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Our school is situated in a Whitechapel, East London. We are a small free school and have a diverse population of students. Our school's mission is broaden the horizons of our students and provide a rich and effective holistic education that empowers students to live a full and successful life. Part of this mission involves equipping students with transferable skills that will serve them well in further education, their future employment and in their personal lives. To this end, Skills Builder provides the perfect framework for us to help our students achieve these aims.
Overall impact
For students, the programme has allowed them to reflect of their skills and recognise that they use them on a daily basis. We've focused a lot on speaking a listening this term for the younger students which has been a fantastic journey of building their confidence to a point where a good number of them now enjoy public speaking- a rare hobby for an eleven year old. Due to the work that we've done, all staff are aware of the mission we have and the senior leadership team have been supportive in providing funding and protected time, highlighting that they understand the importance of the skills and what we're trying to do.
Keep it simple
For us, making the skills visible around the school has been a major part of building awareness. Skills posters are in every main area of the school, our current award status is on all official school letters and correspondence, and letters are sent home to every parent in year 7 explaining the value of the skills and where and how they're taught to their children. Displays have also been used for parents' evening.
Start early, keep going
Our skills work mainly involves year 7 and 8. We have dedicated time in our timetable which means that all key stage three students have two hours a week dedicated to using and developing their skills. We call this time workshop Wednesday and students use project based learning to apply the skills they're taught to real-world scenarios. Older year groups have also had the opportunity to develop skills through work experience initiatives, assemblies and "ASPIRE" days, which are pastoral led days that have a PSHE focus.
Measure it
Students are mainly assessed in two ways; we used Skills Builder Benchmark consistently throughout the school year so that students have the opportunity to assess where they are with the skills and then reflect of their progress, and then classroom teachers use the Skills Builder Hub to monitor and track their class as a whole. Benchmark has been particularly effective for students who are honest about their own strengths and weaknesses. It has provided opportunities for teachers and students to have open and frank conversations about what they can do to improve.
Focus tightly
In terms of direct instruction, students participate in our Workshop Wednesday programme that has bespoke projects that students work through in order to build skills. We use resources from the Hub to help with this direct instruction and then students have the chance to practice the skills during the lesson and then reflect on what they've achieved.
Keep practising
We mainly use project-based learning in our curriculum to expose the students to the skills and give them opportunities to build them. These projects tend to focus on at least two skills and then students work through the project over six weeks and have multiple opportunities to build on the skills steps. References to the skills in other lessons has also been a crucial part of expanding the use of skills around school. Science, Geography and English have been subjects that have frequently pointed out skills in their curriculum and emended them into their lessons.
Bring it to life
The projects we used in workshop Wednesday are designed to be as real as possible. We use examples from the world of work, such as engineering projects, social and political projects that address current issues and employer visits where we've had professionals come into school and explain how they've needed skills in their work life.
What's next
The plans that we currently have for next year involved wider participation of the staff. Departments will be encouraged to implement the skills in their curriculum and have specific examples in department areas so that students can see the versatility and importance of the skills throughout the school. We also plan on utilizing Launchpad and Homezone more to ensure that students are getting the most out of their skills journey.
