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We are a 3-form primary school in East London. We also have a nursery and day-care attached to the school. We have been a part of Skills Builder for several years now. However, due to priorities in other areas, we decided to only run Skills Builder in years 3 and 4. We also took advantage of the educational visits that Skills Builder ran and also had a challenge day each year. After COVID we decided that we wanted to make more use of the skills and embed them across the school (not just in years 3 and 4).
Overall impact
The Skills Builder programme has highlighted core skills that are essential in all aspects of the curriculum for children to learn. Coming back after Covid-19 has been an adjustment for the children and teachers. Skills Builder allowed us to highlight the key skills that the children needed to work on after having so much time out of school. This programme has really supported the children with building their confidence both in the classroom and in a social setting. It is good to see that all children are now aware of the different skills and are able to link them to the different lessons that they are part of. Members of SLT also reference the skills when sorting out disagreements between children.
Keep it simple
Every classroom in the school has all eight skills displayed in their classrooms; this is referred to during lessons to remind the children what they need to work on while they are learning. Furthermore, there is a skill focus for every lesson, which is included with the learning objective. As a school, we decided to have a focus every half term. This is then displayed on the door of every classroom to show which step each class is on. At the end of each half term, two children from each class are chosen to receive a certificate to show they have excelled in that skill.
Start early, keep going
As a school we wanted everyone to be included when using the skills, therefore we ensured that it started with our nursery children and followed the children up to year 6. The children are now all aware of the skills and each skill step they are working on.
Measure it
At the start of each half term the teachers will use the assessment tool on the Skills Builder Hub to assess our skill focus for that half term. The staff will then reassess the skill at the end of each half term.
Focus tightly
Focussing in on 1 skill each half term has supported the children to really develop the chosen skill. The teachers are expected to teach a directed lesson on the skill focus at the beginning of the half term. We are hoping to expand this to every 2 weeks.
Keep practising
In order to reinforce the skills that are taught throughout the curriculum, we are also allocating a skill to each after school club to allow the children to keep practising the skills. We have also carried out a challenge day project for the whole school to allow the children to apply all 8 of the skills that they have been working on throughout the year. We have also started using a points system called dojo to award points to the children throughout the day when they demonstrate the skills within the classroom.
Bring it to life
Throughout the year, Salisbury embraces Skills Builder in many ways, such as visits from the fire service, going swimming, challenge days and Skills Builder projects. Year 6 had the opportunity to complete a project on creating a theme park. This allowed them to practice all 8 skills through budgeting, designing, presenting their ideas and organizing the team to work in a timely manner. The children were able to reflect on the experience and express how difficult they found parts of the task and working through the skills really helped them to work effectively as a team.
What's next
Moving forward I would like to build on the use of the assessment tool, assessing all 8 skills at the beginning of the year and asking staff to update the assessment each half term to continually assess the skill focus. I also would like to build on what we have put in place this year; for example, clubs to be awarding weekly certificates, termly certificates continue to be given out, dojo points to be used throughout the whole school and mini lessons to be used bi-weekly.
