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DHAI Army Public School is a Girls School based in Islamabad, Pakistan. We teach learners aged between 12 and 18 years old. The school has been working with Skills Builder Partnership for two years. We have had a focus on developing transferable skills for many years and have completed classroom presentations, sport events, group projects Seminars for learners, and Council body members guiding and leading the students in different events and maintaining the discipline (leadership).
Overall impact
The Global Accelerator programme has had an impact on our whole school. It has impacted our teachers through the online training sessions that were held. This has continued to build our teachers' understanding of the Universal Framework and the Skills Builder approach. All of our staff engaged with these training sessions. This year’s training from Skills Builder has helped us innovate our ways of thinking around skills development and also helped enhance our students’ different skills. We have continued to build our students' skills through practical activities and class discussions rather than just theoretical teaching.
Keep it simple
We have continued to hold Essential Skill assemblies weekly or fortnightly in exams. We choose one topic per week and ask students to present to the school. To prepare for this presentation students discuss with their teachers the work that they have been undertaking to build their essential skills. This means that students reflect on their skills and share them with their peers, reinforcing the language of essential skills in our school.
We have display boards in our entrance area and use certificates to reward students’ efforts, Certificate holders are also highlighted on class information boards. This has raised the profile of essential skills in our school and community.
Teacher planning this year has helped teachers incorporate Essential Skills into their curriculum to ensure that the language of essential skills is used effectively in many classrooms.
Start early, keep going
Students in age groups ranging from 12 to 18 take part in our essential skills programmes. Lesson plans are made for every age group and class for the syllabus and all the activities, discussions and key questions are planned with essential skills aligned. This has helped to ensure that essential skills are a key part of our school and teaching.
Measure it
Formative assessments are used and students are assessed in groups as well as individually in order to measure the full extent of these skills. This helps give teachers an idea on what skills the students are lacking in and what they can do to help improve them.
Focus tightly
Once the assessments have helped teachers understand what skills the students are lacking in, they can plan teaching activities in different ways to help improve them. Many teachers use focused and explicit teaching of the skills as well. They also use timetables to properly divide the time for learning. This ensures that students understand the strategies for building their skills in all subjects.
Keep practising
This year the set curriculum has been embedded with essential skills in our planning documents. All teachers discuss the use of essential skills as they are covered in curriculum subjects with students and in weekly teaching meetings. After school activities also teach essential skills once a month to give students another method to practise their skills.
Bring it to life
This year we have included more classroom activities, project based learning, and presentations in our existing lesson plans for the whole school to ensure students have opportunities to practise these skills.
What's next
We are planning to use a student reflection tracker such as the Skill Passport to track student progress and to continue to make essential skills a key part of our school.
