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Located in Melbourne, Australia, Carey Baptist Grammar School is a large, independent, co-educational college for students from Early Learning (3yrs) to Year 12. The school is forward thinking, and the culture is one of excellence and a commitment to building students with strong character. The students at Carey are encouraged to discover and develop a strong sense of their life purpose through experiences that are offered by the co-curricular opportunities and the innovative curriculum and learning programs provided. Some of these offerings include camps and excursions, musical productions, student leadership, special interest groups, house system, lunchtime clubs, Chapel Services and assemblies, a transdisciplinary program at year 9 (Year of C- Change) and also one that has a personal development and service learning focus at year 10. (The Zero Program).
Overall impact
I was a classroom teacher as well as a Careers Practitioner this year in my role at the school. I had previously used Skillbuilder in my prior school, and wanted to see if I could embed it in my own classroom in order to measure ‘affective’ learning skills in students, in a way that was explicit, and demonstrated rigour and was clear to parents and students alike. We were currently measuring the traditional cognitive skills such as remembering knowledge. Other than anecdotal evidence shared between teachers of what 21st Century Skills we had seen students developing in our classroom lessons, we didn’t have a common language or have consistency between classes. With support from our Skills Builder Educational Support Representative Vicky, we were able to adapt an assessment rubric for a year 8 lesson to instead focus on assessing essential skills developed in the unit of work. After this, teachers began to see other ways we could audit units of work and show students when they were using and building on the essential skills.
Keep it simple
This year we have embedded essential skills into a subject curriculum (Religious Education) to serve as a model for other subjects in the future. The essential skills have been discussed with students in year 8, during their Religious Education lessons. The essential skill icon, skill steps and strategies formed part of the RE subject’s lesson plans- particularly as we headed towards the summative assessment. This has allowed students to build their essential skills alongside the curriculum content, and have a better sense of utility in what they were learning. The essential skills have also been introduced into our careers provision. We use the Morrisby Profile for all students at year 10 level at Carey, and this is unpacked by the Teacher Mentors in the student's Zero Program class time (see above for Zero description). This is a helpful explanation for the senior school students of what employability skills are. They will be embedded into career showcases in each curriculum subject over time.
Start early, keep going
This year essential skills have been discussed with Year 8 and Year 10 in Religious Education. It has also been introduced to Years 10 & 12 in Careers Education lessons. As Religious Education is a subject that runs from Prep- Year 10 throughout the school, Skills Builder lends itself to being an authentic assessment measuring tool for this subject that builds on developing students' civic and character development.
Measure it
In Religious Education students’ pre and post understanding of the essential skills has been tracked and measured using the HUB platform.
Students have also periodically completed an essential skill record on one focus skill (e.g. Problem Solving) at the end of a subject unit and piece of summative assessment work.
As already mentioned, at this school, in year 10, our students undertake the Morrisby Profile, and they also take part in a week of work experience. They use a reflective log during work experience to help them notice the essential skills they are using every day that they work. The Morrisby Profile has the Skills Builder program built into the student tracking element of the software, and so at year 10 level, students and parents can see how they are developing regarding each of the essential skills.
Focus tightly
In Year 8 RE, the unit of work was most suited to focusing on teaching the essential skill- Problem Solving. As the unit of work was introduced - this was listed as one of the Learning Outcomes for students to clearly connect, and as each lesson was delivered, the specific Problem Solving ‘step’ that was linked to this lesson’s content, was highlighted to the learners. Resources from the HUB such as short lessons were used to support the other RE teaching content. After the students completed their summative assessment, class then spent time on a class reflection, reviewing the strategies used to build their Problem Solving skills, and their personal progress. We used the language in Skills Builder in the assessment rubric, and this is what we reported on in student reports.
Keep practising
The subject of RE has been used to embed essential skills across part of the school’s curriculum. The next stage would be to use this as a model for other subject areas to embed essential skills into the curriculum plans.
Some subjects that particularly lend themselves to developing the affective skills are those such as Health, Wellbeing, The Transdisciplinary Year 9 and Year 10 year long programs. The reporting template for these subjects could focus on measuring the affective essential skills, rather than focusing only on the cognitive thinking skills.
The careers department has also used career resources from the HUB to incorporate essential skills and support career discussions with students. These essential skills discussions support the students’ in adding evidence to their Morrisby profiles.
Bring it to life
In year 10 Religious Education, we had the opportunity to use one of The Skills Builder Challenge days. We chose 'A Day in Politics' as it concluded a unit of work of Faith and Culture. Students could demonstrate the need for essential skills in these kinds of tasks and roles. This fun and creative role-play experience allowed students to make real world connections regarding the importance of essential skills as well as the impact of politics in our society and culture. At year 8 level, the summative assessment took the form of a group social justice research project that for the first time, was also linked to essential skill steps. The accompanying assessment rubric displayed this in a way that was clear and actionable for the students. The reflection for the community project also allowed students to self and peer reflect on the skills in Problem Solving they had developed during the project.
What's next
This project has had a positive impact on the students and we feel that it will continue to impact them positively in the future. When the students move on from year 8 and into their year 9 (C-Change) program, they will be required to work together to solve a real-world problem or improve an issue they have identified within the community. The students at our school also often work and volunteer with their local community and so they can begin to see how they can use these opportunities to apply and develop the essential skills outside of school.
In the future I would like to involve different subject teachers to update and reflect on students’ progress in developing soft skills. In year 10 Careers, students can be encouraged to include the activities they take part in outside of school and to create goals and action plans for further development on their employability skills.
So, while we are only at the beginning of the Skills Builder journey, at this particular school, I am thankful to have found a way to continue to measure these ‘elusive’ soft skills in my own classroom teaching.
In time, my hope is that students will be able to make greater connections between their learning, their possible careers and develop their executive function which ultimately benefits their literacy & numeracy outcomes.
