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The King’s College is an independent school in the southern suburbs of Perth. At The King’s College, we encourage all students to work to the best of their ability and to reach their version of exceptional. We’ve fostered a safe and caring environment where students can learn free from distraction and discover their talents and creativity. The Skills Builder Global Accelerator program was delivered to year 10 students to explicitly develop their communication skills.
Overall impact
Our focus this year was on year 10 students Speaking skills. We used the Accelerator programme to positively impact the students' communication skills when delivering a “Shark Tank” style pitch for a proposed product that they had designed. The standard of the presentations improved markedly as a result of the focus on building essential skills. It was also highly rewarding to see the increase in personal satisfaction and pride that students had after completing this project. They were aware of the improvements they had made and more confident to step outside of their comfort zones and challenge themselves. Students congratulated each other on their progress and supported each other in setting challenging and individualised growth goals. There was also an improvement in student behaviour in all areas of their learning. For example students improved their eye contact and body language, becoming more clear and confident when conveying their ideas and messages. This was a result of their learning from the Skills Builder project.
Keep it simple
Students were introduced to the essential skills using the Benchmark platform. This allowed students to learn about the importance of essential skills and self assess their skills against the step levels in the Universal Framework. They then set personalised goals to improve their Speaking skills and were able to study the strategies required to improve using the online platform.
Start early, keep going
We focused on year 10 to allow us to provide a showcase example of what can be achieved. This was the first time that students had exposure to self assessment using a framework and we were able to focus on teaching this skill robustly to this year group.
Measure it
Progress was measured by recording the presentations before and after the self assessment, learning and goal setting. The students' progress on the Speaking framework was measured. Students who previously had spoken quite well, improved by walking around the room, using increased eye contact and asking rhetorical questions of the group. Students who had been reading from slides, took the risk of looking up and engaging more with the audience. Every single student made an improvement in some way. This improvement was recorded by the teacher, the student and their peers giving a holistic view of the impact of this project.
Focus tightly
The ‘Shark Tank’ oral presentation was used as the focal point for developing Speaking skills. Each member of the group spoke with varying degrees of confidence and ability when they first presented their projects. The first presentations were recorded and sent to each group for revision and observation. Students were then invited to conduct a self assessment of the 15 steps involved in the Speaking Skill Builder using the Benchmark platform. They then chose an area for improvement. Students undertook individualised learning in the learning hub according to their level of choice. They then set a goal about an aspect of their presentation that they wanted to improve. This individualised goal setting and learning was a key component of their success. The students were then asked to deliver the same presentation but putting their goal of improvement into practice. By repeating the same presentation, students could focus on the skill of Speaking and implement the strategies that they had learnt to improve.
Keep practising
Students practised with each other in small groups and shared their experiences and goals with their peers. The improvements to students Speaking skills was evident in other areas of their learning and in subsequent oral presentations. Students had numerous opportunities to implement their learning in other areas of their studies.
Bring it to life
The skill of Speaking is used all day in everyday life and it was therefore evident that their improvements in this skill could be linked to learning outside of the classroom.
What's next
The impact of this project has been very positive and we hope that it can continue to have an impact on a wider number of students.
