Listening
Initially, the skill steps concentrate on being able to listen effectively to others - including remembering short instructions, understanding why others are communication and recording important information.
Individuals then focus on how they demonstrate that they are listening effectively, thinking about body language, open questioning and summarising and rephrasing.
Beyond that, the focus is on being aware of how they might be being influenced by a speaker, through tone and language.
The final steps are about critical listening - comparing perspectives, identifying biases, evaluating ideas and being objective.
Speaking
Initially, this skill focuses on being able to speak clearly - first with well known individuals and small groups and then with those who are not known.
The next stage is about being an effective speaker by making points logically, by thinking about what listeners already know and using appropriate language, tone and gesture.
Beyond that, individuals focus on speaking engagingly through use of facts and examples, visual aids, and their expression and gesture.
Beyond that stage, speakers will be adaptive to the response of their listeners and ready for different scenarios. The final steps focus on speaking influentially - using structure, examples, facts and vision to persuade listeners.
Problem Solving
The first steps focus on being able to follow instructions to complete tasks, seeking help and extra information if needed. The next stage focuses on being able to explore problems by creating and assessing different potential solutions. This includes more complex problems, without a simple technical solution.
Beyond this, the focus is on exploring complex solutions - thinking about causes and effects, generating options, and evaluating those options. This extends into analysis using logical reasoning and hypotheses.
Finally, individuals implement strategic plans to solve complex problems, assess their success, and draw out learning for the future.
Creativity
The first few steps focus on the individual's confidence in imagining different situations and sharing their ideas.
The focus is then on generating ideas - using a clear brief, making improvements to something that already exists and combining concepts.
Individuals then apply creativity in the context of their work and their wider life. They can build off this to develop ideas using tools like mind mapping, questioning, and considering different perspectives.
The most advanced steps focus on building effective innovation in group settings and by seeking out varied experiences and stimuli. Finally, individuals support others to innovate, by sharing tools, identifying the right tools for the situation and through coaching.
Staying Positive
The early steps focus on identifying emotions - particularly feeling positive or negative. Building off that is the ability to keep trying - and then staying calm, thinking about what went wrong, and trying to cheer up and encourage others.
The focus then turns to identifying new opportunities in difficult situations, sharing those, and adapting or creating plans accordingly. At more advanced steps, individuals identify and manage risks and gains in opportunities.
Finally, individuals support others to stay positive by managing their own response, helping others to see opportunities and creating plans to achieve them.
Aiming High
The focus is then about working with care and attention, taking pride in success and having a positive approach to new challenges. Building on this, individuals set goals for themselves, informed by an understanding of what is needed, and then be able to order and prioritise tasks, secure resources and involve others effectively.
At the higher steps, the focus is creating plans informed by an individual's skill set, with clear targets, and building on external views. At the most advanced level, individuals develop long-term strategies. These are informed by an assessment of internal and external factors, structured through regular milestones and feedback loops.
Leadership
At the earliest stages, the focus is on basic empathy - understanding their own feelings, being able to share them, and recognising the feelings of others. The focus is on managing - dividing up tasks, managing time and sharing resources, managing group discussions and dealing with disagreements.
Beyond that, individuals build their awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses, and those of their teams. This allows them to allocate tasks effectively. They then build techniques to mentor, coach and motivate others. At the highest steps, individuals will be able to reflect on their own leadership style and understand its effect on others.
Ultimately, they should be able to build on their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses, and adapt their leadership style to the situation.
Teamwork
The next steps focus on making a contribution to a team through group decision making recognising the value of others' ideas and encourage others to contribute too.Beyond that, individuals improve their teams through managing conflict and building relationships beyond the immediate team. At the top steps, individuals focus on how they influence their team through suggesting improvements and learning lessons from setbacks.
Ultimately, individuals support the team by evaluating others strengths and weaknesses and bringing in external expertise and relationships.
Skill Step
Skill Step
Skill Step
Skill Step
Skill Step
Skill Step
Skill Step
Skill Step
To achieve Step 5, individuals will show that they can set goals for themselves.
Earlier steps focused on building up to this by introducing the notion of what success looks like through success criteria, then the importance of both taking pride in that success but also the importance of seeking out new challenges to support learning. This step combines those elements by introducing the setting of goals.
In the context of the classroom, learners should be able to:
- Set themselves goals that are based on their stretch zones
- Be clear about how they will know if a goal has been achieved
Building blocks
The building blocks of this step are learning:
- How to set goals in a stretch zone
- How to know if a goal has been achieved
Reflection questions
- What is a goal?
- How can we set goals in our stretch zone?
- Can you give examples of when you’ve done this?
- How can you tell if a goal has been achieved?
- How do goals and success criteria fit together?
- Why can numbers help you measure a goal?
What you need to know
-
What is a goal?
A goal is something that we want to happen, and that we will work towards achieving.
We might set goals in lots of different areas of our lives. For example, we might decide that we want to learn a new language, score more goals for our football team, or pass an examination.
-
Different types of goals
There are different types of goals that we might set ourselves:
- Short-term goals: These are things that we can achieve quite quickly – for example, in a day or a few hours. These might be things like learning some new vocabulary, mending something, or baking a cake.
- Mid-term goals: These are longer goals – perhaps they take a few days, a week or even a month. For example, we might want to improve our fitness or our accuracy at scoring in basketball. Mid-term goals take sustained effort to achieve.
- Long-term goals: These are goals that might take a lot longer to achieve – for example, that might be a promotion in work, achieving a particular qualification or something in our personal lives. These are goals that we need to work at for a longer time period and which it might be hard to see progress on day-to-day.
All three of these different types of goals are important, but we need to think about them differently. For mid-term and long-term goals, we also have to think about breaking these into smaller goals to keep us motivated to keep trying.
-
Setting goals in a stretch zone
When we set ourselves goals, it is vital to think about whether they are goals in our stretch zone. We explored this in the previous step, but you know if a goal is in your stretch zone if it is:
- Not so easy that you are sure that you will achieve it.
- Not so difficult as to make it dangerous or impossible to achieve.
Setting goals in your stretch zone give you the best chance of being successful and learning a lot along the way.
-
Knowing if a goal is achieved
We have already come across success criteria. A goal sets out what we are trying to achieve, while the success criteria will be our measures of whether we have achieved it or not. Therefore the two should work together.
For example, you might set a goal of learning a new language. This could be a great long-term goal, but difficult to know whether you are being successful. So, you could break this goal down into shorter-term goals – like being able to learn some important vocabulary, conjugate verbs in the present tense, and have a short conversation.
-
SMART targets
Even then, if is helpful to start setting clearer targets. The best targets are those that are SMART. This means that they are:
- Specific – it is clear exactly what you are trying to do.
- Measurable – you can measure whether the target has been met or not.
- Achievable – it is in your stretch zone – not too hard or too easy.
- Realistic – it is something that makes sense to do.
- Timed – you know when it needs to be done by.
For example, you could create a target towards learning a language as ‘being able to accurately write 50 important words in the language from memory in two weeks’ time’.
Putting numbers and deadlines on goals is particularly helpful because it means we can see exactly what success looks like and also see very clearly whether we have been successful.
-
Advice for
Individuals
Educators
Employers
Organisations
Parents & Carers
Why this skill step matters in education
In education there are lots of opportunities for setting goals in our studies, such as improving our spelling and grammar, improving our grades or passing an exam. However, there are other ways we can set goals for ourselves too like arriving on time for class, working with different people, asking a question if we don’t understand, not giving up if we find something challenging, or attending a weekly club. When our goals include SMART targets, it is easier to stay focused, see progress and know when we have been successful. Setting goals inside and outside of the classroom helps us learn and achieve.
Why this skill step matters in the workplace
This step builds on from positively approaching challenges and recognising our stretch zone to proactively setting our own goals and SMART targets. In the workplace we can use these skills to set goals for our everyday work, like making sure all emails are replied to by the end of the day or simplifying a process for your customers. We can also plan longer-term goals for our own personal development and consider what we would like to achieve in 1 year, 5year or 10 years’ time. Working towards clear goals and knowing what success looks motivates us to keep trying, work hard and improve.
Why this skill step matters in wider life
It is sometimes common to set goals for ourselves at the start of a new year, like a resolution to walk or cycle more and use less public transport or to eat more healthily. It is difficult to make changes without setting clear goals and targets to help us see what we want to achieve and how we will know when we have met that goal. We could set a goal to explore one new place in our local area each weekend, to plan a monthly meal with friends or relatives or to set aside 15 minutes a day to read a newspaper, book or magazine.
How to practise this skill step
To best practise this step of Aiming High, apply what you have learnt to a real-life situation. Choose one or more of the activities below, remind yourself of the key points and strategies in the step, and have a go!
- What is something you’ve always wanted to try? Set yourself a realistic goal and time frame to achieving it.
- Make a note of different goals you would like to achieve on sticky notes. Arrange the goals into categories: short-term, mid-term and long-term, thinking about the time it would take to achieve those goals.
For example, your long-term goal might be to pass an exam next year, your mid-term goal could be to complete half of the topics in 6 months and your short-term goal could be to study a new chapter each day. - Create a list or chart of the goals you are working towards, for education, work or life. What are your success criteria? Keep it updated with your progress so you can see and celebrate your success.
- Take a target you have been set or set yourself recently – is it a SMART target? Check that it is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed.
Build this step
Advice for
Educators
Employers
Organisations
Individuals
Parents & Carers
Teaching It
To teach this step:
- The teacher can introduce goals and why we have them. The teacher can model some goals that they have in their own lives and why they find having goals helpful and motivating.
- The teacher can explain the difference between short-, mid-, and long-term goals and how it is crucial to have a combination of these. Learners could give examples of some of these types of goals for themselves, or a hypothetical example could be broken down together.
- The teacher can then introduce the idea of SMART targets, and why having targets with numbers attached can be helpful.
- Learners can be encouraged to think about setting goals for themselves – perhaps in the context of their learning – and to turn them into SMART targets.
Reinforcing it
This step lends itself well to being reinforced in learning. For example, learners could be encouraged to take responsibility for coming up with their own learning goals and the measures of whether they have been successful – or perhaps in collaboration with a teacher. Learners should review whether they have been successful and to reflect on their progress using these targets over time.
Assessing it
This step can be assessed through an exercise where learners have to create a series of short-, mid- and long-term targets for themselves and turn these into SMART targets. They could alternatively do this by being given a broad goal and having to think about how this can be turned in to SMART targets.
Build this step
Advice for
Employers
Educators
Organisations
Individuals
Parents & Carers
Build it at work:
This step is relevant to individuals who can help themselves succeed by attempting new, stretching challenges.
To build this step in the work environment, managers could:
- Explain the difference between short-, mid-, and long-term goals and why it is important to set a combination of these. To support this explanation, the manager might model some team goals which are currently in play and describe their motivating effects.
- Model how to write a SMART target to show an individual how these can be helpful. During this demonstration, a manager could compare a SMART target against a non-SMART target to show the value of setting targets with numbers attached.
- Task an individual to write a SMART target to help them achieve a goal, following the example that a manager has set.
- Reflect with the individual about where they have seen SMART targets used to good effect in the workplace.
Practising it:
There are plenty of opportunities for building this skill in the workplace:
- Working with colleagues: When collaborating with others to achieve a short-, mid- or long-term goal, with a focus on writing SMART goals to keep everyone motivated.
- Working with customers or clients: When taking on a responsibility of achieving a result that benefits the customer, with a focus on using success criteria to help us understand what this looks like.
Reviewing it:
For those already employed, this step is best assessed through discussion and observation. For instance:
- A manager might have a reflective conversation with an individual to identify how well they can set themselves a short, mid and long-term goal. During this conversation a manager might also ask questions to uncover if an individual can effectively set themselves SMART targets which help to achieve these goals.
- Over the longer-term, it is even better to see whether the individual is able to set SMART targets that are appropriate to their stretch zone.
Spotting it in recruitment:
During the recruitment process, this step could be assessed for by:
- Interviewing an individual and asking them to describe a time when they have set themselves a goal. Evidence of this skill step can be found in the individual showing an awareness of the difference between short-, mid- and long term goals and the value of making their goals clear, through using techniques such as making them SMART.
Build this step
Advice for
Organisations
Educators
Employers
Individuals
Parents & Carers
We work with a wide range of organisations, who use the Skills Builder approach in lots of different settings – from youth clubs, to STEM organisations, to careers and employability providers.
We have a lot of materials available to support you to use the Skills Builder Universal Framework with the individuals you work with, including:
- Tools for self-reflection
- Materials to support you to teach the skills, if appropriate in your setting
- Reward systems like printable certificates
We also do a lot of work with organisations who join the Skills Builder Partnership to build the Universal Framework into their work and impact measurement systems. You can find out a lot more using the links below.
More resources
Advice for
Parents & Carers
Educators
Employers
Organisations
Individuals
At home, you can easily support your child to build their essential skills. The good news is that there
are lots of ways that you can have a big impact, including:
- Talking with your child about the essential skills, what they are and how they are useful in all
aspects of life, whether at school, home or in the workplace - Talking about how you use these skill steps in your own work or wider life
- Helping your child to identify where they already build their skills at school, at home or
through other activities and clubs - Praising your child when they show they are using the skills well, and helping them to feel a
sense of achievement - Encouraging them to recognise and talk confidently about their skill strengths with others, and
supporting them to develop their skills further
