwig. This allows teachers to evidence and monitor learner progress.
Moving forward, the school aims to expand its assessment approach by introducing half-termly RAG-rated skill assessments on Earwig so that clear and personalised targets can be established and shared with families.
Focus tightly
At The Springboard Project, essential skills are explicitly taught through our weekly 'Cultural Capital' sessions.
We have integrated the essential skills across our Cultural Capital medium-term plans. Teachers flexibly adapt core resources from the Hub to match the needs of their respective cohorts.
Each Cultural Capital session is designed so that students receive direct instruction on a focus skill before applying it through structured, real-world activities, such as working in teams to plan and lead group projects.
Keep practising
Our weekly 'Cultural Capital' sessions provide opportunities for pupils to put their skills learning into practice. Within these sessions, students participate in hands-on activities, leading and collaborating on real-world projects that require them to use and practise their essential skills. Moving into the next academic year, we will build on these opportunities by aligning essential skill steps with two major enrichment experiences: the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme and residential trips with PGL.
Bring it to life
At The Springboard Project, essential skills are brought to life through immersive experiential learning, community trips, and direct links to the world of work.
We use Drop Down Days featuring real-world problem solving, like the Football Murder Mystery, alongside immersive visits, which enable our learners to apply their essential skills to real-life contexts.
Looking ahead to the next academic year, we are embedding more industry-focused trips as we redesign our vocational pathways.
For Key Stage 4, employer visits and virtual work experience modules will expose learners directly to local career options. Furthermore, a dedicated Employability slot is being introduced for Key Stage 5, where learners will be supported to build their CVs and prepare for interviews.
What's next
Looking ahead to the next academic year, The Springboard Project will build on this strong foundation by appointing a dedicated Skills Builder and Careers Lead alongside a new Job Coach.
Key priorities include:
Re-launching the Earwig platform with parents, introducing half-termly RAG-rated skill assessments, and embedding essential skills directly into learners' EHCP annual review targets.
Introducing ASDAN qualifications and aligning the skills to the new Nurture pathway.
Embedding industry-focused trips within our new vocational pathways, and launching dedicated Key Stage 5 Employability slots to prepare students for job interviews and work placements.
