What is it?
The Accelerator is a year-long training and development programme.
At the end of the first year you will have:
- An expert lead practitioner known as your ‘Skills Leader’
- A team of confident trained teachers
- Demonstrable learner progress in eight essential skills
- A Skills Builder Award in recognition of best practice
How does it work?
Places are limited. You’ll join a cohort of just 200 UK schools. We’ll match you with a dedicated Skills Builder Education Associate who is a qualified teacher. Your programme will include Skills Leader and teacher training, peer learning opportunities, planning meetings, and a complete curriculum and assessment model for your learners.
What might it look like?
Further Education settings tailor the programme to fit existing priorities and internal structures e.g. careers, employability or personal development.
Skills Builder, at its best, is embedded throughout your ethos and practices: policies, staff training, the taught curriculum, pastoral provision and 121s and so on. But that can take time, here are some ways others have got started. You might:
- Choose an area of the taught curriculum, e.g. Catering, to review and update with relevant staff members so that it maximises opportunities to teach essential skills
- Use Skills Builder Benchmark during tutor time or with a particular pathway so learners self-reflect and set personalised goals.
- Train pastoral staff so that 121 intervention and personal development provision builds essential skills
- Train the work experience team and then use the CV workshop and Work Experience logs to maximise careers and employability provision
- Align the skills to College events e.g. mock interviews, guest speakers, careers fairs
Learners on an Accelerator Programme make twice the progress building their essential skills.
What is the Skills Builder Award?
- The goal is to equip your students with the essential skills they need to succeed in education, wider life and future employment.
- The Skills Builder Award recognises Further Education settings who are delivering high-quality essential skills education at a Bronze, Silver and Gold standard.
- You will achieve an Award by embedding the principles of best practice outlined in the Award Guide.
- You will work closely with your Education Associate via three Planning Meetings to develop and implement a manageable, long-term strategy.
- Awards are dated for three years and reviewed annually by our team.
Get the prospectus, tips on applying and latest updates on funded places in your area - click here
Still have questions? Email us at accelerator@skillsbuilder.org and we will be in touch
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We spoke to Primary Skills Leaders about their experiences:
How did the Accelerator fit into your strategy?
What’s been the impact for you?
How have the training and support been?
What’s been the impact in the classroom?
How have you found the tools and resources?
What would you say to people thinking of applying?
What Secondary Skills Leaders say about the (Skills Builder) Accelerator
What Specialist Skills Leaders say about the (Skills Builder) Accelerator
What College Leaders say about the (Skills Builder) Accelerator
What Primary Skills Leaders say about the (Skills Builder) Accelerator
The Skills Builder Partnership
The Skills Builder Partnership brings together 800+ education institutions, employers and leading organisations around a common approach to building eight essential skills. Central to our approach is a rigorous progression framework, a set of underlying principles and a complete suite of tools and teaching materials.
The Skills Builder Framework
The Skills Builder Universal Framework is the national standard for teaching essential skills. It breaks each skill into teachable steps, supporting progress for children of all ages and abilities - including those with special educational needs. The Universal Framework was developed with Skills Builder by the Careers and Enterprise Company, Gatsby Foundation, Business in the Community, EY Foundation, the CBI and CIPD.
The Skills Builder Principles
Refined over a decade, the Skills Builder Principles outline best practice in teaching essential skills for learning and life. The six principles will form the basis of your strategy, and your success in embedding them will be recognised with the Skills Builder Award.