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Ryders Hayes School is a two-form entry primary academy for children aged 2 to 11, with over 470 children on roll including a pre-school for children, which is situated in Pelsall, Walsall. At Ryders Hayes one of our drivers for the curriculum is exploring possibilities and raising aspirations, thus improving social mobility. By aspirations we mean the things which children and young people hope to achieve in the future. In order to realise their aspirations for further education; apprenticeships; university and their vast range of career opportunities, pupils usually require good educational outcomes. Raising aspirations is therefore often believed to encourage improved attainment in primary school when children begin to consider their life goals and have a focus and sense of purpose for their hard work and effort (even if this changes along the way). Conversely, in preparing pupils by developing the soft skills required for their future learning and the world of work, they also achieve highly at primary school. The school is a member of the Skills Builder Partnership and uses its Skills Builder Framework (a progression of 8 skills) to prepare the children. Ryders Hayes' involvement with the Skills Builder Accelerator programme started in 2020 when the school was commissioned to design and create a primary careers curriculum for Early Years to Year 6, by the Careers and Enterprise Company, as one of their innovation projects, which embeds the 8 essential skills for the world of work as well as widening the children's horizons in 12 different sectors of work. The 8 essential skills, have since become fundamental across the whole curriculum and are a part of the golden thread running through the bespoke Ryders Hayes Curriculum.
Overall impact
The overall impact of the Accelerator programme, is just of that, that it has accelerated our focus for careers in school, it has support teaching staff, support staff and the wider teams to think differently when planning lessons, it has supported staff to feel confident to embed the essentials skills into everyday learning.
Keep it simple
We have worked hard to embed Skills Builder into the curriculum -our teaching team have undertaken training and we have built awareness of the essential skills through icons on lesson plans, visual displays for children on the board to make easy connections between their learning and the essential skills, we have shared in our newsletter to involve parents in our termly essential skills focus. We have ensured that we use the language of the essential skills including in activities such as our school allotment.
Start early, keep going
We have worked hard to raise awareness of the essential skills and the links across the curriculum along with working hard to embed this so that it becomes part of everyday learning. We have engaged all ages of learners at all stages of their education through additional support from our in house Careers 2040 programme which allows children to be exposed to sectors and the skills that are require for those sections, children have a chance to build on their essential skills by the class teacher sharing what the next step to develop the skills are and what steps are needed for the skill to be mastered by the child.
Measure it
Children when undertaking Careers 2040 activities have a portfolio of work in relation to the essential skills which moves with the child each year and even onto secondary, this allows the child to see there own progression in their essential skills along with teaching staff measuring student progress, using the Framework, and recording this on the Skills Builder Hub.
Focus tightly
We have worked with the teaching team through personal development sessions to ensure that PowerPoints, lesson plans and activities across school have the same shared focus for the term, each term there has been a specific focus on two of the essential skills, which has ensured structure and a clear shared focused amongst staff and children for the term, allowing children to have regular opportunities through Skills Builder lessons and assemblies to focus on the two areas.
Keep practising
Children have the opportunity to work with volunteers in the school allotment understanding about how the essentials skills are not stand alone skills and that they can be used together and compliment each other when undertaking tasks. All extracurricular activities (Reception - Y6) are mapped with the most relevant skill that will be practised in that club/activity. For afterschool clubs, there is a slide at the start of the session outlining the activity and skills that will be practised. Similarly, staff begin all curriculum lessons by identifying the specific skill-step that learners need to focus on in the topic to ensure learners practise the essential skills in the wider curriculum.
Bring it to life
We worked closely with the CEC and Black Country Skills factory to develop resources for Careers 2040 a programme which focusing on the essential skills through live encounters with employers for year groups, this allows children to revisit the skills they have been focusing on and apply them to practice and real life employers which opportunities for children to ask further questions about each skill throughout the sessions. We have worked hard to ensure that our careers offer is brought to life and that children are fully engaged in the importance of the essential skills from primary to secondary and later on in their working life. Children have opportunities from early years to speak with emergency services, later on in school opportunities to work on projects with water companies, work closely with the Hippodrome HEN project, work with a large number of employers through our internal Careers 2040 and have opportunities to demonstrate and further their skills with volunteers in school through other projects.
What's next
We will be working hard to continue our focus on essential skills is continued, ensuring that any new staff now have essential skills as part of their induction. We plan to continue to work hard with our external providers such, and to work with them to also the same language to promote essential skills in activities delivered by them.
