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Stone Cross School is a two-form entry primary school on the outskirts of Eastbourne, East Sussex. Our motto, 'Excellence through Effort, Enthusiasm and Enjoyment’ drives our vision for our children alongside teaching our core values of HEART: honesty, enthusiasm, aspiration, respect and tolerance. We decided to get involved with the Skills Builder programme three years ago as we wanted to develop our children's key skills not only to impact on their learning and achievement now but also in the future, as they looked towards their long term aspirations including potential careers. Just before the start of the pandemic, we had started to explore how to develop our careers education and held a very successful careers week. Unfortunately, during the following 18 months, there were limited opportunities to continue with this work in the same way. Skills Builder provided us with the opportunity to explicitly teach and focus on essential skills with our children at an appropriate level. We feel it is vitally important to provide every child with the skills needed to be successful in life as well as exposing them to many different career opportunities so they know what is out there and have a goal to work towards.
Overall impact
Embedding the Skills Builder Universal Framework into our school curriculum has been great! It has provided teachers with a clear framework and easy to access resources to enable them to teach the essential skills to our children. Prior to this, the skills were taught but not explicitly or coherently. Having the whole school focusing on one skill at a time has also supported the development of the language as well as a shared focus and a clear sense of the community learning together from EYFS right through to Year 6. Children are becoming better at referring to the skills and explaining their personal development within them. Likewise, teachers are incorporating them more fully into existing curriculum planning as well as Skills Builder resources being used effectively for interventions for individuals and small groups. The developing links to careers education has also enabled the children to see the relevance of the skills for the future as well as becoming better learners now. The initial training from our associate, time for strategy meetings, support from Governors and changes to timetabling, policy and development planning has enabled the programme to be valued and become embedded at Stone Cross.
Keep it simple
Before starting the programme, all staff had training and now, 3 years on, new staff receive an overview of the programme during their induction. The skills are linked to our Learning Behaviours to develop context and meaning. Every term, we focus on one skill. A class assembly time each week is allocated to specific teaching and staff use the resources from the Skills Builder Hub. Through using the shared resource, everyone is using the same language. Around the school and in classrooms, Skills Builder icons are visible and act as a reminder to children and staff. Children are also rewarded with certificates for their development of skills. This year, linking the team points system to Skills Builder skills and staff articulating why children have been awarded a team point, further strengthens children’s understanding of the skills and a common shared language is being used across the school. Skills Builder is embedded in our practice: it is included in our prospectus and prospective parent events, Teaching and Learning Policy and website. Parents are aware of the skills as they are referred to in year group newsletters.
Start early, keep going
All year groups from EYFS to Year 6 learn about the skills following our school structure of focusing on an essential skill each term. Class teachers teach skills lessons in a class assembly slot each week. However, other opportunities are also used to reinforce the teaching and for practice of specific skills. In EYFS, more practical examples and the Skill Stories are used rather than the skills videos. From Year 1 upwards, the Skills videos are used and in Key Stage 2, the Skills Passports and Essential Skill Records are used in some classes for children to be more reflective on how they have used and developed each skill. Our pastoral team have also been using the Skills Builder resources with individuals or small groups. Staff choose a focus skill and use the resources in a short time-limited intervention, with good impact being seen.
Measure it
A baseline measure using the Skills Builder Hub assessment tool is made for each class. Most teachers reassess their class at the end of each term on the skill that has been in focus. At the end of each academic year, all skills are reassessed. Staff use the descriptors on the Hub to help them know the strengths of their class as a whole and which step they need to start on to develop the skill further. This informs their teaching. Staff use formative assessment to focus their teaching in weekly lessons with Hub resources being used and children are involved in self-assessment of skills. When discussing and using the skills outside of Skills Builder lessons, having worded descriptors for each step is useful as staff can refer to them and therefore reinforce teaching points across the curriculum where appropriate. We also use the assessment on the Hub for the individual or small group interventions run by our pastoral staff. This has been beneficial to see the progress these children have made through the interventions and allowed us to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Progress has been good.
Focus tightly
We have continued with explicit teaching of essential skills weekly. From Years 1 to 6 the focus skill is changed each term on rotation. Teachers use the Hub to see which step they should start on when teaching each skill. There is dedicated time for the explicit teaching of skills weekly in a class assembly slot using the resources provided on the Hub. However, many staff see the value of widening this to specific lessons in order to practise skills. In EYFS, as the children are new to Skills Builder, they follow a slightly different path. They still have a focus skill/s per term but some terms have more than one to enable children to have been exposed to all 8 skills before moving into Year 1.
Keep practising
Teachers actively look for opportunities to practise skills. Where links can be made, skill icons are displayed on resources. This enables children to have a visual reminder of the skill they are practising. We have allocated each subject area two skills that link closely that they 'champion'. This is included in each subject leaders’ curriculum intent where they outline why the skills chosen are important essential skills to develop for their subject. Class teachers then select a few lessons a term per subject to highlight on their medium term plans where they could explicitly revise the skills. In the lessons, teachers remind children of the skill, what it looks like using the small steps and then children practise the skill. During the plenary, children reflect on how successful they have been in demonstrating the skill.
Bring it to life
Children see the value of skills as we actively seek opportunities to link them to real life. Teachers on their curriculum planning highlight where careers link in. Our PSHE curriculum also includes an active focus on careers and this year we have welcomed some parents and carers into classes so they can talk about their careers and refer to the essential skills needed in their jobs. We have continued to take part in the Skills Builder Career Insight sessions where children have been able to talk to employers about jobs and skills. Class teachers have given very positive feedback from these including the diversity of the jobs the children were exposed to. We offer a range of clubs where skills can be practised and we also have various off timetable days where children, either small groups or the whole school, have the opportunity to practise the essential skills in real life.
What's next
Next year, linking to our school value of aspiration, we aim to continue to develop our careers education offer and explicitly how Skills Builder skills link to careers and the children’s longer-term future beyond primary school. This will be part of more structured learning about a range of careers each term. We will be continuing to explicitly teach an essential skill a term using the Hub resources and add / adapt the skills on our curriculum planning as we continue to develop and refine these. Inclusion staff will continue to use Skills Builder resources with individuals to address gaps in individual skills.
