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Three Ways School is a generic special school based in Bath with over 200 students aged 4-19 years. We have a large catchment area and a wide variety of abilities and ways of engaging with the young people. The next steps for students varies greatly but we want all students to experience the world of work. We have worked hard to embed employability skills into all areas of the curriculum, differentiating for the age and ability of our young people. We have a cafe on site which teaches work skills and life skills and demonstrates the capability of the young people to the community. We have put in place an employability skill for each term as a careers curriculum focus which works alongside our careers insights, work place visits and work experience. These all vary depending on the students and we have developed pathways for each group of students Sensory, Pre-formal and Formal. We have piloted the Skills Builder Programme in order to see how it can enhance the work and life skills we are aiming to deliver to our students. We wanted to build on the careers programme we have in place and the Skills Builder Framework seemed the ideal programme to adopt to enhance staff understanding of careers and help parents and carers support young people towards the next step.
Overall impact
The Accelerator programme has given us the framework to support teachers in building essential skills into all areas of the curriculum. It has given a range of ideas which are very clear and differentiated to be accessible for all our student groups.It has introduced the essential skills and framework into our careers guidance and to all the employers we work with. The highlight is to now have all of our curriculum documents containing the essential skills and framework in the planning document ensuring it is visible to all staff and our Trustees and truly embedding the golden thread of careers and skills into the school.
Keep it simple
We have a display of the skills in each classroom. All teachers have undertaken 2 skills builder training sessions. We have shared the skills with all work experience hosts and careers speakers. We recognise the practicing of skills in the classroom and in assemblies. We have a termly skills based assembly. We encourage teachers to use the skills builder tools. We have embedded the skills into curriculum planning. The Careers Advisor uses the essential skills to build group sessions.
Start early, keep going
We have embedded the skills builder skills into curriculum planning and have a termly skills focus which is introduced through an assembly. We encourage all staff to use the framework to find exersises to practice skills. We make the skills explicit in teaching and reflect on skills practiced reguarly in class.
Measure it
We use the framework to measure students understanding of skills on a regular basis so we can see how skills are improviding. We encourage teachers to keep a tally of when skills are used in class to notice and reflect on how skills are being practiced. Skills are discussed in annual reviews and often written into individual plans for learning.
Focus tightly
Secondary and sxth-form students have explicit skills teaching time in regular careers slots. Teachers use a combination of Hub resources, Homezone challenges and in-house resources to teach the skills. Teachers discuss skills and lessons are build around practicing the key skills, using the framework and incidental learning.
Keep practising
We give a wide range of opportunities for students to practice essential skills, from everyday team work in lessons, to work experience in our onsite cafe practicing customer service, enterprise ideas and money skills, volunteering for Duke of Edinburgh Award practicing independence, planning, timekeeping and resiliance, external work experience with local employers who have been briefed on essential skills and reflect upon examples in the work experience booklet, visits to employers and CV workshops alongside communication at playtime, collaborating with enterprise and many other day to day experiences in school. Our teachers received training on how to reference skills in the wider curriculum and are now more confident doing so. We have incorporated the skills into all planning documents for next year.
Bring it to life
We work reguarly with employers to deliver a range of work place insights, mock interviews, work place visits and work experience. We deliver a programme of careers throughout the school from role play in Early Years, throught to skills development and Work Experience in Sixth Form. This programme of careers is all underpinned by the skills builder framework and all employers are encouraged to use this as a basis for supporting students. Our external Careers Advisor supports this work in the groupwork and one to ones using the essential skills as the start for discussions. We have events such as mock interview day where communication is a key focus and we will work with students to practice and build this skill. Students will get feedback from employers around this key skills and can then build on this in class. We have a clear feedback form for mock interviews which lists the skills which could be used in an interview and asks for comments.
What's next
We are planning on working with parents and carers to introduce the home resources and guides through a display, ideas shared in home school communications and at parents evenings.We want to build the Home Zone into the careers section of the school website and we will put a suggested activity into each termly newsletter.
