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We are a unique school in the centre of Newport. We foster a culture of belief, determination, resilience and ambition and our mission is to enable our learners to be successful in their lives in school and beyond. Our school community is enriched through our learners with a range of cultural backgrounds and experiences who communicate in over 52 different languages. Our core values are realised by enabling experiences and opportunities inside and outside of the classroom that ensure that learners build a solid skills foundation and master these skills through practise and application to real life contexts ensuring success.
Overall impact
The development of Skills Builder across our school community has supported our whole school mission of ensuring that learners are given the opportunities and experiences to practise their skills in a range of contexts and in a purposeful way. It has also supported the professional development and confidence of staff across the school to support their knowledge of skills and facilitate the authentic use of skills in different lessons and experiences. The opportunity for staff to work alongside our Skills Builder partner has also ensured a shared vision and personalised support and guidance which has been invaluable. By sharing our skills focus with the wider community such as facilitators and volunteers from our Skills Festival we have also secured a joint understanding of securing skills knowledge and practise for our learners and their futures.
Keep it simple
Throughout the school, the language, logos and signage for Skills Builder have been used to signpost skill development and the explicit delivery and instruction where this is modelled. This has been linked to our whole school focus of ROWND- explicitly teaching common strategies for reading, writing, oracy, numeracy, digital skills. Alongside this, we've used assemblies for all year groups to illustrate and highlight the significance of skills, what the skills could mean personally to our learners and how they can plan for developing their own skills in real life contexts. Learners reflect on this, self-assess and plan for improvement in assemblies and learning time. Furthermore, learners in Year 7-10 focused on the use of a range of skills in our Skills Festival. Learners attended a variety of skills-based sessions such as first aid, technocamps digital, gardening, dance, music or drama and Natwest financial sessions and reflected on their skill development throughout the day.
Start early, keep going
This year we initially launched Skills Builder with learners in Year 7,8 and 9. We decided to focus on the skill of Listening to enable consistency in modelling the language and vocabulary and support professional learning for teachers. All learners in these year groups have had skills library lessons throughout the year which were supported by the Hub resources and enabled skills progression. Learners were able to use these lessons to reflect on their Listening experiences and add actions and for improvement in their Skills Builder journals. Learners in Year 7-9 have developed these essential skills across a range of learning experiences. By using staff from a range of curriculum areas in the skills library lessons, learners are afforded the opportunity to transfer a range of skills in other lessons.
Measure it
Through the library lessons and the development of the Listening skill in lessons, teachers have used the tools on hub to track progress for their classes and become more familiar with the steps for the skill. An initial benchmark was identified for classes at the beginning of the term and then progress was updated towards the end of the term to measure impact and plan for improvement and support. We have begun to establish team planning meetings to share practise and experiences, to develop knowledge of the skills builder programme and to discuss the progress of our learners and groups. Next year we plan to develop the use of Hub for our learners across the school to enable and self-assessment and personalised target setting.
Focus tightly
Throughout all lessons across the school, skills is an integral part of learning. We use the acronym ROWND (reading, oracy, writing, numeracy, digital) to plan for skill development in all teaching and learning experiences. Learners are confident in identifying how the skills they have used in each lesson have had an impact on their understanding and progress. The use of the Skills Builder language and steps have further enhanced this awareness enabling learners to identify firstly, where they have developed and applied these skills across the curriculum and secondly, how this has had a positive impact on their learning. We focus on the four purposes in line with the Curriculum for Wales to ensure that learners can identify how their skills knowledge will support them in a purposeful way.
Keep practising
We have used the short lessons provided on hub to enhance department lesson resources and further highlight skills focus. For example, to support group discussion and presentational talk in English lessons and to enhance listening skills across PSHE lessons. Throughout intervention sessions, including literacy acceleration and Lexonik, learners practise and secure their speaking and listening skills. This is supported through teacher modelling language and strategies throughout the sessions which include references to Aiming High. This is also linked to our school triangle of positivity and core values to encourage learners to be have resilience, determination, belief and ambition. Furthermore, through House events and challenges, including sports day, learners have had opportunities to practise essential skills such as Teamwork and Aiming High to ensure that they achieve and make progress in line with their ability.
Bring it to life
We have also enabled opportunities for learners to practise their essential skills though a range of real-life experiences in the Skills Festival. For example, Duke of Edinburgh based problem solving and team work activities, through cookery sessions with a focus on creativity, and learning first aid focusing on speaking and listening and problem solving. We communicated with the facilitators and providers in advance of the festival to inform them and share our whole school skills focus and priorities as well as the language linked to Skills Builder essential skills. Part of each session was dedicated to explicitly discuss the skill focus and the relevance to real life experiences. Learners recorded their skill development throughout the day and submitted their record cards at the end of the day demonstrating a reflection and understanding of their skills progress and application. Learners were rewarded house points throughout the day celebrating their skills success.
What's next
Next year, we intend to use tutorial sessions to further utilise the Skills Builder resources on Hub and practise and enhance a range essential of skills for learners across all year groups. This will enable a wider focus and awareness of Skills Builder essential skills with more staff to embed a culture of skills development across all year teams and subject areas and support our current successes with enhancing traditional skills to support learning. We also plan to develop the use of Hub for our learners across the school to enable self- assessment and more personalised target setting to enable further progression. Additionally, we will build on our work with our wider school community such as parents/carers, governors and primary schools and with our local community including businesses and Careers Wales to utilise skills in a purposeful way. This will be through a range of teaching and learning experiences including timetabled lessons and other events.
