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At Colne Primet Academy, we aspire to ensure that every student leaves us able to succeed in life. We are "Proud to be Primet" with our core values and the characteristics we support our students to develop being: Progressing, Respectful, Inclusive, Motivated, Expressive and Together. We chose to use the Skills Builder Accelerator programme this year to build the essential skills students need to support them in their education, employment and the wider world.
Overall impact
We began using this in both Careers Personal Development Time and the wider curriculum with the aim to incorporate the Primet values and essential skills into all activities. Form tutors are able to access the resources from Careers PDT slides. The students have been positive about the form time activities and see the value of them in building their skills, especially when seeing the difference measured before and after an activity.
Keep it simple
We have trained staff on the essential skills, how they overlap with our core values and how to measure and analyse them. All Year 7 to 11 students have been introduced to the Skills Builder Framework. For years 7-9 this has been during Careers Personal Development Time, getting students to self-evaluate and mapping them with skills required for future career aspirations. For students in year 10 and 11, this has been used before and after activities to evidence development.
Start early, keep going
By introducing Skills Builder to all our students, we are setting the expectation that these important employability skills will be built upon throughout the student's school life. We have publicised the Home Learning Hub (Home zone) to parents via the school's website and e-newsletter.
Measure it
Form tutors have produced group level analysis with their tutor groups. Students are able to measure their own development with before and after comparisons.
Focus tightly
We have dedicated form time is set aside every week for Careers Personal Development Time. This sees students initially self-evaluating themselves for all the skills, but then concentrating on skills required in different sectors. For example the Year 7s entering the Step into the NHS Competition concentrated on Listening, Speaking, Teamwork and Creativity.
Keep practising
Staff are beginning to build the language into lessons, made easier as they overlap with the Primet values. We plan to build on this further in the future to ensure greater consistency across all the subject areas. Icons are used during some lessons and assemblies. Some classrooms display icons and refer to them, but all have the Primet values displayed and reward students who have shown them.
Bring it to life
Students who participated in the Young Enterprise Company programme self-evaluated their skills at the beginning of the school year and then again afterwards to see the increase in all 8 skills. We have used a work experience package that links with Skills Builder to measure the before and after development. For students unable to find a placement, they accessed virtual work experience that also showed the skills for each role. Employers that came to speak or deliver sessions also ensured they used the Skills Builder logos and discussed the importance of these. On Mock Interview day, the employers used a feedback sheet with the essential skills for recording the level they judged the student appeared to be at.
What's next
We plan to use a careers online platform for years 10 and 11 that uses the 8 essential skills and links them to future career paths. Hopefully working towards the silver award and building on the work we have done this year.
