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St Bernard?s Catholic High school is a secondary school in Rotherham. As a Catholic school, our community is wrapped in Gospel values and these permeate all aspects of school life, making St. Bernard?s the special and unique place that it is. Alongside our Catholic ethos, we work extremely hard to deliver outstanding personal development, with a curriculum which is ambitious and exciting for all. Our aim is to ensure that our students not only fulfil their academic potential, but become the very best they can, so that they have rewarding, successful and happy lives ahead of them. Our Careers programme is fully embedded into school life and curriculum. It is a high priority for us, as it helps to support the 'Outstanding' personal development programme within school, as judged by OFSTED.
Overall impact
Using the Skills Builder programme has further raised the profile of skills development across school. Students and staff are regularly reflecting on the development of skills across the curriculum. The Accelerator programme has ensured that each of the six principles and the regular strategy meetings, with a dedicated Education Associated, have helped to continually review and refine our provision to maximise the impact of our skills provision. Students at St Bernard's are able to talk confidently about the importance of skills and how they are developing these skills.
Keep it simple
All students are involved in our skills development programme. All classrooms and curriculum areas have a career display board, which have each of the Skills Builder logos and step descriptions displayed. Each half term, we have a different skill focus and an assembly is delivered to all year groups promoting the focussed skills. Th skills are also linked to different careers and different activities that students have coming up each half term. Teachers use the step descriptors when discussing the skills with students. Teachers are encouraged to reward students for demonstrating skills via our rewards point system and, at the end of term, teachers nominate students for each skill and then these are presented in rewards assemblies. Staff and students talk confidently about the skills being developed and in some curriculum areas skills tasks are now embedded into student work books. Students regularly reflect upon the skills they are developing.
Start early, keep going
Each half term, students complete Unifrog activities, which all link to the essential skills. Students are asked, during these sessions, to reflect on the skills they are developing, by using the skills tool in Unifrog. Staff have had training on the levelling of skills, which has encouraged students to be more focussed when reflecting upon their skill development. In Y7 and Y8 (Y9 from next year) students have designated skills builder sessions at least once per half term. The skills are also included in our work experience journals in Y8 and Y10 and in our careers fair passport. Skills builder sessions are also being delivered with our SEND/PP students, as part of our intervention and tailored curriculum.
Measure it
The skills builder hub is used to assess smaller groups of students. In addition to the whole school approach, we carry out small group work to help our SEND, low ability and Pupil Premium students to further develop these valuable skills. Form Tutors also carry out the skills assessments in order to ensure the skills builder hub sessions are tailored to their form groups. At the end of these sessions, students complete a reflection activity in their RSHE and Careers booklets, and teachers update the assessment tool in the skills builder to ensure that progress is recorded and tracked. The Unifrog skills reflection tool is also used by all students to reflect and evidence the skills they develop throughout the year.
Focus tightly
Designated time is planned through our rolling form time hour for all students to develop and reflect on the skills they are developing. Each half term, this starts with a skills assembly, highlighting the skill for that half term. Unifrog sessions then follow each half term and in years 7 and 8 (9 from next year) students have designated skills builder hub sessions. Staff support students in reflecting on their skills throughout the year. Designated time in the curriculum also allows our smaller group sessions to take place, so that students have a more tailored approach to developing the essential skills. A skills review is included in feedback from activities taking place across school, some examples include our enrichment programme evaluations, work experience journals and mock interview feedback. Class teachers use the skills builder steps to help focus discussions and to encourage students to be more specific when thinking about each aspect of the skills.
Keep practising
Next year we will have designated skills builder sessions for all students in Y7, Y8 and Y9. We plan to continue our work with smaller groups of students and also introduce the skills builder Hub sessions into our pastoral restorative work. Skills builder tasks have been added to Performing Arts and Design and Technology KS3 work booklets. Next year, we hope to share this good practice with other curriculum areas. Learning walk post cards also have the skills identified, as staff complete these feedback cards, as part of our whole school quality assurance, the skills seen are tracked.
Bring it to life
All students attend our Careers Fair. We regularly have over 50 different employers and Post-16 providers in attendance. Every student has a skills passport, which encourages them to complete a variety of activities, in order to develop the essential skills. In each of our skill assemblies, careers have been linked to the particular skills focus for that half term. In our evaluation of activities, students reflect specifically on the skills they have developed. Students in Y10 complete a two weeks work experience each year, and students in Y8 complete a day's work placement. As part of their reflection, students assess themselves against the skills. This year we have also ran our first challenge day with Y8 students, which was fantastic.
What's next
Next year, we will continue to develop our skills builder specific sessions in form time by including these in our Y9 programme. We want to further develop the use of the skills step in all curriculum areas, to include these more in teaching resources, to further support principal 5; Keep Practising.
