The Department for Education (DfE) has published the Schools White Paper, “Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child”.
Skills Builder Partnership has been contributing to equality in education for over a decade and so welcomes the DfE’s intention to target improved primary attainment in reading, writing and maths.
But by only focusing on incremental improvement for this narrow set of basic skills, the government is missing an opportunity to fundamentally shift life outcomes and achieve their levelling up agenda. Research shows that 8 essential skills – including problem solving, listening and teamwork – are a strong predictor of social mobility and life outcomes:
• Those with higher levels of essential skills tend to earn up to £5,900 per year more than peers with the same education and social background.
• An individual with a skill score 3 steps higher than an otherwise similar individual is 52% less likely to be out of work or education.
Not only do essential skills have a big impact on outcomes in their own right, but they also support attainment in the very subjects the government is targeting to improve. Longitudinal research supports a causal relationship between essential skills and academic attainment. Analysis of the British Cohort Study found an increase in essential skill levels can increase the probability of attaining a higher maths grade by 50%.
Providing children with opportunities to build essential skills in primary school works. Over a decade of work with primary schools on the ground has shown that explicitly teaching these skills from a young age leads to an improvement that is hard to compensate for later in life. Research shows that individuals who had more opportunities to build essential skills at school have higher skill levels as adults.
If the government wants to achieve its ambitions of levelling up in education, as well as focusing on reading writing and maths provision, it should support schools to teach essential skills. By promoting use of the Skills Builder Universal Framework for essential skills, government can ensure that resource and curriculum creation is rigorous and consistent.
Equally, as the DfE looks at enhancing teacher training, it should consider teachers’ views. The Sutton Trust found that 97% of teachers view essential skills as being at least as important as academic grades to students’ future success (53% believe they are more important), while 72% of teachers felt that their school should increase their focus on these skills. Driving awareness of the principles for effectively building skill at this crucial stage in teacher development will support teachers to deliver outcomes for their students throughout their careers.
Tom Ravenscroft, Founder and CEO at Skills Builder Partnership, spoke about the need to promote essential skills in education:
“Basic skills of literacy and numeracy are a core part of students’ success. But essential skills must receive the same level of consideration. Not only can highly transferable essential skills be learned alongside literacy and numeracy, but we’re increasingly finding that they provide a direct boost to these basic skills.
“Having worked with thousands of educational institutions in the UK, we have witnessed the fact it is within every learner’s ability to build their essential skills throughout education and beyond, unlocking their full potential.”
Learn more about Skills Builder Partnership
Skills Builder Partnership is a non-profit social enterprise. It unites more than 800 educators, employers and impact organisations around the Skills Builder Universal Framework and six principles of best practice to develop the eight essential skills that everyone needs to succeed.
To read Skills Builder Partnership’s latest publications, see skillsbuilder.org/insights.
For any enquiries, please contact Eleanor Collard, Communications Associate, at eleanor.collard@skillsbuilder.org, or Erica Popplewell, External Affairs Manager, at erica.popplewell@skillsbuilder.org.
