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Welland Academy is situated in a deprived area of Peterborough. we have a high level of unemployment and aspirations for the children are low. Most of our children enter our school with little or no life experiences, their speak and language levels are low and life skills are nearly non- existent. We decided to incorporate Skills Builder Accelerator within our school because, we want to offer our children a wide, varied and rich curriculum where the children learn core and foundation subjects, but within these they are learning and applying life skills that they will need for future careers.
Overall impact
Skills builder has helped us as a school, deliver a well structured and tightly focused curriculum . We have exposed children to skills, vocabulary and experiences that they might not have otherwise had. The children are able to access this form an early age and make connections to the working world. We are beginning to identify and use these skills in areas across the curriculum. The children can quickly identify which skill they are using. As we know timetables are already full, however Skills Builder has been extremely accessible to teachers, it is easy to use, resourced and assessment is quick to use.
Keep it simple
As a school, all teachers are now delivering Skills Builder to their class. We start each skill with a whole school assembly, each teacher will have assessed were they think their class is and start to deliver the teaching from the skill step suggested by Skills Builder. Some classes have displays linked to each of the skills, examples of how the children have achieved these skills or photos are often accompanying the display. we also have a large school display that helps to promote the skills and language associated with each skill. As a school we have also started to use the skills within the curriculum, using the icons in teaching slides or icons on stickers within children's books.
Start early, keep going
We started with three teachers delivering Skills Builder, but very quickly moved to all Year 2, 3,4, 5 and 6 classes ensuring that all children were accessing this teaching and learning. Skills Builder is also part of our careers section on our school website which parents can access.
Measure it
All teachers begin by assessing their class as a whole to decide which step they need to begin with. They continue to use this assessment tool as they work their way through the steps. Teachers will also look for evidence of when children are using the skills in other curriculum areas and have begin to reward the for these through Class Dojo points or assembly certificates. We have linked some of our Dojo points directly to the essential skills.
Focus tightly
Teachers use the suggested teaching activities on the Skills Builder Hub but also have the skill icons placed in teaching slides so that we are also giving the opportunity to build on these skills then.
Keep practising
Teachers have focused on becoming better at pinpointing when a skill is being used in other areas of the curriculum and will display logos in their teaching slides. We have purchased one of the Skills Builder Challenge Days that we will complete as a whole school and we have linked this to the areas that we have covered so far.
Bring it to life
We also teach to inspire our children with a wide range careers along side this programme. We have started to link the two together though things such as career fairs, visits to places of employments and visitors into school.
What's next
We are excited to continue to deliver Skills Builder next academic year. We intend to have all teachers delivering to support us to become more coherent as as school with the use of the Skills Builder language, more teachers rewarding children for their use of skills through school assemblies, Class Dojo points and more teachers will be using and identifying the skills within the curriculum. We would also like to make more provision so children can apply their essential skills.
