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As a small village primary school in Devon, we have used our school values - the 6Rs -respect, responsibility, reasoning, resourcefulness, resilience and reflection to support children's learning for many years. With the recent challenges in children's education, we wanted to reinvigorate these learning dispositions to support returning pupils. Through talking to the children and other stakeholders about what they believed each one meant, Apple Characters were designed and named. This was to provide a visual reminder for all about our Rs. We then wanted to unpick each one in detail, and help identify steps so the children could see how their skills progress and then actively teach these essential skills so children can achieve their true potential and have a choice in their adult lives. After talking to the children, teachers discussed the benefit of a more structured approach using a shared language to define what these meant and looked like throughout the school day. Looking at the Skills Builder website, we realised that their skills closely aligned to our Apples. Another key benefit would be to share good practice, along with the opportunity to collaborate with other sectors and organisations. This would help us to broaden the experience for all involved - an exciting opportunity to be involved in, after some challenging times. At this point, we applied for the Skills Builder Accelerator Programme and our journey began.
Overall impact
Both staff and children are able to describe the skills and link it to what it looks like in practice through curricular and non-curricular activities. Many children can use these to enhance their learning and are starting to award tokens to each other. This has been developed further by including skills in our wider extra-curricular activities. Listening to children discussing their activity passports has been amazing and really helped them to appreciate what they can achieve by applying the skills. One key highlight has been an in-person parent workshop with our Education Associate, where families were invited into school and students proudly demonstrated the skills they had developed.
Keep it simple
We wanted to ensure the language linked to each skill was explicitly taught and referred to by all on a daily basis. Skills Builder is included in INSET days and in our teaching and learning policy to ensure language is used regularly and consistently. It was decided to focus on one skill per half term across the whole school, through assemblies and using some Skills Builder resources for short weekly lessons. Skills Builder is shared with parents through our newsletter where we also suggest homezone challenges so children can continue to practise the skills at home. Students are rewarded for completing skill activities at home with Skills Builder certificates and tokens. Tokens are
labelled with each skill and any member of staff or pupil can give a token. Team points (tokens)are collected and counted weekly by our Year 6 children. Totals for the half-termly focus skill and overall points are announced in Friday assembly. Each half-term the winning team ‘win’ a ‘mufty’ day.
The parent workshop also helped strengthen the home-school connection by giving children a platform to celebrate their skill development with their families. Conducting this event in person brought the skills to life for parents and students. Additionally, the school council has played an active role in refining the activity passport, contributing ideas to make it more engaging and meaningful for pupils.
Start early, keep going
All students in the school are building the essential skills, and this forms part of everyday school life in all key stages. Our learning certificates were revamped to include the skill descriptors alongside our apple characters. Two certificates are handed out per week, one of which is linked to the focus skill for the half term. These are read out in assembly and then displayed in school for a week for all to see before the children take them home to share with their parents. Speaking and listening skills are taught alongside the focus skill throughout the whole year, as we felt these were critical in all aspects of life.
Measure it
Alongside teaching each skill half-termly, the teachers have used the Hub to assess where their children were at the start of the teaching block and where they were six weeks later. We have seen improvements across many areas, and using this has enabled us to think about what else to implement. For example, we have created a home and school activity passport. Year 6 pupils support the younger students to identify what skills they are using both at home and school. This approach has fostered greater self-reflection, with pupils increasingly able to recognise their strengths and identify next steps in their skills development. This year we have used Skills Builder passports as an additional reflection resources to support deeper thinking.
Focus tightly
Skills Builder lessons are a regular part of school life and this is timetabled to ensure that all teachers dedicate regular time to focused teaching of essential skills. This year we have made use of the new Hub resources, bringing a refreshed and more focused approach to teaching essential skills. To ensure that the essential skills are spoken about regularly across the school, on starting school children are assigned to family teams, Badgers, Hedgehogs, Rabbits and Squirrels and team points have always been earned for a wide range of reasons. At the start of the spring term, in order to support language development and identification of the skills, it made sense to give team points linked specifically to each skill. We purchased some tokens and the skills icons were stuck onto them. Team points continue to be earned by pupils, but staff are specific about what is being awarded for, for example, providing an idea in a complete sentence in literacy - a speaking token, or for undertaking the challenge calculation in maths, a planning token.
Keep practising
This year we have developed our inclusion of the skills in subject teaching. Curriculum documentation for multiple subjects includes a Skills Builder Link section, which outlines a specific skill to support with effective learning in this subject. All assemblies, including non-skill-based assemblies, reference the essential skills so their transferability is clear for students. This term, a key focus has been encouraging peer reflection through paired discussions using the activity passports, helping pupils articulate how they’ve applied skills in lessons. We have also introduced a ‘daily skills log’ for trips and visits, which has provided valuable insight into the skills students identify in real-world contexts. As children take part in a variety of school and extra-curricular activities, such as football competitions, maths day and orchestra, they are asked to evaluate what skills they have used. It has been wonderful to hear students articulating their skill development: “We had to work as a team, whether we won or lost”.
Bring it to life
Through our broader curriculum, we have restarted a range of projects including our 'Fantastic Friday' curriculum (Forest School, cookery and yoga), working with our local community and school trips. Skills are beginning to be transferred and actively taught through these life experiences. Our Year 6 children participate in the Torbay and Devon Civic Award annually. This involves being an active citizen both in their school and home community as well as actively promoting a charity of their choice. One of the joys of online assemblies is that it has allowed us to invite a number of STEM ambassadors from around the country to talk to our children about what they did at school, their education choices and what their job entails. Children have then been able to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This has widened our pupils' understanding of the working world and raised their aspirations of what they can aim for in the future. All visitors to the school are given a Skills Builder information sheet, and refer to the skills when speaking to students. This year we have introduced Skills Builder projects. Projects completed include: Community Café Going Green and Active Minds. Children worked together to learn about and implement the skills in a real life situation.
What's next
With several new staff members at the school next year, we are using our flexible support time to create staff training and Skills Builder guides to ensure that essential skill development continues to thrive at Whimple primary school. We would love to continue to champion Skills Builder across the local area, and support in building a wider network across Devon.
