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Skills Builder underpins all our core values at Towers Federation. It is included within our whole school curriculum maps, newsletters, BUILD logo and many more. We value the skills that Skills Builder has to offer and we use these daily within our teaching of essential skills which help prepare young children for their future.
Overall impact
Teachers have more clarity on how to use lessons in their timetable, sharing on weekly newsletters with parents what skills have been covered that week, tweeting images of children during Skills Builder lessons, tweeting and using language of Skills Builder which is thenshared to parents, linking the importance of Skills Builder to the National Curriculum and to careers.
Keep it simple
The skills are displayed around the school, in every classroom, on our PowerPoints to reference to the skills throughout most lessons, They are listed on our curriculum maps and newsletters to parents (half termly), and (when mentioned) on our weekly newsletter to parents, Twitter, school website, curriculum maps that we send to parents as well as being linked specifically to career roles every half term. Having Skills Builder on our school logo/crest means that our commitment to skill-development is identifiable online for anyone using our website. Stickers given when children have used a specific skill within a task. During careers week, a variety of parents and adults came in and shared their career skill set with the children, with the children then completing a sheet to reflect this information again linking directly to the skills each career needs.
Start early, keep going
All learners are taught essential skills. Some students have extra pupil passports to support them further.
Measure it
The Hub dashboard is regularly updated by staff to measure learners' progress against the Universal Framework. Planing is then adapted to suit learners' needs. The Skills Builder displays are a non negotiable in every classroom for teachers and children to refer back to, which supports staff in having discussions with learners about skills to formatively assess their progress. We have also linked our BUILD sticker chart to the essential skills to reward progress in skill-development.
Focus tightly
Some Hub resources are being used depending on the needs of the class. Staff use the Universal Framework to inform their planning and the Hub assessments to inform them of which step their learners need to focus on in lessons. Skills Builder drop-down week took place in summer term and was an intensive skills-development week for learners to help them progress in the focus skill identified as most important by the class teacher. There was a skill activity each day and each class teacher created their own resources and activities, to explicitly teach their own focus skills, in addition to using Hub resources.
Keep practising
We have incorporated essential skills into the following: after school clubs (art, writing, cooking, dance), enterprise week for Year 5 (designing an object to sell at the summer fayre so looking at the essential skills needed alongside the development of career skills), Maths week (which looked at creativity, communication and teamwork). Curriculum maps show that the skills have been mapped into subjects for every half-term. The essential skills are used on teachers' slides in wider curriculum lessons and a handbook has been created for staff, identifying short lessons on the Hub that can be taught as part of wider curriculum units in subjects like DT and PHSE.
Bring it to life
During Careers Week, parents were invited in to share their careers experience. Careers days included the essential skills; linking specific themes days and weeks to Skills Builder (maths week); and Mental Health Week gave an opportunity to think about communication skills. The HEST team also came into school to talk about key ways to deal with situations and this was linked to Skills Builder; and there was a careers workshop online for KS2. In Year 6, we work with a company called Access HE which is a career driven package helping children transition from KS2 to KS3 but they are also sharing with them examples and ideas for what they can do later on in life, focusing on Staying Positive and Aiming High. Also introduced this year was a money matters programme led by HSBC and children throughout the school understood the importance of money, problem solved some tasks and worked collaboratively together. using Skills Builder to link to job roles which is non-negotiable for all staff, every term.
What's next
Even though we have successfully encouraged parents to share their careers with us and their skill set, we want to continue to develop the interaction with parents. We would also like to continue to further embed the language of Skills Builder throughout KS1 so children can verbalise what the skills are specifically and clearly, from a young age.
