By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyse site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information.
Waltham Forest College is a large further education college in North East London, serving a diverse community of learners aged 16 and above. Our provision includes 16–18 study programmes, adult learning, apprenticeships, Foundation Learning and higher-level technical and professional qualifications. With learners progressing into employment, apprenticeships, higher education and a wide range of industries, we recognised the importance of providing a consistent approach to developing the transferable skills needed for success beyond qualifications. Before adopting the Skills Builder Universal Framework, we were already committed to developing learners' employability and personal development. However, we wanted a framework that would bring these activities together through a common language, enabling learners and staff to understand, develop and recognise essential skills consistently across every aspect of college life. Skills Builder provided the structure to achieve this ambition. Rather than implementing it as a standalone programme, we made the strategic decision to embed the framework across tutorials, curriculum delivery, enrichment, employer engagement, learner support and college-wide initiatives. This whole-college approach has enabled us to create a culture where essential skills are explicitly taught, deliberately practised, consistently assessed and applied in authentic real-world contexts. Today, Skills Builder is central to how we develop our learners and explain our approach to employers, education partners and external stakeholders. It has become the common language that underpins learner success and continues to shape our vision of preparing students not only for employment, but for lifelong success as confident, adaptable and active members of their communities.
Overall impact
The impact of the Skills Builder programme at Waltham Forest College extends far beyond the classroom. Over the past few years, the framework has evolved from an educational initiative into a defining feature of our college culture, creating a shared language that connects learners, educators, employers, parents, policymakers and the wider community. For our learners, Skills Builder has developed confidence, self-awareness and the ability to recognise and articulate the essential skills they demonstrate throughout their college journey. Rather than viewing communication, teamwork or leadership as abstract concepts, learners identify these skills in practice, reflect on their development and confidently demonstrate their value in further education, employment and everyday life. For staff, the Universal Framework has created consistency across curriculum areas and support services, enabling colleagues to work towards a shared vision of learner development. It has shifted conversations beyond academic achievement to recognising the transferable skills that enable learners to succeed. Beyond the college, Skills Builder has become the framework through which we communicate our educational vision. We use it when engaging employers, parents, community partners and senior stakeholders, including representatives from the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and ministerial teams, demonstrating how a whole-college approach to essential skills prepares learners for future success. Our influence has also been recognised by the Skills Builder Partnership. Waltham Forest College is regularly highlighted as an example of effective practice during Skills Builder events attended by other colleges, with our implementation journey demonstrating how the Universal Framework can be successfully embedded across a whole organisation. A defining milestone in our journey was winning the 2026 VISTA Award for Vocational Innovation in Skills Training. Our successful submission showcased how Skills Builder transformed learner development through its integration across tutorials, curriculum, enrichment, employer engagement and student support. Together with our showcase events for other colleges, this reflects our growing role in championing essential skills across the further education sector.
Keep it simple
At Waltham Forest College, the Skills Builder Universal Framework has become the common language through which we develop, recognise and celebrate learner success. Rather than a standalone initiative, it underpins how we discuss personal development across the college, providing a consistent approach for learners, educators, employers and external stakeholders. We have embedded this shared language throughout the learner journey and wider college life. Essential skills are consistently referenced in tutorials, enrichment, employer engagement and learner recognition, ensuring learners understand not only what the eight essential skills are, but how they contribute to academic achievement, employability and lifelong success. This consistency enables staff across all curriculum and support areas to have meaningful conversations using the same language and expectations. Our commitment extends well beyond our learners. Skills Builder is central to our narrative at Open Events, employer engagement activities and visits from external stakeholders, including representatives from the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and ministerial teams. We use the framework to demonstrate how our whole-college approach has strengthened learner outcomes and embedded a culture of essential skills development. This impact has been recognised externally. In 2026, Waltham Forest College won the VISTA Award for Vocational Innovation in Skills Training. Our submission showcased how Skills Builder had transformed learner development through its integration across curriculum, tutorials, enrichment and employer engagement. We have also hosted showcase events for other colleges, sharing our implementation journey and practical strategies to support wider adoption of the framework, reinforcing our role as a champion of essential skills across the further education sector.
Start early, keep going
We have designed our Skills Builder provision so that essential skills development is a continuous journey rather than a series of isolated activities. Every learner, regardless of age, programme or starting point, accesses the same Skills Builder Universal Framework, creating a consistent experience across the college while allowing learning to be tailored to individual needs. Our approach begins when learners join the college and continues throughout their entire programme. Essential skills are introduced through an initial personalised assessment, explicitly developed through our tutorial curriculum, reinforced across curriculum learning, enrichment and employer engagement, and revisited through structured one-to-one reviews. This ensures that learners repeatedly encounter the same skills in increasingly challenging and authentic contexts, enabling them to build confidence, independence and resilience over time. While the framework remains consistent, delivery is carefully adapted for different learner groups. Foundation Learning learners develop essential skills through highly scaffolded and practical activities, while learners on Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 programmes progressively take greater ownership of their learning through discussion, collaboration and real-world application. Apprentices follow a bespoke tutorial programme that reflects their dual identity as employees and students, enabling them to immediately apply and reflect on essential skills within the workplace. Our best practice has been to create a genuinely whole-college model rather than separate approaches for different learner groups. By maintaining one common framework while adapting delivery to meet individual needs, every learner experiences a coherent pathway for essential skills development from their first day at college through to progression into employment, higher education or further training. This ensures that no learner experiences essential skills as an isolated initiative; instead, they become a consistent thread running through every stage of their college journey, preparing them to thrive in education, the workplace and their wider communities.
Measure it
At Waltham Forest College, assessment is the foundation of our approach to developing essential skills. Every learner completes a personalised Skills Builder assessment at the start of their programme, providing a clear baseline against the Universal Framework. This enables tutors to identify individual strengths and areas for development, ensuring that learners receive targeted opportunities to build the skills that will have the greatest impact on their personal, academic and professional success. Assessment is not confined to a single point in time. Throughout the year, learners' essential skills development is monitored using Navigate, our digital platform that brings together work experience, enrichment, employability and essential skills. Tutors use the platform to record evidence of skills demonstrated in different contexts, creating a comprehensive picture of each learner's development across their college experience. Essential skills are also a core part of our structured one-to-one progress reviews. Every review includes dedicated reflection on learners' skills acquisition, enabling tutors and learners to discuss which skills are secure, identify areas requiring further development and agree meaningful next steps. These coaching conversations ensure that assessment directly informs future learning and helps learners take ownership of their own progress. To measure impact, every learner completes an end-point Skills Builder assessment at the conclusion of their programme. Comparing this with their initial baseline allows both learners and staff to clearly identify the distance travelled, celebrate progress and evaluate the effectiveness of the support provided. This cycle of baseline assessment, ongoing reflection, digital evidence gathering and end-point evaluation has enabled us to embed a consistent, college-wide approach to measuring essential skills while ensuring that assessment drives meaningful learner development rather than simply recording attainment.
Focus tightly
At Waltham Forest College, we believe that essential skills must be taught explicitly rather than assumed to develop naturally. For this reason, dedicated Skills Builder teaching is embedded within our college-wide tutorial programme, ensuring that every learner receives planned, structured opportunities to develop the eight essential skills throughout their programme of study. Our tutorial curriculum has been designed around the Skills Builder Universal Framework, with learning activities explicitly linked to the skills and appropriate steps within the framework. Rather than leaving individual tutors to interpret the framework independently, centrally developed resources ensure consistency in both language and delivery while allowing flexibility to adapt activities to different learner groups, including Foundation Learning, 16–18 learners, adults and apprentices. The explicit teaching of essential skills is further strengthened through staff development. Tutors receive guidance and resources that enable them to confidently teach the skills, model the shared language and make meaningful links between tutorial content, curriculum learning and future employment. This ensures that learners receive a consistent experience regardless of their programme area. Our approach recognises that learners need to understand what effective communication, teamwork, leadership or problem solving looks like before they can demonstrate these skills in real world settings. By explicitly teaching the skills first, we create the foundation that enables learners to apply them successfully through curriculum activities, enrichment, work experience and employer engagement. Our best practice has been to place explicit skills teaching at the heart of our tutorial curriculum, ensuring that every learner has dedicated time to develop essential skills before being expected to apply them in increasingly complex and authentic contexts.
Keep practising
At Waltham Forest College, we recognise that essential skills are developed through repeated application in a range of meaningful contexts. While learners are explicitly taught the skills through our tutorial programme, we have deliberately embedded opportunities to practise them across every aspect of college life, ensuring that skills development extends far beyond dedicated teaching sessions. Curriculum teams provide opportunities for learners to apply the Skills Builder essential skills through subject-specific activities, collaborative projects, presentations, practical assessments and problem-solving tasks. This enables learners to revisit the same skills in different contexts, strengthening both their confidence and competence. Beyond the classroom, learners continue to develop these skills through enrichment activities, employer engagement, work experience, student leadership opportunities and college-wide initiatives, reinforcing that essential skills are fundamental to success in education, employment and everyday life. A key example of this is our annual cross-college Skills Competition, which is explicitly built around the Skills Builder Universal Framework. Learners from different curriculum areas participate in challenges that require them to demonstrate skills such as teamwork, communication, problem solving, creativity and leadership in authentic scenarios. The competition not only celebrates excellence but also provides learners with a shared language to reflect on how they applied the essential skills throughout the challenges. Our approach ensures that essential skills are not confined to one lesson, one department or one programme. Instead, learners encounter multiple opportunities to practise, refine and apply the same skills throughout their time at college. By embedding deliberate practice across the curriculum and wider college experience, we have created a culture where essential skills are continually reinforced, enabling learners to build confidence through repeated application in increasingly varied and authentic settings.
Bring it to life
At Waltham Forest College, we believe that essential skills only become truly meaningful when learners have the opportunity to apply them in authentic, real-world contexts. Our whole-college approach ensures that learners regularly transfer the skills they have developed through tutorials and curriculum learning into experiences that prepare them for employment, further study and active participation in society. Learners develop and demonstrate the Skills Builder essential skills through a wide range of employer and community-facing opportunities, including work experience, industry placements, employer-led projects, enrichment, volunteering, student leadership and college ambassador roles. Whether representing the college at Open Events, supporting community initiatives, leading student voice activities or engaging with employers, learners are encouraged to consciously apply the shared Skills Builder language and reflect on the skills they are demonstrating in each experience. Employer engagement is a key strength of our approach. We use the Skills Builder framework when working with employers and external partners, ensuring that conversations around employability focus on the essential skills that employers value most. The framework provides a common language that enables learners to confidently articulate their strengths during interviews, workplace experiences and professional interactions, while helping employers recognise and reinforce those skills in authentic settings. Our commitment to bringing essential skills to life extends beyond learners. During visits from employers, education partners and senior stakeholders, including representatives from the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and ministerial teams, we use the Skills Builder framework to demonstrate how essential skills are embedded across the college and underpin learner success. By consistently championing the framework with both learners and external stakeholders, we have created a culture where essential skills are recognised not simply as a feature of education, but as the foundation for success in work, further education and life.
What's next
Our journey with Skills Builder has shown us that the impact of essential skills extends far beyond the classroom. We have witnessed learners grow in confidence, develop aspirations they did not previously believe were possible and achieve destinations that have been transformed through their ability to recognise, develop and articulate their essential skills. The individual stories behind this progress have reinforced our belief that the Skills Builder framework has the power to change lives, not simply enhance education. As we look to the future, we want to capture and celebrate these learner journeys more intentionally through a series of case studies that demonstrate the long-term impact of essential skills development. By evidencing how the framework has influenced learners' confidence, progression and career outcomes, we hope to inspire other educators and demonstrate what is possible when essential skills are embedded as part of a whole-college approach. However, our ambition extends beyond Waltham Forest College. Throughout our Skills Builder journey, we have sought to share our practice with other colleges, employers and education partners because we believe that the impact of the framework should not be limited to a single institution. We want to continue championing Skills Builder across the further education sector, supporting others to embed the framework and sharing the lessons we have learned along the way. Our vision is simple: we do not want Skills Builder to be successful because Waltham Forest College uses it. We want Skills Builder to be successful because every learner, regardless of their background, their starting point or the college they attend, has the opportunity to develop the essential skills that will enable them to thrive in education, employment and life. If our journey can inspire even one more institution to begin or strengthen its own Skills Builder journey, then our impact will extend far beyond our own learners, and that is what Flagship status represents to us.
