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Our school is a co-educational (11-18) SEND school for students with cognition and learning difficulties in Kettering, Northamptonshire. Our aim is to prepare our students for the next stage in their lives focusing on the curriculum and meeting the needs of the individual, providing tailored learning; At Isebrook we want out students to be: Confident Individuals, Responsible Citizens and Successful Learners. Isebrook began to work with Skills Builder to support staff and students in identifying one Skills Builder skill to focus on over the course of two weeks, creating a fortnightly focus. Within these two weeks students are taught what the skills are and given opportunities to develop their skillset. Skills Builder continues to be a successful in recording and assessing academic yearly progress with Isebrook. Teachers and support staff gather and build evidence through pictures, observations, video clips and evidence of work. The evidence is matched to each skill to show students are making progress towards achieving the eight essential skills Isebrook felt it was imperative for the development of transferable skills is essential to succeed in education, work and life. This is even more the case in schools with students that have special educational needs. Students at Isebrook need to be actively taught skills frequently to embed learning into their long term memory and allow them to apply skills in everyday contexts. We felt Skills Builder is a very beneficial, worthwhile a meaningful for our students to develop essential skills within the school, community and work experience settings so that they can become active citizens in the wider community and future adulthood.
Overall impact
The essential skills have made a positive impact on students and staff. Staff and pupils are now engaging, enthusiastic and willing to promote Skills Builder within the delivery of learning. My biggest highlight is how students are enthusiastic to take part and take on responsibilities in attending student champion meetings and to share information across key stages. Champions wear their Skills Builder badges with pride and continue to look after these over the half terms. Champions have encouraged and ensured the correct icons are in place for our fortnightly focus, reporting back weekly. Champions review and discuss what is working well and even better if. I felt the newsletters I created made a massive impact on staff and parents, they were easy to read and supported the engagement of learning the 8 essential skills. The skills stickers have also been a really exciting way of linking the essential skills to the wider curriculum.
Keep it simple
The essential skills are displayed in all classrooms, communal spaces, offices and work experience settings. They are also added to all staff desktops along with email reminders of the fortnightly focus skill. Essential skills are incorporated into all EHCP reviews with parents and pupils. To encourage consistent approach and language, we promote students and staff to become Skills Builder Champions. Skills Builder information and activities are shared with parents via the school website, Class Dojo and the newsletter. Staff reward essential skills with adapted certificates, skill stickers and Arbor points. Essential skills are referenced in our learning journey maps, Teaching and Learning Policy and Rewards Policy. We have promoted the skills outside the school gates by installing displays at Rothwell Library and some of our work experience providers. We will be hosting a coffee morning to further promote essential skills with our WEX partners.
Start early, keep going
At Isebrook School Skills Builder has been launched and promoted and taught across KS3, 4 and 5. All our pupils have access to build upon the essential skills. Isebrook have embedded The Skills Builder Focuses into the curriculum and long-term plans and further incorporate these skills during our employment week and Enterprise class projects. Isebrook is split over 4 pathways across key stages. Pathway 1 & 2 have focus lessons, Pathway 3 & 4 embed throughout the weekly timetable. Information on Dojo and school website has been shared including a parent resource share on how to use these skills at home.
Measure it
All students at Isebrook reflect on their progress in essential skills by completing an adapted skills passport, where they RAG rate each of the skills (with teachers' support and guidance). This has been a really successful self-assessment tool. We also track skills progress by tagging different skills steps on Evidence for Learning. During students' EHCP time, they have time to reflect on their essential skills targets.
Focus tightly
All students have access to explicit teaching about the essential skills. This takes a different form across different pathways. Pathways 1 & 2 have focused skills lessons, while skills focus time is embedded into the weekly timetable for Pathway 3 & 4, with starters and plenaries regularly referencing the essential skills. Staff and students record and reflect against the 8 essential skills in preparation for employment lessons and work experience programs. The Skills Leader downloads resources from the Hub, adapts them and adds them to a shared Onedrive folder which all staff can access to teach essential skills. Many staff also use the Skills Builder projects, and have received training on these.
Keep practising
All students have plenty of opportunity to build essential skills through the wider curriculum. Staff make regular reference to the focus skill in other lessons. Skills stickers are used to evidence the use of skills in students' books. Staff also use Evidence for Learning to record instances when students have used specific steps of a skill in the wider curriculum. Some staff use passports to help students reflect on the ways they have used essential skills in the wider curriculum. The essential skills have been incorporated into learning journey maps and many teachers identify focus steps in their own planning. Essential skills are also referenced in outdoor activities, forest school, Duke of Edinburgh and enterprise projects.
Bring it to life
Isebrook preparation for adulthood and employment curriculum is linked closely to the development of essential skills. All pupils have the opportunity to engage and work with a range of internal and external employers to further explore the essential skills in real-life contexts. Students use reflective booklets and Skills CVs to think about the essential skills they use during their work experience placements. Job coaches also provide feedback on the essential skills during work experience placements. This year we hosted a careers fair where students completed a Skills Bingo activity to identify the skills used in different job roles. Students have also had the opportunity to ask external speakers about the skills they use in their jobs. Students also enjoyed using Skills Builder projects such as Community Café and Brilliant Books to apply their essential skills in real-life contexts.
What's next
Isebrook are continually striving to consolidate and build upon our successes. We plan to become more consistent when recording data, and in the next academic year we would like to work on a shared assessment spreadsheet for staff to use. We would also like to continue promoting Skills Builder with local employers, work experience partners, parents and carers and other specialist schools and colleges.
