What is the Accelerator Programme?
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 the Accelerator programme 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. Plus access to a suite of online assessment tools and engaging resources that can be used to best meet the needs of your learners.
What could you do on an Accelerator programme?
Specialist settings utilise the programme to support existing curriculum plans, careers related learning strategies and school priorities.
Skills Builder, at its best, is embedded throughout your ethos and practices: policies, staff training, the curriculum, assemblies, and so on. But that can take time, here are some ways others have got started. You might:
- Use ready made, easy to access assemblies, posters and visual aids to introduce the skills with students. Start to use the icons in powerpoints to demonstrate to students when they are practising skills
- Use the Expanded Framework to structure your life skills lessons, helping learners apply the skills to everyday tasks
- Link the skills to your existing projects, or use project-based learning resources from the Skills Builder Hub to explicitly teach and practise the essential skills
- Set individual skill and step targets for learners in support plans, and communicate the next steps with parents/carers during review meetings
- Target specific groups of learners as a pilot group
- Include the skills within your current Preparation for Adulthood provision
- Embed the skills into your setting’s existing reward policy, recognising and rewarding the application of essential skills using stickers, certificates and badges.
What is the Skills Builder Award?
- The goal is to equip your learners with the essential skills they need to succeed in their next steps
- The Skills Builder Award recognises specialist settings who are delivering high-quality essential skills education at a Bronze, Silver and Gold standard.
- You will achieve an Award by embedding principles of best practice outlined in the Award Guide.
- You will work closely with your Education Associate in three Planning Meetings to develop and implement a manageable, long-term plan.
- 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
Skills Builder Partnership
The Skills Builder Partnership brings together 900+ education institutions, employers and leading organisations around a common approach to building eight essential skills. Central to our approach is our 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 all ages and abilities - including those with special educational needs. The Universal Framework was developed by Skills Builder with the Careers and Enterprise Company, Gatsby Foundation, Business in the Community, EY Foundation, CIPD and the CBI.
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.