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We are a secondary school and sixth form for year groups 7 - 13. We are located close to the Norfolk/Suffolk border and are part of a local MAT. Our cohort size is 250, with 200 in sixth form. 25% of our students are entitled to Pupil Premium. We got involved with Skills Builder as we recognise the importance of skills development in our young people, alongside their learning of the curriculum and the world of work. All our Year 7 students take part in a Skills day one day a week and we wanted to extend the explicit skills learning of our students from Year 8 upwards, using a common and consistent language.
Overall impact
Wider awareness of the eight essential skills and language are now used in school more often by both students and teachers. Steps are being taken to introduce the skills to employers we are working with. Teachers are seeing the value of using Skills Builder and like the resources. Skills Builder has been incorporated into our Careers & Skills programme and offer to students. The Accelerator programme has built momentum over recent months and the school is now seeing the benefit.
Keep it simple
Skills Icon posters are displayed around corridors in key areas of the school and in all classrooms. We have updated our internal Skills Passport for Years 9, 10 and 11 students to include all 8 essential skills, icons and references to the benchmarking tool. Teachers and students are now starting to use the common language of the skills, and understand why they are important.
Start early, keep going
We have received two training sessions for Year 8 and 9 tutors to enable them to assess their students for Speaking and Listening - the two skills chosen due to the school's priority focus on Literacy and Oracy this academic year. The Skills Passport is completed at least termly. Year 9 tutor time sessions focus on each skill. Year 10's 'Build Your Skills' lesson as part of preparing for work experience includes activities to develop and demonstrate their skills. Year 12 career briefings in preparation for work experience has also included skills. Year 10 SEND students have spent lessons benchmarking themselves and used the Hub to build their skills.
Measure it
The Skills Passport is updated at least termly to demonstrate skills development. Year 7 & 8 tutors having been building skills with their tutees and monitoring progress on the Hub. SEND teachers have been supporting students developing their skills using the Hub. Year 10 debriefing following their work experience placements includes reflection on their skills development.
Focus tightly
The essential skills are taught through tutor time careers sessions, work experience and careers activities as well as PSHEE careers days. Skills Builder resources used include the icons, assembly and workshop.
Keep practising
Some teachers have referenced essential skills in the classroom during curriculum teaching, with careers activities highlighting the 8 skills e.g. National Careers Week, Work Experience, STEM week etc.
Bring it to life
Essential skills are linked to work experience and employer engagement activities and events. We recently held some career coaching sessions with the Job Centre Plus and used the essential skills to emphasise learning, skills development and what employers are looking for when recruiting young people.
What's next
Over the next academic year, we hope to continue to build on our successes. The initial challenge was introducing something new to the school, as we were still in the middle of the pandemic and also introduced Unifrog at the same time. Having used the resources, teachers can see the value and are more confident delivering them. Being able to adapt the resources to suit our careers and skills programme has led to Skills Builder resources being more widely used, and both teachers and students are enjoying using the resources. They can see that building skills just has to be small steps at a time. Students are now starting to recognise how they can demonstrate their skills to potential employers, which we will incorporate into our Year 11 mock interviews in January 2023. We are looking forward to embedding Skills Builder further next academic year.
