For this criterion, our evidence is a scheme of work from the Barbering department. This scheme clearly identifies a focus Skills Builder essential skill for each session, showing how skill development is intentionally planned and embedded across the course. By identifying the skills in advance during the scheme of work planning stage, teachers are able to purposefully embed them into individual lesson plans, activities, and assessments rather than addressing them incidentally or retrospectively. In the Barbering scheme, essential skills such as Speaking, Listening, and Teamwork are carefully mapped into practical, industry-relevant contexts. Learners practise these skills while interacting with clients, peers, and tutors during hands-on sessions. For instance, Listening and Speaking are essential when carrying out client consultations where understanding preferences, offering advice, and managing expectations are key. Teamwork is embedded through collaborative tasks such as setting up workstations, rotating roles, supporting peers, and giving constructive feedback during practice sessions. These skills are not only introduced and taught during lessons, they are also assessed through both formative and summative methods. Learners are evaluated on their ability to communicate effectively, work collaboratively, and show professional behaviours, alongside their technical capabilities. This approach mirrors real workplace expectations in the barbering industry, where personal presentation and interpersonal communication are vital. The scheme exemplifies our whole-college commitment to embedding essential skills across all curriculum areas. It reinforces the principle that these skills are not separate from the vocational content but are integral to it. By planning with the Skills Builder framework in mind, teachers ensure learners have regular, structured opportunities to practise and reflect on their skill development. This consistent and proactive approach means learners across all programmes particularly practical and vocational courses leave college not only qualified but confident in the essential skills they need to succeed in employment and beyond.

To evidence this criterion, we are submitting student assessment data from Navigate, an internally delivered assessment platform used across the college to formatively assess and track progress in the eight essential Skills Builder skills. Navigate plays a key role in ensuring skills development is intentional, measurable, and tailored to each learner. At the start of the academic year, all students complete a 31-question diagnostic survey through Navigate, which maps their current skill levels against the Skills Builder Universal Framework. Because this assessment is carried out internally, tutors can directly engage with the data and use it to plan targeted activities that respond to students’ strengths and areas for growth. Students may also retake the Navigate assessment mid-year, allowing tutors to reflect on the progress made so far and adapt their teaching accordingly. This additional checkpoint enables more timely and responsive support, helping to close gaps and strengthen specific skills before the final reassessment at the end of the academic year. The platform is used consistently throughout the year to track and monitor progress. Tutors use this data to inform delivery, personalise support, and celebrate improvements with students. At the end of the year, students complete a second full diagnostic, providing a clear comparison and demonstrating measurable progress across all eight essential skills. To support the development of specific skills, tutors have access to a wide range of high-quality resources from the Skills Builder Hub. These resources are used to plan targeted interventions and enrichment activities that align with learners’ current needs and development goals. This structured approach ensures that essential skills are not only embedded into the curriculum but are also actively monitored, supported, and valued across the college helping every learner to build the capabilities they need for life, work, and further study.

To evidence this criterion, we are submitting three differentiated tutorial PowerPoints, at Levels 1, 2, and 3, focused on the theme of Financial Literacy. Each session explicitly targets the essential skill of Aiming High and forms part of the timetabled tutorial programme, which all learners attend and all tutors are required to deliver. These resources demonstrate how tutors engage in focused, skill-specific teaching that is tailored to learners’ levels. For example, in the Level 1 session, Aiming High is introduced through relatable short-term goal-setting and budgeting tasks. At Level 2, learners explore how financial decisions can impact their longer-term goals and aspirations. At Level 3, students apply Aiming High through financial planning for higher education, employment, or independent living, linking the skill directly to their post-college pathways. Each PowerPoint includes explicit references to the Skills Builder Framework, with essential skills clearly named, modelled, and reflected on throughout. This consistent structure supports students in understanding how each skill applies to their personal and professional development. Importantly, the Skills Builder Framework is integrated into sessions designed by college staff who know both the subject matter and the learners. This ensures that skill development is meaningful and relevant. In vocational programmes, particularly in Access to HE courses, the skill Staying Positive is explicitly taught within the context of safeguarding. The students explicitly discuss the skill, how it integrates into the lesson objectives and the real world implications. The tutorial programme, along with curriculum-based lessons, provides structured and sequenced opportunities for learners to develop essential skills throughout the year. This reflects a whole-college approach in which all tutors actively contribute to students’ skill development through purposeful, high-quality delivery that is embedded into everyday teaching practice.

At Waltham Forest College, all curriculum areas plan their delivery through Schemes of Work, which incorporate the Skills Builder Framework before individual lessons are developed and taught. This ensures that essential skills are not added in as an afterthought, but are intentionally embedded from the outset and aligned with subject-specific content. Each lesson explicitly highlights the targeted essential skill using the Skills Builder icons, which are clearly visible on every slide. In addition, every session includes a dedicated slide that either explains the skill in more depth or poses targeted questions designed to prompt reflection and discussion. Teachers routinely refer to these skills throughout the lesson, asking questions and setting tasks that challenge students to apply them in real-world and subject-relevant contexts. Students engage with the essential skills in two key ways: through their vocational programmes and through the college’s holistic tutorial programme. In vocational areas, skills are developed in practical settings for example, Listening and Teamwork in a Barbering session, or Staying Positive and Problem Solving in Engineering. In tutorials, the skills are explored more broadly, with a focus on personal development, future planning, and wellbeing. Our Teaching and Learning Framework sets out clear expectations that the essential skills are embedded into curriculum planning and delivery. Alongside this, the Tutorial Framework outlines how the same skills are developed holistically, ensuring consistency across all 16–19 study programmes. Beyond the classroom, students further develop their skills through a range of enrichment activities such as book clubs, sports teams, debate groups, and volunteering opportunities. These clubs and societies offer students the chance to practise skills like Problem Solving, Teamwork, and Leadership in new and engaging contexts, bringing the skills to life and helping learners build confidence and resilience in a variety of settings.

Waltham Forest College demonstrates a strong and strategic commitment to ensuring all students have meaningful opportunities to apply essential skills in real-world contexts. This is woven into the fabric of our curriculum and enrichment offer and was highly praised in our 2025 Matrix re-accreditation, which commended the college for providing “exceptional, learner-centred opportunities that enable students to gain confidence, direction, and workplace readiness.” Employer engagement is a core part of this. Throughout the year, professionals from leading organisations such as Amazon, Apple, Audi, and the NHS deliver masterclasses, motivational talks, industry insights, and mock interviews. These events give learners the chance to practise key skills such as Speaking, Listening, Problem Solving, and Aiming High in high-impact, workplace-relevant settings. In addition to hosting guests at the college, students regularly take part in off-site visits, enterprise competitions, and live employer projects. These opportunities allow them to apply the Skills Builder Framework in practical, cross-curricular contexts. As part of our evidence base, we capture these moments through photos, showcasing students meeting employers both in professional environments and within the college. These visuals provide a powerful reminder of the value of these experiences and are regularly shared across the college to inspire and inform. Students are also supported to extend their learning beyond the classroom through volunteering, part-time work, and extended work placements, often secured via our dedicated employability team. These activities are celebrated through the tutorial programme and support structured reflection on skill development. This consistent, whole-college approach forms a golden thread that connects the curriculum, enrichment, and employability. It ensures that the development of essential skills is not just taught, but lived and experienced by every learner—helping them to thrive both in education and the world of work.