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Goverment Girls Model High School Kallur Kot is based in Bhakkar District of Punjab Province, Pakistan. The school was established in 1910 and was upgraded to a high school in 1974. The school staff consists of the Senior Headmistress, eighteen teachers with 580 students. The school works with learners aged 11 to 15 years old. The school serves the community of Kallur Kot and its surrounding villages. Our school’s vision is to provide quality of education for the holistic development of the students and our mission is to make students responsible citizens of Pakistan who lead a successful life and play an active role globally. Our school was awarded the International School Award (ISA) in 2020. Our students were developing different skills during the ISA Program but we wanted to improve further, so our school was always ready to welcome a program like the Global Accelerator, which provided us the opportunity to learn and achieve. Our target was to achieve the Gold Level Award. For this purpose we embedded eight essential skills: Listening, Speaking, Problem Solving, Creativity, Stay Positive, Aiming High, Team Work and Leadership in school policy and curriculum. We made an action plan for the whole school and included the eight essential skills in the timetable and lesson planning.
Overall impact
The overall impact of the Skills Builder Accelerator on our school was positive and excellent. We have had continued focus on developing and strengthening the teaching of the eight essential skills. At the start of the program, the Skills Leader and Senior Teacher received online training by the Skills Builder team. They trained us and guided us in a very good manner and after receiving training from them, the Skills Leader and Senior Teacher trained the whole teaching staff school and guided them on how to develop eight essential skills. They were taught how to use the Skill Builder Hub, how to use online and offline resources and how to assess students’ progress. Teachers have time on each Friday to teach the essential skills and embed each of the six principles.
Keep it simple
At the start of the program, our school made an action plan to ensure teachers and students used the common language of essential skills. The School had already used the language of skills in assembly, parent teacher meetings, and especially during the ISA program launched by British Council. From this start, we could then focus on getting the eight essential skills embedded in our policy, curriculum, timetable and lesson planning. The steps were taken by the principal to use language of essential skills extensively in all across the school: assembly, meetings, parent teacher meetings, games, curricular and co-curricular activities. We displayed charts and posters in all classrooms and the school library. All opportunities have been taken by all staff to reinforce the essential skills and their application and teachers aligned the skills in their lesson plans, using the Skill Builder Hub and Universal Framework.
Start early, keep going
There are 500 students in the school, from Class 6th to class 10th (aged 11-15 years). All students took part in the program. In 6th class teachers taught skills from step 0 and up. However in class 7th-10th, teachers found the need to develop skills almost from step 5 up. Every Friday, teachers chose the most appropriate resources for the development of the skills from the Hub and offline materials and all teachers and students have engaged well with these.
Measure it
After we received training from the Skills Builder team, our whole staff were familiar with the eight essential skills and steps 0- 15 from the Universal Framework. All teachers used formative assessment regularly during their teaching to assess progress of the students in the specific, focus skills. All teachers logged these assessments and reflections throughout the year, using online and offline assessment and Skills Passports, to reflect and plan. At the end of month, students who had excelled in an essential skill, were rewarded with badges, tokens and certificates and shared with parents.
Focus tightly
All teachers of our schools engaged in focussed and explicit teaching of essential skills. We ran weekly one hour sessions with all classes that solely focused on the teaching and assessing of essential skills using the online/offline tools provided by Skills Builder. Completing the assessments showed us where students were in their development of a specific skill. Teachers could then start teaching from the suitable point of the framework until the students achieved the target step. By having this process set up this way, the progress of students continued throughout the program. Each Friday, students were given the opportunity to reflect on the development of their own skills and reflect on their own progress.
Keep practising
All teachers provided regular opportunities for their students to practise essential skills across all the subjects. Teachers highlighted and focused specific skills and steps to be applied in lessons through their lesson planning. As well as curricular activities, our school has a comprehensive program for practising essential skills in co-curricular activities. All students have practised, applied and reflected their skills through games, books, exhibitions, celebration of national and international days, art projects, challenge days, cultural shows and Meena Bzaar. The whole school community has been involved in these events, helping to share the essential skills far and wide.
Bring it to life
Our school made provision for all students to have experiences to apply essential skills inside as well as outside the school. Participation of students in Study tours, visits to the nursery for planting, different competitions at district and provincial level are the examples of how students apply their skills to the wider school and community. Essential skills are flagged and monitored with all students across the school during these opportunities. Having a variety of experiences gives brilliant opportunities for students to apply and practise the essential skills and bring it to life.
What's next
Our school is always ready to welcome such a program which provides us the opportunity to learn and achieve. Next year, we will continue to be a flagship school in Pakistan for Skills Buider and support schools in our province and district to learn more about the Skills Builder approach.
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